[109384] in Cypherpunks
RE: FWD: PC Computing Online: Bombshell
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Burnes)
Mon Mar 22 12:41:05 1999
From: "Jim Burnes" <jburnes@iss.net>
To: "'Walter Burton'" <wburton@pipestream.com>,
"'Cypherpunks'" <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 10:18:07 -0500
In-Reply-To: <013D438ED22ED2119F630060082F763C17730C@kenny.pipestream.com>
Reply-To: "Jim Burnes" <jburnes@iss.net>
Gosh, how I hate to play the back and forth quoting game, but I'll
bite (i love slopping through the mud sometimes)
>>
>> My guess is this is a scam by ZD or its editor(s) to
>> increase their hitrate and glom more dollars from
>> advertisers.
>Gimme a break! It's an April Fools joke! "Scam?!" Jeeeeeze.
Not that I took it seriously, but many people did. Considering the
ignorance of ZD's general audience, the reasoning goes something like
this....
(1) Come up with a marginally believable meme that should tweak
the big-brother shell-shocked web masses into copying the
story to their shell-shocked bretheren.
(2) They tell two friends and they tell two friends
(3) A good percentage of them go the the ZD site to pick up the
cure. The hit rate skyrockets for a day or two.
The subtle (and not so subtle) dynamics of siphoning traffic
could lead to exactly this scenario. I'm not saying it did, but
this kind of sensationalism has its own kind of cybernetic feedback
loop.
And I believe it wasn't April 1 (at least not on the web).
>And yes, increasing traffic is *definitely* ZD's goal. Duh! They're a
>media company. That's their whole "raison d'etre."
The attraction of traffic through bullshit and not content
dilutes the value of ZD press (if it ever had any to begin with).
>> I think it says a lot about the present state of
>> big brother that many people found the scam marginally
>> believable.
>That you would reflexively classify a decidedly banal April Fools joke
>as some sort of malicious scam speaks *volumes* about-- well, I'll stop
>right there. No need to get personal.
Well its already personal, I suppose. I know people who run large web
sites that use techniques much sneakier than this to tap traffic. The
fact that you think ZD is above this shows a certain amount of naivette.
I'm not saying it is a scam for sure, just that if it isn't and they
haven't noticed how it works by now they need to get another webmeister.
jim
