Well I'll Be Twittered
This morning I searched for my name on Twitter. My expectations were:
[80%] No hits.
[15%] Hits on (the more famous) Charlie Thornton the architect. After 9/11 he had some stuff to say and links to him and his youtube videos instantly overwhelmed my pages on my carefully cultivated internet. On the bright side, when I go to conferences, sometimes architecture people (briefly) think I'm famous.
[ 5%] The hurtful twitterings of any of the many uneasy souls I brutalized with a job rejection letter or in some other way pissed off (i.e. something work-related).
Instead, my search yielded a reference to the kettlebell post I put up last night. My initial flash of smug popularity immediately dissolved into confusion when I realized I had no idea who Larisa from Wisconsin was and that she didn't even read the blog. The link to my thing was in this big pile of fitness related links.
I formulated a quick theory, but it took help from one of my coworkers to figure out the details. Incidently, I think he may be getting tired of explaining "the internets" to me and trying to help me figure out "what those twittering kids are up to".
Here's is how I think it went down:
1. After I posted my little blog entry, the mighty Google immediately indexed the post. I know this because two minutes after I hit post I searched for an uncommon phrase in the post and Google led me straight back here.
2. Via some sort of web content scanning service (likely, Google Alerts) my new content immediately tripped an alert Larisa had set up for fitness-related web content.
3. Based on this alert, and using some sort of semi-automated system, my new post got batched up with a bunch of posts about mixed martial arts and sent out in the daily tweet.
Cool. We've got a viable theory, but why would anyone do that? It's an unexciting sort of work so there must be a business model here somewhere.
It turns out, if you follow the home page link in Twitter, you'll end up on a blog that's all about search engine optimization and online marketing. Evidently, they sell training in that kind of thing. Curiously, the icon used to identify the author switches from the middle-aged woman on twitter to a finance-looking guy. Meh, weird.
Anyway, the piece I was involved in appeared to be wrapped up in their "fitness as financial wellness" idea and was designed explicitly to sell their mad web skilz. Larisa has over 49,000 followers on the twitters, so I guess something must be working.
Short version: I learned something today. Cool.
This week, I'm going to try to blog each day and each blog entry must be completed within 30 minutes. Let's see how it goes... ?? minutes, 3/5 complete!
[80%] No hits.
[15%] Hits on (the more famous) Charlie Thornton the architect. After 9/11 he had some stuff to say and links to him and his youtube videos instantly overwhelmed my pages on my carefully cultivated internet. On the bright side, when I go to conferences, sometimes architecture people (briefly) think I'm famous.
[ 5%] The hurtful twitterings of any of the many uneasy souls I brutalized with a job rejection letter or in some other way pissed off (i.e. something work-related).
Instead, my search yielded a reference to the kettlebell post I put up last night. My initial flash of smug popularity immediately dissolved into confusion when I realized I had no idea who Larisa from Wisconsin was and that she didn't even read the blog. The link to my thing was in this big pile of fitness related links.
I formulated a quick theory, but it took help from one of my coworkers to figure out the details. Incidently, I think he may be getting tired of explaining "the internets" to me and trying to help me figure out "what those twittering kids are up to".
Here's is how I think it went down:
1. After I posted my little blog entry, the mighty Google immediately indexed the post. I know this because two minutes after I hit post I searched for an uncommon phrase in the post and Google led me straight back here.
2. Via some sort of web content scanning service (likely, Google Alerts) my new content immediately tripped an alert Larisa had set up for fitness-related web content.
3. Based on this alert, and using some sort of semi-automated system, my new post got batched up with a bunch of posts about mixed martial arts and sent out in the daily tweet.
Cool. We've got a viable theory, but why would anyone do that? It's an unexciting sort of work so there must be a business model here somewhere.
It turns out, if you follow the home page link in Twitter, you'll end up on a blog that's all about search engine optimization and online marketing. Evidently, they sell training in that kind of thing. Curiously, the icon used to identify the author switches from the middle-aged woman on twitter to a finance-looking guy. Meh, weird.
Anyway, the piece I was involved in appeared to be wrapped up in their "fitness as financial wellness" idea and was designed explicitly to sell their mad web skilz. Larisa has over 49,000 followers on the twitters, so I guess something must be working.
Short version: I learned something today. Cool.
This week, I'm going to try to blog each day and each blog entry must be completed within 30 minutes. Let's see how it goes... ?? minutes, 3/5 complete!
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