1. Fisting Twitter and the birth of “trend fisting” (1 March) I daresay that for many visitors this piece wasn’t what they were really looking for. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting Twitter case study. For some value of “interesting”.
2. So what is Stilgherrian, exactly? (12 April) Almost as popular as the official About Stilgherrian, which isn’t listed here because technically it’s not a “post”.
3. Virgin Blue’s mistake reveals countless selfish whingers (15 November) A combination of a good headline and being listed at mUmBRELLA helps boost traffic.
4. Live Blog: Politics & Technology Forum 2009 (22 February) Again, proof that a slow, steady audience over time can be of great value.
5. Jim Wallace’s pro-censorship lies and distortions (26 January) Wallace speaks for the Australian Christian Lobby about Internet censorship, using the “extreme libertarian” straw man and other fallacious debating tricks.
6. Special Melon Pepperoni Edition now online! (28 March) It’s probably less that this post is about an edition of Stilgherrian Live, more that it includes Andrew Bolt’s astoundingly tasteless slur on those who oppose Internet censorship.
7. What now for Senator Conroy and the Magic Filter? (30 March) Again, not what I’d have picked from my many writings about Internet censorship, but there you go.
8. Conversations are not markets, people! (26 July) A long ranty piece that seems to have struck a chord.
9. Project TOTO: the #secretmission has begun! (19 May) Interesting that the post announcing this project was the most popular, and then interest declined. Why? My guess is that visits to this post were inflated by so many people commenting on The Gnome Incident rather than the substance of the project. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
10. Live Blog: ALIA Information Online 2009, Day 1 (20 January) This is a big surprise. However we’ve now moved well out of the long head of very popular content and all sorts of factors could come into play. I suspect that traffic to this page was a short, sharp spike around the time of the conference and then virtually nothing since.

Many older posts also continued to be popular.

Indeed, 5 of the top 10 posts of all time are not from this year, and it took longer to work down the list to find a Top 10 for 2009 than it did to find the Top 10 of all time — yet more proof that the more material you have on your website the more visits you’ll get. Don’t delete your old material, people!

This could also explain why the Top 10 above is mostly from the first half of the year.

OK, the Top 10 posts of 2009 that weren’t written in 2009.

1. So this is human sexuality? July (2008) Little more that a collection of the popular words from sex-related spam, it continues to attract 2000-odd visits a month.
2. Julie, I want to make you a star (in a Samantha Fox kind of way) (September 2007) My ode to Julie Bishop, popular because of its photograph of Samantha Fox.
3. Live Blog: Internet censorship forum (November 2008) Can anyone tell me why this post is the most popular of the many I wrote about Internet censorship prior to this year?
4. Hello Kitty, you’re dead, and other surprise products (October 2007) People link to the (fake) photo of the Hello Kitty AK-47. Few seem to realise it’s a joke.
5. Film Review: “Joy Division” (February 2008) I think most people link here for the classic photo of Joy Division by Kevin Cummins.
6. Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please (January 2008) My tasteless experiment in Googlebaiting continues to attract visitors.
7. More Steve Irwin jokes (September 2006) Another lesson: Providing a forum for the lowest common denominator of society generates hits — but are they of lasting value?
8. The Madness of Corey Worthington Delaney (January 2008) And speaking of lowest common denominator…
9. What’s wrong with used knickers? (December 2007) Well, it’s a fair question, isn’t it?
10. Used knickers, revisited (January 2008) I detect a theme developing here. Thank goodness we’ve reached #10.

You might also like to check out my own selection for what I think was best, plus the lists for previous years:

• Most popular posts of 2008
• Most popular posts of 2007

1. Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please. It’s rather depressing to discover that my tasteless little experiment was this year’s highlight. Maybe I should’ve put advertising on this page.
2. So this is human sexuality?
3. How do you treat your staff? Like 37signals, or like this prick?
4. Topic 9 to discuss Australia 2020 Summit’s government topic. This is actually spurious, as most hits are from link-following robots attempting to spam my blog at topic9.com.au (which has been since been abandoned).
5. 67 Australian SAS captured airbase defended by 1000, though most of this traffic is to see the photo. The miltech fanboys are incapable of hosting their own photos, it seems, because most of their troll-filled forums don’t allow people to upload photos. Dark Ages.
6. About Stilgherrian, which would seem to be a popular second page for people to visit once they’ve arrived here for other reasons.
7. Corey Delaney, freedom fighter (for the right to party) — and increasingly I think Mr Corey Worthington Delaney is one of the true heroes of 2008. But not thereafter.
8. Spaceport America, designed by Foster+Partners.
9. Jason Calacanis and the Evil Cult of the Internet Start-up.
10. Achtung! Die grosskapitalistischen Hühner kommen!

As with last year’s list, I’m somewhat disappointed with the results. I’ll therefore choose my own selection of “best” posts, just like I did last year.

And the results for all posts over time, not just those published in 2008?

1. Julie, I want to make you a star (in a Samantha Fox kind of way). Most of this traffic is to see the “revealing” photo of Samantha Fox. This page is also still currently the number one Google search result for “neocon sex kitten”. Thank you, Julie Bishop!
2. Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please.
3. So this is human sexuality?
4. How do you treat your staff? Like 37signals, or like this prick?
5. Topic 9 to discuss Australia 2020 Summit’s government topic.
6. 67 Australian SAS captured airbase defended by 1000.
7. Hello Kitty, you’re dead, and other surprise products, another “let’s hotlink to the photo” spurious result.
8. About Stilgherrian.
9. More Steve Irwin jokes, which was our Number One last year.
10. Corey Delaney, freedom fighter (for the right to party)

The most common search terms apart from my own name are still “heath ledger jokes”, “steve irwin jokes”, “used knickers” and “corey delaney”. The only ones I could see “young pussy”, “asian pussy”, “strip pork gams porn”, “sex fuck cartoon milf jimmy neutron”, “latina asian hardcore free no charge gratis porn sex amateur” and, my favourite, “deep throat black hung transsexuals no membership free access”.

[Update: Actually, there is an increase in traffic. It's not showing up in the search analysis, but that page of search terms is getting 200 visitors a day.]

As the screenshot shows, Underbelly was online within two hours of broadcast. By mid-morning today, 6500+ people had downloaded it from Mininova alone.

As with the Corey Delaney episode before it, this highlights the stupidity of the law in the bold new age of the Internet. I have no complaint with Justice Betty King’s decision. She’s just upholding the law as it stands. The law, alas, is hopelessly inadequate.

Who, I wonder, has this kind of law reform on their agenda. Anyone?

Bonus links:

• My article for Crikey today: A torrent of interest in downloading Underbelly
• Mark Pesce’s presentation Unevenly Distributed: Production Models for the 21st Century, which includes a detailed discussion of how new distribution models like BitTorrent will change TV forever.

In the names of all the Gods, how could I have possibly missed the news two days ago that Corey Worthington Delaney is kicking off a three-city rave which will hit Sydney next month, followed by a tour of seaside spots in England in June, including Blackpool, Bournemouth and Torquay? Where can I get tickets?

That compares with 33 related to Corey Worthington Delaney and 2 to Steve Irwin.

In total there are 1773 different search phrases so far this month. Here’s the full Top 100.

search phrase	views	% of searches
heath ledger jokes	2286	30.8 %
corey delaney	544	7.3 %
heath ledger dead jokes	335	4.5 %
heath ledger joke	219	2.9 %
heath ledger	175	2.3 %
heath ledger death jokes	142	1.9 %
jokes about heath ledger	140	1.8 %
steve irwin jokes	98	1.3 %
stilgherrian	98	1.3 %
corey worthington delaney	94	1.2 %
corey delaney naked	79	1 %
corey delaney child porn	55	0.7 %
heath ledger dead joke	55	0.7 %
www.vodaphone.com.au	45	0.6 %
ledger jokes	34	0.4 %
heath leger jokes	28	0.3 %
corey worthington	28	0.3 %
corey delaney myspace	28	0.3 %
personal	23	0.3 %
vodaphone.com.au	22	0.2 %
corey delaney pornography	22	0.2 %
jokes heath ledger	22	0.2 %
corey worthington child porn	21	0.2 %
heath ledger jokes death	19	0.2 %
dead heath ledger jokes	18	0.2 %
corey delaney t-shirts	18	0.2 %
corey delaney child pornography	17	0.2 %
heath ledger jokes dead	16	0.2 %
used knickers	16	0.2 %
jokes about the death of heath ledger	16	0.2 %
corey delaney quotes	15	0.2 %
business	15	0.2 %
heath ledger tasteless jokes	13	0.1 %
corey delaney worthington	13	0.1 %
child porn	12	0.1 %
corey delaney porn	12	0.1 %
tasteless heath ledger jokes	12	0.1 %
corey delaney website	12	0.1 %
corey worthington porn	12	0.1 %
corey delaney shirt	11	0.1 %
corey worthington child pornography	10	0.1 %
corey delaney party	10	0.1 %
heath ledger death joke	10	0.1 %
jokes about heath ledger s death	10	0.1 %
howard	10	0.1 %
heath ledger joke dead	10	0.1 %
heath ledger is dead jokes	10	0.1 %
steve irwin joke	9	0.1 %
cory delaney	9	0.1 %
drug overdose jokes	9	0.1 %
heath ledger and jokes	9	0.1 %
false	9	0.1 %
jokes on heath ledger	9	0.1 %
heather ledger	8	0.1 %
paul neil milne johnstone	8	0.1 %
corey delaney jokes	8	0.1 %
corey worthington shirts	8	0.1 %
stilgherrian.com	8	0.1 %
corey delaney shirts	7	0 %
enmore	7	0 %
corey worthington naked	7	0 %
daylight	7	0 %
supernaut	7	0 %
corey delaney video	7	0 %
space	7	0 %
samanta fox	7	0 %
corey delaney photo	7	0 %
leila mckinnon corey	6	0 %
corey delaney cartoon	6	0 %
heather ledger jokes	6	0 %
natasha	6	0 %
fruit carving	6	0 %
corey worthington arrested	6	0 %
corey t shirts	6	0 %
sam connell	6	0 %
steve	6	0 %
flickr	6	0 %
steve irwin death jokes	6	0 %
corey t-shirts	6	0 %
lolcat	6	0 %
bernadette mcmenamin	6	0 %
thai brothel	6	0 %
heath ledger jokes tasteless	6	0 %
ledger joke	6	0 %
samantha fox	6	0 %
gay navy sex	6	0 %
heather ledge	6	0 %
www.vodaphone.com	5	0 %
stilgherrian.com/personal/prussia_net_vs_skank_media/ new prussia	5	0 %
heath ledger overdose jokes	5	0 %

Some of other entries in the list are a worry…

As you can see, traffic roughly tripled yesterday after my little game. The data for today is only for midnight to roughly 4am, so that’s why it’s so low.

The increase in traffic from 15 January is due to Corey Worthington Delaney. Most of that is to the page Corey Delaney, freedom fighter (for the right to party), even though I’m much happier with Arrest of “teen party host” highlights stupidity of law.

The Corey traffic was sustained for several days thanks to continual news updates. Will Ledger traffic decline more quickly because the news will pass and I’ve stopped Google-fuelling it? Or will people get over the initial mourning phase and start looking for the jokes?

My gut feeling is that it’ll decline faster. Corey was an object of ridicule, while Heath Ledger is a respected actor whose personal life has been relatively straightforward. The main focus of the jokes has been childish, anti-gay stuff, and I reckon that juvenile attention spana will move on.

Also, at this time yesterday a Google search for “heath ledger dead joke” returned my page as search result number 4. Since then the media sites have been all over this story. Many mention his role as The Joker in the new Batman movie. As far as basic Google searches are concerned, “joker” and “joke” are the same thing. I’ve dropped to 6th place, and presumably will fall further.

Stay tuned…

Yes, Australian actor Heath Ledger is dead, possibly from a drug overdose. So now it’s time to collect all the jokes, ‘cos he can’t sue you for libel. Please add them in the comments.

Tasteless? Yes. Exploitative? Probably. Too soon for this? Yeah probably that too.

So why do it?

It’s an experiment…

More than a year after the event, a collection of jokes about Steve Irwin’s death is still one of the most heavily-visited pages on this website. More than half of the searches bringing people here are for Corey Worthington Delaney.

Tasteless is what you want, so tasteless is what you’ll get.

We’ll even throw in the phrases “heath ledger porn” and “heath ledger naked” to help things along. Index that, Google!

The comments will be moderated, but not heavily. They may take a while to show up because — oddly enough! — there are other things to do.

[Update: Scroll down to find the comments thingy. Try to spell properly. And if you're going to whinge that "It's too soon to make jokes," then at least suggest how long someone has to be dead before they're not sacred any more. And try to spell properly.]

[Update 27 January 2008: The two rules about relevance are now being enforced. Comments will not be published if (1) they repeat jokes which have already been posted, unless they're substantial improvements, or (2) they're just some anti-gay comment that doesn't have any relevance.]

[Update 3 January 2009: Comments have now been closed. See my very last comment for the reasons.]

Rhys McDonald, who comments here and lives in our village a long way from our village up the coast somewhere, is apparently too shy to pimp his rather amusing cartoon of this week’s poster boy for post-natal abortion. Enjoy.

Actually, it’ll be interesting to see what sort of satire is generated by this boy. Do tell me if you see anything.

[Update 21 January 2008: For some reason I thought Rhys was a local. I was wrong.]

Yes, Corey t-shirts are now available from BustedTees.

While it’s a day since Alex Willemyns posted this, one still wonders what took them so long. They had hours! Will Corey demand a cut of the profits. Or are the shirts are already courtesy of his agent?

Alex also posts what I agree is one of Corey’s best quotes.

Over the past couple of days, traffic to this website has doubled thanks to people eager for Corey news.

I’d particularly like to commend the 48 people who were searching for “corey delaney naked”. Class act, folks.

Yesterday a Melbourne teenager was charged with creating a public nuisance and producing child pornography. Reuters tells us he “became a controversial media star after a wild party at his parents’ house became a near riot, forcing police to call in a helicopter and the dog squad”. Hands up if you think you know his name.

Now, keep your hands up if you’re completely bloody sure you know his name.

OK, hands down.

Yet again we see how Australia’s laws have failed to adapt to the Internet age.

Everybody and their dog, globally, has been reporting the rise to fame of glamorous Melbourne socialite Corey Worthington Delaney. I’ve written two essays already [1, 2], and this third one probably won’t be the last. My friends at Crikey published The Corey Timeline yesterday (republished by Peter Black too, if the Crikey original is behind their paywall).

Now, under Victorian law, as in many other democracies, the media cannot identify minors charged with criminal offences. Nor can they identify who’s brought before the children’s court. Fair enough. Once upon a time we all agreed that youthful indiscretions shouldn’t mar our reputation for life.

So now we have the ludicrous situation where National Nine News and The Age and everyone else is talking about “a 16-year-old boy” as if we haven’t noticed a flood of media reports about a specific, named 16yo who — in an amazing coincidence — held a wild party on the weekend where the police were called, including a helicopter and the dog squad.

Happens all the time. Could well be someone else.

Even before the Internet this law was flawed. Radio and TV broadcasts were ephemeral (at least until we all got recorders), and newspapers could stop mentioning a name. But that couldn’t prevent you popping down the library to check last week’s edition. And it couldn’t stop people talking about what they already knew.

Today, thanks to blogs, Twitter and Facebook and the rest, even casual gossip is on the public record. Forever. Even if a web page is removed, we can still recover it thanks to Google’s cache and the Internet archive’s Wayback Machine.

You can’t take the piss out of the swimming pool.

Yet those tireless, dedicated soldiers of the mainstream media trudge through the ritual, typing “the youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons” and pixelating photos — even though we can still recognise faces we know.

So what do we do here? Do we ban all media identification of minors? Or just accept that The Truth Is Out There and drop the charade? Maybe we can do the latter and make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of anything we did as minors.

[Note: The pixelated image is for illustration purposes only. I pixelated an image of Corey Worthington Delaney (right) and a friend taken from Channel 7. I have no idea whether he was one of the youths arrested yesterday. How could I possibly know? The police have not said.]

The Corey Worthington Delaney story symbolises everything that’s bad about our mainstream media.

They simplify everything into a simple binary questions of good versus bad. They give this attention-seeking waste of carbon atoms exactly what he wants: the oxygen of media attention. And they get basic facts wrong just to make a catchy headline.

OK, I’m giving him oxygen too. And I’ll be honest, I’m revelling in the glory of such a moron becoming Australia’s new global representative. But here’s what I don’t like about it.

First, Corey doesn’t face a $20,000 bill. That’s just a number being kicked around indicating the cost of the police operation to shut down his elegant soirée.

Michael is right, the police just can’t start billing people. As an Adelaide criminal lawyer put it to me this morning:

[I] don’t know if the situation is different in Victoria, but don’t think it is from the comments I’ve seen from lawyers on TV etc.

I like the “dangerous new precedent” angle for this. People who throw a party that gets out of hand scared to call the police for fear they’ll be billed for it!

The people who get ordered to pay cops back are usually the ones who have made a false report, who have to pay for the investigation, but that is something that the Court imposes.

When I first heard [Victorian police commissioner] Christine Nixon, she did not sound as though she was saying any more than they were going to look into ways to make him pay for it, but somehow that has been turned into “a $20,000 fine” by sections of the media.

My lawyer friend says to Google the phrase “skins party” for some interesting reading on the topic of these sorts of parties.

The other aspect which shits me is the “binary opposite” simplification of the story.

“Legend or Loser?” asks the Sydney Morning Herald. What, are they the only options? One or the other?

Of course for the SMH‘s middle-class readership he’s no legend, so we can expect a flurry of outraged letters to the editor blaming all and sundry for… well, a party got out of hand. And the “enormous cost” of the police just doing what they’re paid to do.

Anyway that’s what I think. What do you think?

[Update 3.40pm: I've changed Corey's surname from "Delaney" to "Worthington". Apparently Delaney is his parents' surname but not his. Or something.]