Stilgherrian » death

Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, Day 1

Stilgherrian — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:05:40 +0000

[Update 30 January 2008: More analysis of this has been posted since this article was written. Look for items tagged "heath ledger".]

Just 24 hours ago, actor Heath Ledger died. Before most people even knew he was dead, I’d set up a web page asking for jokes about his death and I placed an advertisement (pictured) on Google. Tasteless. But there was a porpoise. This was Science!

Here’s what I’ve learned so far. If you have any questions as you read this, please ask them. I’ll be exploring the data more deeply over the next few days.

Actually, before we get to the juicy numbers, my motivations:

I’d just read a great article reminding me how Google AdWords can bring traffic to your website quickly and cheaply. How fast? Let’s try!
My page of jokes about Steve Irwin’s death still pulls a couple hundred readers every month. Regular readers know that shits me.
Here was a breaking news story and I was ready to pounce. A perfect opportunity to see what I could learn.
You didn’t think I’d respond to the media circus of a star’s death by mourning, did you?

According to Crikey’s media timeline, Ledger died around 7.30am Sydney time. News broke 45 minutes later, and by 8.35am it was in Australia’s mainstream media. Just 65 minutes from death to TV news. Such is the imperative to stay ahead of the media pack by being the pack.

My jokes page was ready for business just before 10am, around 2.5 hours after Ledger’s death. The first joke was posted at 10.25am, and 8 minutes later I was called an “asshole”.

I’m not exactly sure when my Google AdWords effort went online, because I had to create an account and figure out how it worked. I’m guessing around 11am because that’s when the real flood of traffic started.

I’d bought spots in the search results for “heath ledger”, “heath ledger dead” and “heath ledger joke”. The last two cost 6 cents a click-through, but “heath ledger” by itself was 50 cents. Murdoch’s news.com.au was already advertising their own story on Google too, as were some celebrity gossip sites.

I burned off $20 in about half an hour, showing the advert to 2,758 people. 41 of them clicked through to my page. That’s a click-through ratio (CTR) of 1.48%.

I threw more money into the pot at lunchtime, but the price of a “heath ledger dead” click had gone up to 38 cents. Still, another 7,279 views generated another 168 readers, a CTR OF 2.3%. Interestingly, they all came from searches for “heath ledger” rather than “heath ledger dead” — a reminder that most people don’t think very hard before typing in their search terms.

Another 19,319 people were shown the ad on Google’s “content network” — that is, non-Google sites which show Google AdSense advertisements. That generated another 41 clicks.

For a total spend of $115.25 I got 254 new website visitors. That led to more than 40 comments posted.

Let’s put that into perspective…

My page was visited by 254 people who wanted to know about Heath Ledger. It happened in under an hour, and cost me less per person — just 45 cents each — than sending them a letter. That’s as an absolute beginner, with no planning and certainly no fine-tuning.

I’d like to have brought another batch of punters to the page once there were a few jokes online but, 8 hours after I started my experiment, the price of “heath ledger dead” hit A$6.50, and it’s still there. Too expensive for an initial experiment, but perhaps worth it if you were selling expensive Heath Ledger memorabilia.

So, the initial lessons:

Yes, Google AdWords deliver traffic fast. Very fast. Have everything ready before you start.
Have a clear goal in mind, and tailor your “landing page” appropriately. My goal was “Let’s see how this works,” so I didn’t think too hard. If you have a commercial goal you’ll need to think more clearly.
General search terms like “heath ledger” are usually more expensive that more specific ones. Like “heath ledger joke”. But more specific terms can tailor traffic to your exact needs. Specific terms can change price rapidly if they’re part of an unfolding news story.
You can monitor it, and tailor things on the fly. Google’s reports can be a couple hours behind in giving you data, but that’s still “immediate” in most business timeframes.

None of this is new to anyone who’s used Google AdWords before. But most small businesses aren’t even aware that you can even advertise on Google! So as I orient some clients to all this I’ll share my lessons.

More details as I dig through the numbers. Any questions?

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Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please

Stilgherrian — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:58:55 +0000

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.]

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The Compulsory 9/11 Post

Stilgherrian — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 01:08:46 +0000

Until now I’ve avoided adding to the 11 September outpourings. It’s important, yes, but it takes time to reflect. And I don’t really remember it anyway. Garth Kidd’s phone call woke me. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Centre, he said. I told him it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t do anything about it — and went back to sleep.

Oops.

Five years on, I’m not mourning. I didn’t know anyone there. There’s only subdued anger. I’m angry that the deaths of 2749 human beings (plus 19 terrorists) have since been used for questionable political ends. Angry that Australia seems to have gone along with everything that’s come out of it, like a faithful little lap-dog. (However even the most cowardly little lap-dog will bark when he’s asked to do something wrong.) And angry that America’s worst ever terrorist attack has such a stupid name.

In 1945 a B-25 crashed into the Empire State Building. It splattered and left a hole in the wall. So my initial non-reaction to the 2001 crash is understandable. How was I to know the goddam Twin Towers would fall over? And when three decades of Star Wars and HHGG have inured you to entire planets being vapourized, as TV entertainment goes, a couple of buildings falling down is a bit tame.

Now I suspect I’m not alone. So it disturbs me to see every publicity-seeking politician and TV puppet engage in an orgy of necrophiliac frottage, hoping to improve their credibility through feigned concern for people they never knew. Naomi and her lizard was one thing. But this…!

On the other hand, Richard Farmer’s article The politics of funerals in Wednesday’s Crikey ponders these quotes from Encyclopaedia of Death and Dying:

Broadly shared emotions produce a sense of community. Political regimes have long understood this and have capitalised on the power of state funerals as a mechanism by which to enhance social solidarities and to reaffirm the legitimacy of the power structure.

The degree of public mourning following the deaths of Lady Diana and John F Kennedy Jr led social observers to wonder if grief is an ever-present latent feeling just waiting to be exploited by the political elite, if people’s lives are so empty that they engage in recreational grief… Perhaps individuals are emotive puppets manipulated by the mass media and/or political elite, and people cry because they are shown other people crying for a celebrity.

Perhaps he’s got a point. With (supposedly) less emphasis on the extended family, with (supposedly) our social institutions falling apart around us, people are yearning for some sort of connection. So blast them with imagery of strong emotions and they’ll hook themselves in — voluntarily. 9/11 or Big Brother, it’s all grist for the mill.

And finally, the name…

Remember the Alamo! goes the great war cry. Remember Pearl Harbour! Rich, evocative names.

“Remember 9/11″ sounds like it was invented by an accountant.

All “Remember 9/11″ tells me is that it’s the day we finally stopped even pretending that we’ve lost out to American culture. Without a complaint, we parroted “9/11″ — even though for 96% of the planet’s population “9/11″ means “the 9th of November”. Or, to Commonwealth citizens over a certain age, “nine shillings and eleven pence”.

(And, as an aside, when did we decide that we express dates as “September 11″, not “the 11th of September”? I’m guessing about the same time we decided we were too cheap to re-voice TV adverts for new movies.)

If a week later you’re still after some 9/11 material, here’s four suggestions:

Read the words This hole in the ground or, even better, watch the video so you can hear the power of this words as US TV presenter Keith Olbermann delivers an 8-minute piece to camera, ripping into the President. I can only dream of writing such a powerful, angry yet focussed speech. (Thanks for the pointer, Zhasper.)
Consider Paul Sheehan’s op-ed piece The war is over: now to proceed on our terms from the Sydney Morning Herald. (Thanks for the pointer, John Birmingham.)
Review How 9/11 changed America: In statistics, a fascinating info-graphic from BBC News. (Thanks to information aesthetics for the pointer.)
Do some reflection of your own on 9/11, and on Australia’s response. Write down your thoughts. Send them to your federal member of parliament.

Oh, and Garth? Next time, mate, tell me “A war has broken out, a big one,” and maybe I’ll get up and put on the coffee.