My No. 1 rule as a web producer is "pay attention what people do online, not what they say they do." And what people are doing this week is searching for socialites in heat.
My preview post last week about the imminent Paris Hilton video is, as of 9:30 p.m. ET Thursday, the No. 7 listing on Google for "paris hilton sex video." To the right is a tally of top terms used on search engines that brought someone to PK.com — over a period of only two hours. Traffic across the board is coming in at thousands per hour. With not much uptick in comments. Hard to type, I guess, with only one free hand.
So, how did this happen? Well, my site has been around for more than three years, and links to it are scattered throughout the web. AllTheWeb lists over 10 pages' worth of link-backs to PK.com. Link-backs is the No. 1 criteria for Google standing, and my post last week gave the search engines a few days to crawl and index it. Presto — instant porn madness.
Elsewhere, the three-minute, Desert Storm-looking Paris Hilton preview video, which has been served up for free on countless sites and is available on many peer-to-peer networks, has been selling on eBay for anywhere from $3 to $15 per download. (Couldn't you just "sell" someone the location on a site not even yours?) My coworker wonders how people could be tech savvy enough to use eBay but remain unaware of where the video resides for free download.
The best review of the clip appears on Salon. Titled "When C-Listers Copulate," Rebecca Traister is unimpressed with the work, saying "the clip is not funny, it's not warm — it's not even hot." She also shares this exchange with Hilton's publicist:
While Hilton denied as much a few weeks ago, her publicist, Siri Garber, has admitted its existence to the press, including Salon. "It is actually illegal for anyone to posess this tape — it is a felony — and the Hilto [sic] family is taking action against anyone who has the tape," Garber told Salon in an e-mail, responding to our inquiries last week, "so I suggest you do not pursue this further ..."
Well, let me tell you something, there are millions of felonies being committed in the country right now.
On Wednesday, Linda Stasi of the New York Post blasted Hilton's parents for not raising their daughters right, allowing them to get in dangerous situations. But I ask again, what did the girl do wrong? Have sex on tape? Big whoop. You start adding shame to sex and you start taking a lot of fun out of living.
Hear, hear.
Posted by lucy at November 13, 2003 1:06 AM