Traffic Indigestion: What Price for Lies?
This hurts to bring up because it's Doree, the best Gawkerite in my opinion for no other reason than I bet she has really shiny Sephardic hair, but I'm going to assume that Denton or Choire was behind this reckless running-through-traffic with hands in the air attack on Perez Hilton. So much sour grapes, we're talking immigrant pick-up truck proportions, especially from a blog who usually can't even bring themselves to spell Perez Hilton without d*ck-in-m@uth spam-proof notation. All the hoopla is over the supposed exaggeration of Perez Hilton's traffic numbers (he gets something like 30 million pageviews a week) and Gawker tailor-customed their story to make an intentionally false point (see: Denton). I'm no fan of the fat man's gossip coverage, but truth-seekers don't always get to pick their missions.
The main problem for me is simple: a shitty analysis of stats is worse than no analysis at all - especially when presenting to a non-geek audience that is easily fooled, or is just looking to make imaginative new cock jokes. Gawker (see how I deflect from Doree?) makes failed assumptions on top of clumsy extrapolations of misguided extrapolations based on erroneous comparisons of a mockery of a sham. It doesn't even pass the sniff Denton's butt-plug test which is usually an easy "A" in blogging circles. I emailed Henry Copeland of Blogads since the numbers "in dispute" are his. Apparently Gawker didn't feel the need to ask him (or anyone) in "researching" the ins, outs, doubts and bouts of web traffic stats. Henry has responded on his blog and I'll let that speak for itself.
They could have at least asked the soon to be feted ex-Gawker editorial director who I'm sure would have been happy to share his knowledge and experience. Of course, I did:
The main problem for me is simple: a shitty analysis of stats is worse than no analysis at all - especially when presenting to a non-geek audience that is easily fooled, or is just looking to make imaginative new cock jokes. Gawker (see how I deflect from Doree?) makes failed assumptions on top of clumsy extrapolations of misguided extrapolations based on erroneous comparisons of a mockery of a sham. It doesn't even pass the sniff Denton's butt-plug test which is usually an easy "A" in blogging circles. I emailed Henry Copeland of Blogads since the numbers "in dispute" are his. Apparently Gawker didn't feel the need to ask him (or anyone) in "researching" the ins, outs, doubts and bouts of web traffic stats. Henry has responded on his blog and I'll let that speak for itself.
They could have at least asked the soon to be feted ex-Gawker editorial director who I'm sure would have been happy to share his knowledge and experience. Of course, I did:
YM: You once told me in a conversation that I am certain wasn't "off the record" that Blogads numbers are a good match with internally reported pageviews. If it was "off the record" please let me know. Otherwise I'm running with it for a post on YM.There you have it. The entire crux of their argument which seems to be "Blogads numbers are bullshit" falls apart on a painless no-ringing, low-vibrating note. Then again, are we to expect actual "journalism" from Gawker? Probably not. I apologize for having the expectation. Doree, can I get you a drink?
Lock: Yup, feel free to quote me.
