Recent "Contagious Media Showdown" Articles
Contagious Media: Crying While Eating
Yes, it's all over bar the shouting, but as we covered the competition so thoroughly while it was taking place, I thought I'd share a link to a great article on Slate by Daniel Engber, one of the creators of Crying While Eating, who recounts the highs and lows on the competition (most of which we already covered here ourselves).
Posted by Scaramouch on June 25, 2005| Comments (0) | Permalink
Contagious Media: The Winners
And so, the first Contagious Media Showdown comes to a close. And YBNBY predictions were not far off the mark
The one we didn't see coming was Forget-Me-Not Panties, which claimed the grand prize for most unique visitors. Congrats to the team (pictured above) for preying on that unique mixture of male paranoia and gullibility that was so prevalent amongst the 615 thousand visitors they received. Although their traffic stats are now only summarized, as we previously noted a whole lot of that traffic came from Japan. Maybe GPS lingerie will become a new fetish classification over there.
Crying While Eating received the Alexa prize for first site to reach 20,000 on the Alexa rankings, probably because they were so quick out of the gate with being Boing-boinged, and it only grew from there. And at the same time, many commiserations to Daily Dancer, who just got boinged this morning - talk about shutting the gate after the cattle have fled. If only you'd had another week or so.
Blogebrity won the Technorati prize for most mentions in other blogs, which I'm sure is exactly the prize they set out to win. Debate still rages on whether the site will continue or was created just for the competition. Time will tell.
Overall a great idea on the part of Eyebeam, that got a whole lot more press than we expected. Let's all do it again next year.
Posted by Scaramouch on June 13, 2005| Comments (0) | Permalink
Contagious Media Update: Felon Check
Cue the Fox News Alert whoosh.
Looks like Josh, the (allegedly) terrible telemarketer and (alleged) ass-end of Felon Check's joke, has served up a Cease & Desist. Here's Josh's (alleged) post on the Felon Check Blog:
Hey Aaron, I am Josh, the broker whose phonecall you have posted on this website. First of all, I am deeply hurt and offended by the allegations you have made about me. This was not in any way a scam and I am NOT a scammer. Your suggestion that it was is completely baseless. This is a capitalistic country and when I called you I did nothing except attempt to garner your business, which is totally within the bounds of normal, ethical behavior. I am someone who prides himself on adhering to the highest standards of moral and ethical conduct, both in my personal and professional life. Not only do I abide by the rules and regulations of the securities industry, I also answer to a Higher Power. I do not find this amusing in any way and I ask that you close this website down, as it damages the credibility of the thousands of honest, hardworking people in the securities industry.
When Josh name-dropped the Higher Power, this whole ordeal jumped from "funny gag" to "art."
Looks like Josh is (was?) employed by Laidlaw Financial Investments. This may or may not be their site. This may or may not be a list of their people. This may or may not be a way to find their phone numbers, so you can attempt to garner their business in this capitalistic country.
The C&D letter is titled "FELONCHECK.COM DEFAMATORY COMMENTS UNRELATED TO LEGITIMATE CRITICISM." Here it is (Page 1 and 2)
Perhaps this will cause a last-minute surge in traffic. Or maybe it's the end. Aaron, you had a good run.
For those of you who missed Felon Check, here's a partial transcript.
For full Contagious Media Showdown coverage, click here.
Posted by aquaman on June 07, 2005| Comments (0) | Permalink
Time for new fact-checkers
Blogebrity might have fallen to #5 in the Contagious Media Showdown, but it's the only entrant to make it into Time magazine (item above). If I were the guy in charge of verifying stories, I'd turn to Telequitter before getting shitcanned.
Posted by aquaman on June 06, 2005| Comments (0) | Permalink
Contagious Media: Into the home stretch
This is probably my last post on Contagious Media until Thursday when the competition ends and we can see who won all the categories. But right now....
Continue reading "Contagious Media: Into the home stretch"
Posted by Scaramouch on June 05, 2005| Comments (0) | Permalink
Contagious Media: At the halfway mark
It's been about a week since we last reported on the Contagious Media Showdown and I thought I'd file a short report on the current rankings.
Continue reading "Contagious Media: At the halfway mark"
Posted by Scaramouch on May 28, 2005| Comments (0) | Permalink
Contagious Media: The Dark Horse?
One more thing about the Contagious Media Showdown and then I'll take a break from it for a week.
I've been watching the rankings change over the last couple of days and I've noticed something curious. At first I thought it was a mistake or a bug, but it hasn't changed through many updates, so now I'm thinking it's intentional. And it's all to do with the numbers....
A few weeks back I attended the workshop that Contagious Media ran, that gave pointers to potential competitors on how to get noticed online. One of the examples was the fantastic Dog Island, a site that purported to represent a retirement home for pet dogs. The beauty of the site is that to anyone not in the know, it seems completely real, and has fooled many many people. And it has done so by staying under the radar. And I wondered at the time if any entrants to the Showdown would try a true underground hoax, and how they would manage to not be exposed.
So, looking at the current rankings, Crying While Eating is #1, Ringtone Dancer has moved up to #2, and Blogebrity is #4. But - what about #3? Well, there is no #3 listed - there's a jump in the numbers. Which makes me think there's another entrant in the competition that we don't yet know about, one that's currently getting a lot of visitors, but so far has been unidentified as a contest entry to allow it to hide it's hoax status.
So what could it be? I looked back at sites we've featured over the last couple of weeks but nothing jumped out at me. The Abercrombie & Fitch T Shirts? Days In The Life of a Nude Photographer? Elita from Multipoker? Nothing seems to fit the bill. If anyone has any theories, please post them in the comments section.
You know, if it turns out that the Virtual Stripper is a Contagious Media creation, I'm going to be very impressed.
View our continuing coverage of the Contagious Media Showdown here
Posted by Scaramouch on May 21, 2005| Comments (3) | Permalink
And the rest...
Contagious Media: The Best of the RestAnd this is going to be a much shorter post than it should be, Because the sad awful truth is that, of the 80 or so entries into the competition, at least half are - 24 hours in -...
Contagious Media: Blogebrity
Blogebrity is supposedly the new online magazine that celebrates celebrity bloggers and the world of blogging - a world, which possibly 98% of the people in this country know little about, and care even less. But it gained a...
Contagious Media: Felon Check
Somebody has to cover the long shots. Felon Check is miles away from the top, parked on #40. The site's only content is a ten-minute call from an alleged telemarketer. Like most of these folks, he's terrible at his job...
Contagious Media: IP Justice League
Uh -oh. The IP Justice League also just got Boinged Boinged, once again with no mention of the competition itself. Man oh man, I'm just beginning to realize what a shitty job of fact checking all these big boy...
Contagious Media: Ringtone Dancer
As predicted earlier this morning, Crying While Eating takes an early lead with all that Boing Boing traffic, but it's still early days. Several media outlets seems to be falling for some of the sites as if they're the...
Contagious Media Showdown: Crying While Eating
And so, the race is on. Last night the Contagious Media Showdown began - a three week competition to see who can create the most compelling piece of online drivel aimed at people who are bored at work and...
Contagious Media Workshop: New York
Three of your regular blog buddies - Aquaman, Clickety Clack and myself - took a day out from our busy weekend social schedule to attend the Contagious Media Workshop organized by Eyebeam. The theme of the day was the...