Using Hot Photos, Sex & Sexism to Generate Clicks

Last December, Glynnis MacNicol wrote a diatribe for Mediaite in which she calls into question the use of sexism to cause outrage in the blogosphere, which translates into clicks.

To support her thesis, Ms. MacNicol revisited the idea of using sex to generate traffic and she linked-out the Huffington Post's reprint of the Pirelli calendar, plus an article from the Washington City Paper, in which the author links to several HuffPo slideshows of nipple slips to illustrate a similar theme.

Yesterday, I questioned the wisdom of Ted Rall's most recent animation. Though among his "tips" to save newspapers was a slide that read; "Another key to survival: Pop culture core readers love".

Somewhere between Mr. Rall's suggestion and the common knowledge that sex sells, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution must have taken something to heart because last night, they published to their website, which I assume is in today's print edition, an enlargeable photo and repackaged press release from Playboy giving a short bio for a local girl deemed "Miss April" (pictured), along with notice of a casting call.

Semi-Related: Miss Nebraska Brittany Jeffers promoted to KLKN anchor

ClickBait: Double Entendre

San Francisco Business Times: Twitter to double space

Unfortunately, they mean office space.

Scott Brown: Playing the Hand He's Dealt

Republican State Senator Scott Brown, who is aiming for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat and who nimbly tried to invoke JFK in a recent television ad has posted the following to his YouTube Stream...



...arguably because of the relative popularity of this;



Semi-Related: Coakley’s camp says it has raised $5.2m

My Own ClickBait

This blog has only been operational for just over a month and though I've taken jabs at others for posting clickbait, I thought that I'd add to the frenzy of year-end lists by noting this site's top posts.

• By far, SailRabbit's most popular post has been the tale of David Fairhurst, a man from Carmel (CA), who filed suit against a local paper because they called him an "armed stalker".


• Second on the list also involves a legal case, but this time it's the justifiable cause of Lance Shultz, who has sued the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) for a violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).


• One of my early posts, where I looked at the "clunkers" that were only clunked as one still remains popular, but primarily because of the traffic source, I'm sure it's just for the car porn.


• If you were to add the posts about each of the following subjects and counted their individual tags as one, they would all rank higher. But over the course of the past month, Sarah Palin, John Edwards and the ministorm surrounding Clay Aiken and his "voter fraud" have all been relatively good to me.


• And finally for the purposes of this list: Allegedly Mark McBride, a former mayor of Myrtle Beach (SC) and the president of one CoC was posting "anonymous", "derogatory" comments about another local Chamber to the forums for the Myrtle Beach Sun News.

For those just stopping-by, kick your shoes off and stay a while. As it says up top, I'm posting "more than just the same old links".

And for those who may be interested or who have a blog to feed, please feel free to bookmark and there's always a full-post RSS available, plus I should have this site's Twitter broadcasting within a day or two.

Hat tips are always welcome and most of all, considering the date...

Happy New Year to one and all!
May the next decade be better than the last.

ClickBait: CBSNews.com

CBSnews.com is obviously no stranger to using racy material for traffic.

A couple of weeks ago, I linked to one of their more egregious examples and though they didn't apply as much context, they pointed to the same in one of their year-end lists.

Continuing in that fine, Edward R. Murrow tradition, 48 Hours: Mystery released a slideshow of the "Top 10 Sex Tape Scandals of 2009" this week, which opens with the sexy cover of an x-rated videotape, but I'm going to be a little more judicious and only embed the story with a halfway interesting angle.

(If player fails to load, click post title)

BTW: If you read the full text story, it may be less of a mystery, who started the camera and who may have provided the tip.

Online News Video is a Business

On November 24th, I had marked a Seattle Times treatment about the controversy surrounding a bikini expresso stand opening in nearby Bellevue for upload to this space.

My plan was to link it to a Gawker post about the one in a neighboring community, which was targeted by a prostitution sting and mentioned in the Bellevue coverage, but while deciding upon the context, the whole thing was pushed aside.

Luckily, I've been given the chance to revisit the topic because when I was getting the embed code for the Doris Buffett video used in the previous post, I saw the following listed first among CBS's "Most Popular" and after watching it (with a special emphasis on the "narration"), the term clickbait came to mind.


Watch CBS News Videos Online
BTW: Though the thumbnail is obviously part of the trap, the auto-repeat probably helps keep the video at the top of the list.