Friday, March 14, 2008

Overnight Sensation

While no one will ever confuse blogging with show business, the element of performance is part of both. Anyone who sticks with blogging for more than a few posts thinks about the audience the blog reaches. Mr. Dilettante is a fairly modest outpost – I have been able to develop an audience but no one is going to confuse me for someone like Mitch Berg, who gets 10 times the amount of visitors that I do each day.

If you happen to be an aspiring blogger and want to improve your numbers, I have a tip for you. Write something about Eric Carmen. As part of my "Guilty Pleasures" series, I briefly discussed the career of Carmen and his 1970s band The Raspberries. Apparently an Eric Carmen fan chanced upon my post and put up a link on EricCarmen.com yesterday. Once that happened, my numbers took a huge spike and I received almost 150 visitors from the site yesterday, which essentially tripled my usual number of visitors. The visitors from the site were quite respectful; it appears that only one left a comment on my blog, which helpfully disabused me of a few notions about the relative merits of Mr. Carmen and his solo career, which I had termed "irritating." I also note that apparently the Raspberries are back in operation. That's good to hear – they were a lot of fun and were one of the better bands in what was an otherwise a pretty spotty era in rock history.

The few disparaging comments about my blog were left back at Eric Carmen.com, and they too were generally quite respectful. At least one Carmen acolyte was displeased that I had matched the Raspberries against the Bangles, and another looked askance at the comparisons that some of my other commenters had made about Carmen's appearance back in the early 70s, especially the one from SA comparing Carmen to Jaclyn Smith. No one seems to have objected to Rich's comparison of the Raspberries to a bunch of Century 21 realtors, though. Guess the housing market is even worse than I thought. Someone even noted my connection to my beloved alma mater, Beloit College.

Thanks to those who visited me; I appreciate your patronage. And a thank you to Eric Carmen for allowing me to borrow some of his audience, if only for a day or two.

5 comments:

Strolling Amok said...

You never know whats going to catch on. About 75% of the hits on my site are people googling 'easter bunny story'. I'm the number six top site on google for that phrase

Anonymous said...

I'm actually stunned and amazed that there are that many people who still care about Eric Carmen and the Raspberries.

Putting the Raspberries up against the Bangles is the equvalent of putting Wham up against The Carpenters. Different music from a different time. Actually, all I'm doing is hoping to increase hits for Mr D as I know that including the Carpenters is bound to pull all kinds of freaks out of the woodwork.

Gino said...

over a yr ago, i posted about an iranian actress who had a 'sex tape' made public.
it was a good post, imv.

ever since, zahra emir ebrahimi has been my top promoter. i get hits from every country in the world looking for her sex tape, and even some emails form those thinking i know where to find it (i dont). it was up to 3000 (3k) hit per day for a while.

i still get them. not a day goes by without at least a dozen hits just about her.

Mr. D said...

Anonymous,

I'm not that surprised that there are that many people who still care about Eric Carmen. The Internet makes it possible for people who share common interests to come together. There might be 1-2 Eric Carmen fans in every town, but on the Internet they can be together. And as long as they enjoy Carmen's music and each other's company, so much the better.

Also, I'm starting to sense that some people are reading more into my intent with the contest than there actually is. I'm well aware that the Bangles and the Raspberries are different bands. The thing they share in common is that they were both heavily influenced by the Beatles (as opposed to, say, the Black Crowes, who are acolytes of the Faces, among others). No one is sui generis; we are all influenced by something or other. I happen to like both the Raspberries and the Bangles for the same reason -- they made some very good records in their respective eras. And like any old English major, I like to screw around with contexts. But it's not as if either act is going to win a prize or something if they win a poll on a blog that usually gets less than 100 visitors a day. But to your point, if I make my blog interesting enough, eventually I'll get more hits because people want to see what's here.

Gino,

That's a great story. Maybe I can ride the Ashley Dupree wave or something, although it appears that the former governor of New York has beat me to that one....

Gino said...

you gotta spice it up.
mention ashley dupre sex tape or something like that.
promise of porn sells.

it really was a good post, comparing two cultures us/them and the reaction to such scandals.
it was about cultural differences, and not about a sex tape.