Secrets of the Web Monkey Ninja Warriors

You might not agree. Daniel, you might say, surely people want to interact with new web widgets, cool new concepts, high-tech toys, and other cutting-edge stuff. People want to be challenged intellectually.

But that is why I make the big money folks. If you're writing stuff for the web, science and technology can only take you so far.

The web monkey premise works whether you like it or not,
as Allison Stokke and her parents found out

The reason for this is covered (partially) in the question "Are people rational animals?" It's the question asked by a recent Scientific American story. -- "...When playing this simple game [The Traveler's Dilemma], people consistently reject the rational choice. In fact, by acting illogically, they end up reaping a larger reward--an outcome that demands a new kind of for­mal reasoning..."

The answer is no, people are not rational. Who would have thunk it? Seems like every week there is some new study discovering something any 3-year-old would already know. Perhaps the gist of stories like this is something like "Well, we told you last week we understood all about this stuff, but back then we were smokin' crack. This week we've got some killer new stuff and now we have all the answers again" Which is fine with me. I view science as a rigorous process, not a religion. As we know, the media has to hype everything they report. If next year they discover that the universe really does go around the Earth, I'll kind of shake my head and say something like "Wow. THAT took a long time for you guys to work out, didn't it? Wonder what you boneheads still haven't figured out that you've got wrong?" It is true: the day will come when science finally comes around to understand that I am the master of space and time. That will be a happy day for me.

People are basically irrational; don't count on using logic to find something they like. Most sales decisions are done on the basis of emotion, not reason (I see another great study for economists coming) To find a model to follow, let's look at the monkeys. Recent studies show that monkeys and web users act about the same. I'm no expert in monkeys or web readers, but hey, neither are you, right? So yes, I'm just making this stuff up. What are you going to do? Spend ten years becoming a monkey expert or just have some fun for a bit?

Recent nipple slip by actress Lindsay Lohan got millions of hits from all over the world
Recent rehab woes for Lohan only makes the story more voyeuristically enticing
• Go South, Young Monkey - As I've reported here before, scientists have shown that monkeys will pay to see other monkey's butts. It's one of those things which are simple to say, yet profound to understand. Some think that people have their heads in the gutter, always thinking about the most carnal things in life, but that's not it. More accurate is the concept that we're programmed to respond to sexual cues: whether it is JR Ewing with all his money and fame, or Lindsay Lohan in revealing garb. Men, in particular, seemed hard-wired to respond to visual sexual reproductive cues from women. This is like a backdoor password on a secure system. Why try to create content for the frontal lobes when you can sneak in through the libido?

  Take the example of Allison Stokke. Stokke is one of the top high school pole vaulters in America and a gifted athlete. The California state champion has broken five national records. Because of her skill, a photo was taken of her at a track meet and posted on a sports blog. Without any planning at all, she became the latest internet "it girl". CBS Reports:
  

  In less than a month, a virtual slideshow of still photos has taken her image around the world. Search Stokke's name on Yahoo and you'll get more than 180,000 results. Fans have launched a MySpace page for Stokke. An amateur video from Stokke's past posted on YouTube has been viewed 225,000 times, and counting.

  The Washington Post featured Stokke's story as front page news. Her father told the newspaper. "We have to be smart and deal with it the best we can. It's not something that you can just make go away."

  Out of concern for Stokke's safety, he says he will continue to monitor message boards for potential stalkers.

  Sounds like a good idea.

  I've been in web programming ever since the web came out. I tell folks, half-jokingly, that I should have gotten into online pornography: that's where the money is. I wouldn't start an online Hustler magazine -- that's not my style -- but I do think that any online media company has to consider the power of the human form in selecting their content. There is a reason why there are sites called "Hot or not" are hot. We suckers will troop over there regularly to get a good look at what the other monkeys are getting.

  
  Mae West understood the power of sex seventy years ago

  
  Of course this isn't anything new. Mae West seemed to have understood this many years ago, and it doesn't look like she cared what people thought. The lady had a million great quotes about female sexuality:
  

  
  

  
  
  • Why don't you come on up and see me sometime.. when I've got nothin' on but the radio
  
  
  • A man in love is like a clipped coupon -- it's time to cash in
  
  
  • It's better to be looked over, than overlooked
  
  
  • Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
  
  
  • I like my clothes to be tight enough to show I'm a woman... but loose enough to show I'm a lady
  
  

  
  

  
  

Not new, but under-rated. Sex sells, like it or not. You can do it in a tasteful manner, but history shows us that all forms of media are a rush to the bottom, so maybe that day has long passed for the web.

• Fit in or be Agressive - In the monkey world, there are the females that stick with the troop, and the young males that hang around the outside. The females are all about being part of a pack and looking better than the other females, while the males are all about standing out, challenging each other, and becoming the big monkey.

  I think you have to make the same call with your content.

  There are two basic kinds of slants: the slant that says you are part of the mainstream, yet have unique things to offer, and the slant that you are a whelping young upstart ready to take on the world. Successful websites mix both in exactly the right way. It's the old "I want to be different, just like everyone else" concept we all observed in high school.

  As an example, recently hackers cracked copy protection on DVDs. Article rating site Digg had a user submit a story with the magic number to crack the protection, clearly a violation of the DMCA. Digg received a take-down notice, so they pulled the story.

  
  To say that some Digg users were upset with the site is an understatement

  
  Then something interesting happened. Digg's users had a revolt. In the end, Digg was forced to allow the secret keys to be published on their site even though they knew that doing so would cause legal problems. Digg's lawyers wanted the site to be part of the mainstream, part of the rest of the "normal" sites in the world. But Digg founders understood that the site was dedicated to being unique, aggressive, and looking outside the mainstream. Digg had the young upstart monkey thing going on, and looking like it was part of the system would be the end of Digg. So the story stayed.

  Were the majority of Digg users upset? Hard to say. But the key drivers, the lone males out there slugging away submitting and ranking stories, were pretty peeved. In the end, you have to know where your supper is coming from, and Digg made the only choice it could.

  
  Somehow "Fat kid kills Fred the fatter farm pig" doesn't have the same ring to it

  
  



• Monkey-see, Monkey-do - Take what works and do it again.

  The headline was "Boy Bags Wild Hog Bigger Than Hogzilla!" Haven't heard of "Hogzilla"? It was the huge wild boar supposedly shot a few years ago. It's being made into a horror movie. This week we had a sequel: a kid, armed only with a handgun, takes out an even bigger thousand-pound dangerous pig!

  Turns out the pig's name is Fred. He lived on a farm. The kids parents bought the pig, set up the photos, then created a web site, monsterpig.com. Its 2007 -- you have to have a web site!

  This story is great from a lot of angles. First, the kid and his parents took what worked with Hogzilla and did it again, only better. They didn't completely fake the story -- Fred was a big honking pig, no doubt about it -- but they stretched the truth enough to make news all over the world. Then, after the "me too" media outlets ran with it, the "young upstarts" took a crack at it. Camera angles were studied, experts were consulted (some were actually experts and some were just really smart people in other fields), and lots of yelling and ranting about how the whole thing was a fake.

  I find it hilarious that some of the critic sites exaggerated the story as much as the original! So everybody got a piece of the action: people came in for the original viral story, people saw the photos and traded them, then people came back for the young-buck outside-the-pack sites. Finally we're all back to the mainstream media, which is running the "gosh were we fooled again!" stories. It's like a media triple-play.

  The same process happened with a recent story about a British TV program that allegedly has contestants compete for body parts. First we get the story, then the reaction, then the critique, then the admission that it was all just made up, then the reaction to THAT. I guess some people would throw up their hands in frustration over all of this, but gosh, what great marketing! This is what viral marketing is all about, guys. I bet that MonsterPig site got a zillion hits, and I mean, come on, it WAS a pretty big pig, even if he name was Fred and he came from a farm down the road. The organ donor story is a little slimier, as somehow it seems more commercially motivated. Standby: in another week or two the next viral video/photo story will be out and we'll repeat and rinse. I love the web. Next week I think I'll run a story about my killing a giant feral squirrel with gummy bears and a slingshot.



• Throw your poop if you need to - Monkeys don't play nice. People on the web don't play nice either. If you're going to post content, you're going to get abused.
  
  
  It's monkey-eat-monkey out there
  
  

  Fur Protestor: Do you know how many poor animals they had to kill to make that coat?
  Margo Brofman: Know how many rich animals I had to f*** to get this coat? -- the movie Switch

  I remember when I first started blogging, I had a guy come on every day and post obscene insults as comments. Once that stopped, I had the spammers, then the criminals. I've got sites that refuse to run what I think is good non-political content because they disagree with me politically. I've got commenters that wait for me to post on certain sites so they can snipe at me. Lately some female bloggers have decided to bail out of blogging all together because of the threats they've been receiving.

  Tim O'Reilly, whom I don't know from dirt, thinks bloggers need a code of conduct, "I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behavior, I would hope that it doesn't come through any kind of [legal/government] regulation it would come through self-regulation."

  Good luck with that, Tim. Better to just watch the other monkeys and learn to fight back. Life's tough. Get used to it.
  

Now you are the master

So that, young ninja, is the secret of creating content for the web. Notice that I have followed my own example here: "ninja warrior" is a popular web search term. As is "monster pig". Mae West and the Stokke kid are popular girl image searches (one with short term value and one more long-term). Lots of cross-links in the text give me forward links to more reputable sites, which the crawlers will use to up my ranking. This is a _real_ story with real insight and analysis, not just a bunch of pictures, links, and keywords. This story might get a thousand readers the first month, but over time it will be a steady earner because it follows the rules. The web monkey ninja warrior rules.

Now padwan, you are a web monkey ninja warrior! Go in peace, and use your new power only for good.