File under: I don’t know how they do it.
But in truth, I suspect I do understand.
Glorious afternoon, and I love looking at a weather channels on line, projected high was 64. That prediction was running concurrent with the afternoon’s actual temp of 68. Mostly sunny, light and steady breeze, I was meandering along the hike and bike trail, and while I had several destinations in mind, I really didn’t go much of anywhere.
Fished some, worked, fished, walked, worked, had a late lunch at Little City, and came home to fish a little bit more. Toyed with small fish, caught one, and generally had a nice enough day of it. Tied a top water lure on, but never tested it. I’m afraid I’m a little premature with that idea.
I had many thoughts running through my mind, and since this is basically a brain dump, what I was thinking about was a copy of an article a client gave to me.
Yahoo! Internet! Life! – July! 1999! Issue! close to the back, as I recall. It listed a half dozen astrology sites, and what I liked? Mine was in there. But of the sites listed, mine was the only site that wasn’t a big, corporate deal. I was the only single person listed with all the big folks. Staff of 30-40 people? Millions in sales? Advertising and marketing? Quite a nice note.
As an added bonus, at the time of the article, I was selling two columns to one of the other sites listed ahead of me. Double penetration.
The one place where I was selling my column, plus a column written under a pen name, that company got bought out and absorbed, and the rest of the details are buried in my old history. What I was thinking about, on the trail, was the way that place used to have “personality driven” horoscopes. Authors got credit for their work. As the web has changed, and so has the face of commerce, the few remaining astrology sites that are big business? All have that “personality driven” tone to them, as well.
Except.
Look at the volume of work – actual number of words? Wonder how many of those are done by just one person? Got an author’s name attached to it, but is that really the person who typed it? Or is it just managed by that name (sake).
I stopped at the Hideout, angling towards home the long way, trying to stay in the sun. The Gemini behind the bar wasn’t behind the bar. He was at a computer terminal dashing off a quick note. He looked up, “Be right with you,” and continued to type very fast.
I wasn’t in a hurry, wasn’t going to get in a hurry, and I certainly wasn’t going to interrupt what he was doing. I realize that other patrons would’ve been less understanding, but I figure the espresso would taste better if he took his time.
He typed very fast, a whole paragraph in a matter of moments. He quickly read the note then hit “send.” Love the way a Gemini mind can work so quickly. And I admire anyone who can type that fast, about 120 words in 30 seconds. Or so it seemed. Hands a blur on the keyboard.
So I’m wondering, do the big-name astrologers really type all that material? Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly? Or is some of the work handled by hack writers following a style sheet and using keywords?
Thinking while I type, I was wondering, what would my style sheet have? Include coffee, a cat, trailer life in South Austin, hike and bike trail, Texas trivia, bass fishing, fishing, and some classical lit. Maybe some Shakespeare. Plus whatever pops up? Be kind of hard to get someone else to write this material. I doubt it could be done, and no, that’s not a challenge.
I mean, where else are there pictures of Longhorn Dolphins?
