Clicking around on cartoons and horoscopes
When I clicked on this article, the pull-out quote read, “You can read all sorts of cartoons on the Web. Sometimes they print them up as comic books. I think, why should I buy this? I can read it online.” (From an interview with Matt Groening.) When I clicked through to some of my page stats online, it originally looked like 30% or better of the site’s traffic comes from one of two “horoscope” portals, either Easyscopes or Horoscopes4U.
Alas, the numbers don’t lie. As the diagrams depict, those portals only account for less than 10% of the traffic. To me, though, it’s interesting because I can reasonably extrapolate a profile for the readers – astrology & horoscope junkies. Which, in all honesty, provides me with a bigger a problem because my material isn’t like anything else. Frequently, my material doesn’t fit an established pattern. I tend to read charts differently. My scopes tend to wander down weird trails that aren’t normally covered.
Reminds me of a card reading, not long ago. It was a Gemini I’d taught how to read and interpret tarot cards. She’d have me lay the cards out, read them, and then question the answers. Didn’t like the reading, so she’d just shuffle the cards up again, and run with something new. When many of the same cards came up three times, she started to get the message. So do people who read 8 and 10 different horoscope sites get an aggregate message?
