One of the cool things that happened when the Shore Leave site moved to the new hosting company (aside from having things work correctly) was that now we can get statistics on how often the site is visited, what pages people visit, and other stuff like that.
One of the newly available items is a list of the search terms people were using when they clicked a link that brought them to our site. For the past several months, I’ve been amused to see that “Black Death” is, by a large margin, the single most common search term bringing people to Shore Leave. For the month of March, “Black Death” accounted for more than 37% of the traffic coming from search sites, and until recently, we had no idea why.
I had an idea a week or so back and instead of the usual “Causing Mischief” type of idea, this was one of those, “Trying to solve a mystery” ideas.
If you do a normal search on Google, Yahoo, or whatever and just look for “Black Death”, you get back several bazillion results, most referring to the bubonic plague. I’m sure we’re in there somewhere, but it’s nowhere obvious.
But if you use the exact same words for a Google image search… One of the photos from the Shore Leave site – labeled “Black Death” – is in the top dozen!
I don’t think we need to “fix” anything, after all, this means people are finding our site. We just need to make sure that nobody tells Amanda Tapping a guy dressed as the Grim Reaper is 250 times more popular than she is!!!
Monthly Archives: April 2006
Martians invade Grovers Mill
On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles aired a radio play adapted from the H. G. Wells book, “War of the Worlds.” Circumstances collided with presentation style and a nationwide panic ensued as people became convinced that a full-scale Martian invasion was in progress. On Sunday I got a small taste of how Orson Welles must have felt afterward.
This past Saturday was April Fools day and for the second year running, I felt that the Shore Leave site should be a part of the annual antics. The original plan fell through due to technical difficulties just one hour into the day, so I decided to come up with a “Plan B” and save the original for next year.
Last year’s prank went pretty well, except that at least one person didn’t get the joke. As near as I can figure, she overlooked the text explaining the origins of “MeteorCon,” so I decided that this year I’d use something more closely resembling a press release.
After mulling it over for an hour or so, I finally hit on the idea of tapping into the popularity of the new Battlestar Galactica series. Going completely over the top (How else would you play an April Fools joke?), I thought it would be a grand idea to actually hold the convention on the Galactica. Not on the sets, but on the actual spacecraft. And so I started writing…
As much I wanted to make it sound nearly believable, I also wanted to make it clear that this a joke. I added an “April 1” dateline. I explained how the Sci-Fi channel had decided it was cheaper to build an actual space ship rather than do all the computer generated imagery. And throughout the text, I referred to the Galactica as an actual spaceship and even talked about how the convention would be set up onboard.
The emails I saw on Saturday afternoon were all favorable. People not only got the joke, they thought it was funny! When I walked into the STAT meeting on Sunday, the first several people I saw congratulated me on a great prank. This was a great success! Then I ran into the convention co-chairs…
Kett and Marilyn hadn’t known about the change of plans. While I was celebrating a successful prank on Saturday, they were fielding emails and phone calls from people who were congratulating them on their coup, or worrying over where to find enough space in the Hunt Valley Inn for “several city blocks worth” of sets. Evidently a half-dozen (or more!) people were convinced that the convention had either acquired the sets, or would be taking place aboard an actual space ship! (As Kett put it, “These are Science Fiction fans, they like to believe that anything’s possible.”)
If I had it to do over, I’d have sent Kett and Marilyn an email to let them know about the change of plans. (Seeing as how I was working on this from 1 to 3 AM, phone calls were definitely out of the question.) Other than that, I probably wouldn’t change anything.
To those who were taken in, all I can say is, “Gotcha!”
That and, “Run for your life! The Martians are marching on Grovers Mill!”
April Foolery
April Fools day has been one of my favorite holidays for several years, so when I took over the Shore Leave web site a few years ago, it was only a matter of time until my sense of humor surfaced on the site.
Last year, the convention’s hotel was hit by a meteor and a new convention was born. (Amazingly, the guests bore a strikingly resemblance to members of the convention committee; none of whom knew about it.)
This year was subtler, nothing more than an announcement that the convention had made an acquisition.
I wonder if anyone noticed? 🙂