I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The internet is a wonderful thing. Don’t you ever forget that. If the mere knowledge that TharpSter.Org is brought to you through the assistance of the webmaster at a chinchilla rescue operation isn’t enough to blow your mind over the wonders of the worldwide web, then let me throw another nugget of revelation at you.
The software I use to produce and publish the eventual evidence which will ultimately be used in my as of yet unscheduled competency hearing provides all types of statistical data on this site’s readership. I can tell if the site was accessed directly, or through a link. I can see what articles are being read and how many times they’ve been read. Information like this is useful to me, because it tells me what type of material I need to produce in order to create a base of minions who hang on my every word.
Among the features for the site statistics is a section which tells me what search terms are being used which ultimately lead readers to this site. For those of you who don’t directly type www.tharpster.org in your address bar, I tend to see a wide variety of search terms that get you here. The terms usually involve subjects from politics to Lotus Notes Sametime, and everywhere in between. The search term statistics from yesterday yielded the following as the top searches:
Let me repeat this one more time. The internet is a wonderful thing. If you participate in a social networking site such as Facebook (the TharpSter fan page can be found here), and you want to express your love and appreciation for a delicious, time saving, cost efficient, ground beef preparatory meal by displaying the product as your profile picture, the internet gives you the option to do so. If you don’t know how do it, there are plenty of search engines out there which will help you express your love. Stuff like that makes the internet cool, because if you had wandered into a library as recently as 15 years ago and asked the kindly octogenarian at the information desk the same question, she would have mercilessly rapped you about the knuckles with a ruler. Nowadays you can find anything out here on the net, regardless of how unique the information needs to be.
The mere fact that someone used that term/phrase and found something isn’t the end all be all about the wonders of the internet though. It’s the fact that Google comes back with over 45,000 results in .11 seconds. More importantly (in my mind), was that the word “TharpSter” was not in the search phrase and one of my blogs about Facebook Status Updates made it into the top 10 search results:
For the record, that particular blog has absolutely no instructional value in adding Hamburger Helper to a profile picture on Facebook. If you’re not quite sure how to update the photo, it’s not too hard. Just upload a photo and follow the link to set it as a profile picture. You can also check any of the other 45,299 search results on Google to see if directions are available.
I believe it only to be fair that I should throw props to the good people at Hamburger Helper. When I made reference to your product in that blog earlier this month, I had no intention of hijacking any potential web traffic from you. I’ve enjoyed your product for many years now, and I can assure you that there have been many a time when I did in fact “need a helping hand”. If you should ever want to enter into a relationship with this website which would involve the advertisement of your product, the Board of Directors here at TharpSter.Org would be more than happy to discuss such a potentially lucrative venture with you. The endorsement agreement I have with Rubber Band BoB’s Rubber Band Balls is not exclusive. I’m starting to rethink that agreement, as their checks keep bouncing.
