"Incentivize" is NOT a Word

Hey, I got to meet the guitar-strummer from my previous post. He's a working local musician and an extremely nice, friendly guy - and speaking as a recovering marketing shill, I have to give him major props for his method of self-promotion. He hangs out on the hike and bike trail and plays his music with a sign nearby, threaded between the spokes of his bike, advising passerby to Google Woode Wood. He's doing a very savvy job of marketing to his target audience and delivering a strong call to action, thus incentivizing them to visit his website and...

Oops, excuse me, I have to go wash out my brain again.

Search engines are very cool. So are website traffic reporting engines. I pretty well know where all my readers come from: mostly it's my parents and fellow snopesters. No former cow orkers (thanks a hell of a lot, guys).

My "Old is the New New" post came up in the first page of search results on MSN for someone doing a search on "ladies boudoir slippers" and, later, "moms in negligees." How cool is that?!? I was marketing to pervs and didn't even know it! (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

I was also thrilled a couple of months ago when text from my "In Which I Seek Gainful Employment" post came up as the only result for a user googling the telephone number for Atlas Tubular, a tubular company.

I felt a bit sorry for the web user who received this baffling result, because clicking on the link from the search results page only takes you to my homepage; and I'd posted several significantly less tubular entries since that one. The user was probably bewildered as to how my blog was, not just highly, but exclusively relevant to his search...

But back to the hike and bike trail. It remains, two whole days after I began posting about it, a weird and sweet and wonderful place. The three spectator geese have slightly changed spots. I wonder if they have names? Probably several... Four young guys were hanging out talking next to the Capitol Cruises boat, by the Hyatt, and the air around them smelled really, really nice, if you know what I mean. It's another beautiful day in Austin!

With any luck, in a day or two I'll be able to give you the website URL for the ornamental-pond fisher.