LoA or marketing

[eternomi]

I was just thinking, this whole IM/LoA hoopla could just be a great marketing tool. Stir people up so that the polarization can generate discussions, traffic and money.

Quote from
Debate about Steve at Lifehacker

Steve said:

That article has been one of my top 5 in terms of popularity. People keep linking to it because they want to agree or disagree with it. It's been mentioned on at least 30 other blogs in just the past 24 hours. Meanwhile I just stay out of the debate and enjoy the additional traffic.

BRILLIANT!

[Steve Pavlina]

It's certainly possible to generate traffic by being intentionally controversial if that's your style -- the practice is known as linkbaiting. As a general rule the most popular articles on my site aren't particularly controversial -- they're more practical how-to oriented. The all-time #1 article was How to Become an Early Riser. Other popular ones have been the Self-Discipline series and 30 Days to Success. They didn't evoke major controversy, but they did get tons of links (and still do). It's odd that LifeHacker picked up 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job yesterday, since I posted it four months ago.

The LoA articles I've written don't tend to get a lot of links or generate much advertising income compared to other articles (none have been Digg'd or made it to the popular list on del.icio.us to my knowledge), but this is a topic I'm fascinated with and definitely want to explore further.

[eternomi]

This one was meant to be a joke.

However, I did read it elsewhere that polarizing people is apparently a good tactic to get sales. They say "You want people to either love you or hate you. Otherwise noone talks about you. Hence, noone knows you exist". I don't know, I am not in marketing.