Bits and bobs #4

I was just inspecting the words people use to find my blog, as every good self-obsessed blogger does and uncovered a stash of people searching for "fresh lolita" as if Lolita were a vegetable of some kind. More interestingly, several used Ask Jeeves to search for the elusive fresh Lolitas. This is where the whole concept of asking a Jeeves - a starchy butler with a penchant for ironing newspapers, judging by the picture - runs into trouble.

Would any blue blood ask their butler for "fresh lolita", even if they were so inclined? Would a self-respecting butler put up with being asked to procure sordid pictures? And if so, what business does a butler have on the web? The internet is for pornographers, after all.

Pornographers are at the leading edge of technological innovation, power, and sophistication. For example, banner advertising and other promotional efforts, such as referral fees for sales from click-throughs and partnership programs, are used extensively in porn sites. Site owners quickly adapted e-commerce innovations such as customer billing and encryption technology as well.

Innovative web design and applications for doing business on the Internet led one Sun Microsystems spokeswoman to comment that the way companies know their new applications are effective is to look at how they're used in the porn world.

- From here.