You might remember that story 'man forced to marry goat' which topped the BBC website's 'Most Read' section for several weeks. These 'live stats' indicated that the goat story was being widely read and according to BBC's online world editor, Adam Curtis, over 100,000 people were looking at that article a day.
In September 2006 Adam Curtis also wrote, in a blog entry entitled "just kidding":
Only now are there signs that the interest may be abating. For the moment at least, the story is no longer registering as one of the most popular on the website.
But the experience has inevitably raised questions about whether we should do a follow up. Should we perhaps find out if the relationship is still flourishing? And what about the kids?"
To tell you the truth I've been waiting for this day since those words were published. Yesterday the BBC's follow up was finally published and unfortunately, "Sudan's famous goat 'wife' dies".[ MORE TAG ]
Hey, Adam Curtis, you weren't joking about that follow up! Is the site in need of some much needed traffic before the quarterly report? Is your position up for review? Or did you just want to kill the story once and for all?
What really made me laugh this morning is the fact that the Guardian decided to get in on the story, publishing this piece today, "Sudan's goat wife chokes to death" - why on earth, why? The article also indicates that 'a Google search brings up more than 170,000 web pages based on the story' - now, I've been victimized.
