Following on from my last post – here’s some more thoughts about ViolentAcres, the controversial anonymous blogger:
A few things for me smell dodgy about her blog. She’s very vague about what her professional background is exactly, but at no point does there seem to be any reference of inference to working in the internet/online-media industry. Yet:
- Her blog runs on a self-install copy of WordPress with a custom template. With so many good + free managed blogging options around (like WordPress.com) that’s kinda odd for anyone but an ‘industry person’ or someone who intends to run their blog for advertising (which is usually banned from free managed blogs).
- For a ‘regular person’ she seems to be very aware of the success metrics such as Alexa and Technorati rankings, and inclusion in Digg and del.icio.us – and she’s monitoring them. My ‘normal user blogger’ wife barely knows what any of these are let alone why they’re significant indicators.
- She has a ‘add me to del.icio.us’ link at the bottom of every post
- She doesn’t accept comments – perhaps an astute move for someone setting out to be uber controvesial who doesn’t want on-site bite-back. This is why Valleywag only allows comments from an invited select pool of people
- Her blog actually runs on an account from APIS Networks – a web host “by developers for developers”. Not a hosting provider a ‘normal user’ would use.
I therefore would like to take a hunch that ViolentAcres is somehow connected to the internet industry – either directly or perhaps by proxy (ie her husband/very close friend/etc works in the industry).
This then further makes me wonder whether this is an experiment or bet to see how quickly someone can get notoriety from nothing via their blog. That would certainly explain the decision to go for controversy, etc.
What do others think?