Posted 7:39 PM by Robert

Free Krugman? III

OOPS! It's a little after 7:00 pm in Los Angeles, September 24th, the day after Herr Doktorprofessor's latest column hit the screen (fan?), and it's completely gone from the list of 25 Most E-Mailed Articles - although that dog virus story really has legs and is holding on at No.3! Today's disengagement from reality by Maureen Dowd clocks in at No. 5 - the only TimesSelect item among the "Most E-Mailed." (Who's on that subscription list? Would the reader want to sell or advertise anything to someone who would e-mail a Maureen Dowd column, except, maybe, a certain type of ... err ... pharmaceutical?)

So it comes to this: Herr Doktorprofessor's Sept. 23rd column was outclassed by Bob Herbert's day-old Sept. 22nd leavings until well into the afternoon of the 23rd. Herbert had better shelf-life, too, since his product lasted for two days on the "favorites" list, where, after a brief spell circa No. 14 during the later evening hours on the 23rd, Herr Doktorprofessor vanished entirely. Nothing. Kaput. Nada. Zingo! And, on top of all that, Herr Doktorprofessor seems never to have risen into the top ten, either.

What other measures of on-line value might apply here? How about "stickiness?" Remember "stickiness" from the dot-com era - Herr Doktorprofessor's salad days, his days of greatest glory!!? Is Herr Doktorprofessor "sticky?"On the other hand, maybe it's better not to go down this track.

Maybe "eyeballs?"

Anyway, I think it's going to be a bad night for the cat. Sad. I like cats.