My Last Name Isn’t Broadfoot
Occasionally, people mistake my last name for ‘Broadfoot’. Presumably this is because Broadfoot is a more common last name. Also, I know at least one person who thought my name online was actually ‘Darren, Barefoot’ like ‘Darren, Purple’ or ‘Darren, Verklempt’. My actual last name, I guess, sounds pretty unlikely.
My friend pointed out the most recent example in The Globe and Mail. It’s some pretty lazy journalism in a piece about wallets:
On the blog darrenbroadfoot.com there’s an exchange on wallet alternatives that ends with the comment: “I’m less organized now but at least my ass looks great.”
The writer, Mike Miner, is referring to this post about wallet alternatives. Not only does he get the URL wrong, but he fails to include the complete URL (which isn’t that long) or cite the source of that quote (a comment from one Ross Thomas). Lastly (because they couldn’t, I guess), the online edition doesn’t link to the entry.
Actually, in my experience and that of my clients, getting your URL mentioned in (mostly, in the case of the Globe) offline media has a surprisingly small effect on your visitor stats. We had a client get a small mention with URL in The New York Times. On the publication day, their visitor numbers were only four times that of a normal day. Of course, it resulted in a bunch of sales, but that wasn’t necessarily reflected by the web stats.
