While watching the VP debate, I couldn’t help but groan when Cheney erroneously referred the audience to factcheck.com when in fact the correct URL is factcheck.org. This was the site’s chance at lasting fame, and the URL was wrong. I can’t tell you the number of times, btw, that similar confusions have hurt small websites like mine. Also, it reminds of the time when David Pogue of the New York Times mentioned my name and an article I wrote about giving tips to musicians. The sad fact is, my website went offline for a sustained period of time, so nobody ended up finding it, thus dooming my only chance at getting more traffic.
Postscript: I’m sure that bloggers will be having a fun time with the fact that factcheck.com redirects to georgesoros.com . Jeffrey Dubner of Tapped mocks conspiracy theories, but still it is an entertaining idea. George Soros has spent millions of dollars to promote his anti-Bush messages (god bless him!) , but his biggest publicity bonanza comes as a result of a debater’s flub.
Dubner continues:
Cheney meant to say factcheck.org, which is an Annenberg Public Policy Center Web site. And he was, predictably, misrepresenting its content. Factcheck.org did just release a critique of a Kerry campaign ad claiming that Cheney still had a financial interest in Halliburton. But John Edwards said nothing of the sort — he talked about Halliburton’s “millions of dollars in fines,” its “business with Libya and Iran,” its being “under investigation for having bribed foreign officials,” and its “$7.5 billion no-bid contract in Iraq.” Not a word about Cheney’s financial interest, the only thing factcheck.org mentions.
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