Earlier this Friday, travel writer Zack Jones put the finishing touches on a post the online publishing community is hailing as a new standard in the realm of web travel journalism. The piece, titled “Lady Gaga Justin Bieber Drunken Airplane Bronx Zoo Cobra Bikini Mishap Injures 11,” offers an exclusive chronicle of an improbable mid-air tussle between the two famous pop stars, interrupted by an escaped venomous Egyptian snake and the eventual intervention to end the melee by the Swedish Bikini Team.
As bizarre as the incident was to Jones and his readers, the page views it created for his website, Travelizcool.net, have been even more astounding. The post’s SEO-friendly subject matter has placed it as the #1 result across searches on Google, Bing, Altavista, Lycos and Excite. It’s also quickly become the #1 trending topic on Twitter and has already collected over 500,000 Likes on Facebook. Jones was able further encourage the spread of his post by allowing readers to check-in to the story on Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt and through a unique “story remix contest” on YouTube, where readers were encouraged to record themselves reading the piece out loud using Autotune for a chance to win a month long blogging stint at Travelizcool.net.
The post’s continued success and soaring ad revenues have Zack thinking big plans for the formerly tiny Travelizcool.net website. “This story’s success was anything but a flash in the pan” said Jones in an interview by phone. “We’re hiring 500 new writers in the coming months to keep up with the demand. By the way, can you make sure to StumbleUpon this interview when it gets published?”
[Photo courtesy Flickr user stuartpilbrow]