The Forgone Conclusion of Jade Goody

In August 2008, Jade Goody was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Initially, quite a few of the incredibly cynical contingent of bulletin boards thought it was a publicity stunt, or that the cancer was less serious than reported, and was blown out of proportion by Max Clifford, Jade Goody's PR agent.

The actual situation was more serious than this however, and Jade's condition has since become terminal. She has been given around a few weeks left to live, though no date is precise.

With this in mind, I was having a scan around the internet to see what people thought of terminal Jade Goody. The result should've been unsurprising, but was shocking nonetheless.

An initial search for Jade brings up the URL of her official website, which has since closed and is just displaying sponsored ads. Searching for her twitter page produces what could be the most amazing thing I've ever seen online in terms of marketing over the value of life. I was taken to a Twitter page named something not dissimilar to "Jade Goody - Rest in Peace", which was taking condolences for her death.

She's not actually dead yet, and everybody seems to be shutting up shop to get higher in the rankings. That Twitter page will doubtless be a huge source for consoling Tweets from unsuspecting people, when in reality, it may very well turn out to be a marketing ploy.

Another effort is from a Search Engine Optimisation consultant, who's added it to his website to see how far up search rankings he can get. There's also a nice bit of Google Adsense at the bottom. Just in case you fancy earning him a few quid. Nice touch Matt.

The point of this post is that the internet never ceases to amaze me. It's always changing, and people are always finding ways of making extra cash, no matter how immoral the means are.

SEOBook.com has mentioned that @superbowl on Twitter is ranked #9 in Google's organic listings. So creating a rubbish twitter page about Jade Goody instantly ranks quite highly, bringing blogs linking to it up as well. Sneaky. Very very sneaky.