Alex Pooley's Blog

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Metareality is a word I made up to describe a layer more abstract than reality. In a game of poker, reality is the cards that your opponents are actually holding. Metareality is the cards that they could be holding based on the cards visible and the bets placed.

As obscure as the introduction to this post may sound, I think many readers of this blog will be familiar with what I am talking about. I find reality pretty boring. It’s so dimensionless. Metareality allows us to make logical leaps between what is real, and what could be real. It also allows us to lock ourselves away and play dungeons and dragons for 12 hours a day, entirely detached from reality.

A few months ago, I started looking at how I spent my time in reality, and in metareality. Reality for me was associated with things like driving, talking to people, pouring cereal. The bulk of my day, spent behind the computer designing and developing, was metareality time - 12+ hours a day. No wonder I felt increasingly detached.

Strangely, keyword research services are what brought me back to reality. Sure, I could speculate about what people are searching for in search engines, orrrr, I could just find out what keywords people are really searching for by indirectly mining real life logged data. What the hell was I doing? Reality is where the game is played. You can scribble on whiteboards and run over possible plays all you like, but until you step in to reality you’re not even in the game.

These days I follow the trail of reality, and then make logical leaps based on that. A year ago I worked the other way around, I followed logical trails, and then back fit to reality. That’s an extremely subtle, but very important difference.

There’s a standard sales letter formula named AIDA.

1. Grab Attention
2. Generate Interest
3. Create Desire
4. Make a call to Action

I enjoy checking out my “real world” junk mail these days and often come across AIDA. Here’s a letter I received today from Foxtel (Australian cable TV provider) that uses the AIDA format. I’ve preceded each use of AIDA with red headings. In fact, if you follow the bold parts of the letter, it’s pretty clear.

I find it interesting that even the big boys with wads of cash are still sticking close to the fundamentals. They haven’t sold me, but I guess we can surmise that the AIDA format still works.

Google held a press day in May 2006. OK, I’m a year late, but I thought these stats were very interesting:

• 20% - 25% of searches in Google are unique
• With a naive algorithm, 50% of the web is duplicate
• 10% - 20% of the web changes every month

A copy of the slides are available here.

And for a chuckle, here’s an extract from Google’s Press Center…

My sister-in-law found her mother after 34 years of searching by using Google. I just thought you’d like to know you helped us find our mom! — Laurie M.

I have to tell you thank you! After 12 long years, I have been reunited with my first love via Google. If it were not for your company, I would not have found him so easily. He moved all the way to Germany, and I googled his name about a month ago. His boss has a website, and there is a tiny picture of him on it, with his name. If it was not for that, we would have never reconnected. Thank you over and over and over again! You guys rock! — Orlena C.

Geez.. is there anything Google can’t do? ;)