Incredible Super Bowl traffic weekend plus

So a month ago, I decided to try something to jump start the low number of page views that the sports pages on my company's website at Mahalo were generating. Having spent some time in November and December on temporary assignment with the Products Team helping to flood the zone on many products and gadgets made available during the holidays, I decided to take a chance.

There's floating an idea about whether something will work, getting pre-approval on whether it will work or not, and hopefully living up to expectations. Then there is simply trying something in a "thinking-outside-the-box-without-permission", so that if it doesn't work I don't get knocked down a peg in the pecking order, and if does work, well to the victor goes the spoils kind of thing.

Let's call it a calculated risk - fortunately, it was one that worked.

The idea was to live blog sporting events. Now this isn't a novel idea in of itself, but it was with respect to doing so at Mahalo. So I started with boxing. In fact, I really can't take full credit for the idea. A few of us here wanted to watch the pay-per-view boxing match in December between Floyd Mayweather and Ricky Hatton. Our magnanimous boss, Jason Calacanis, simply said in response to our desire viewing the fight at the office, "Hey, if you live blog it, I'll pick up 1/2..."

And so, like Walter Payton used to do when he saw just a sliver of daylight between 2 blockers, I hit the hole and sprinted down field.

That night was the start of my live blogging experience, which has since included: Each of the 3 weekends of the NFL Playoffs; the January Jones-Trinidad PPV fight; the NHL All-Star Game; a WWE PPV event (Angry Ken handled that one on my encouragement); and the Super Bowl.

Then the decision to cover the Super Bowl went much further than covering the game. In addition to creating all kinds of Super Bowl related sports pages about the previous games, the coaches, the MVP's, and much more within the sports vertical, Ken and I brainstormed on other search terms that people would be searching for in other areas. Like food, TV, clothing, music, and more. And then, 3 weeks ago, based upon the initial success of several liver blogging events, I decided that we should also live blog the Super Bowl commercials - figuring that nearly as many people watch the game specifically for them as for the game itself.

So we have a tool that allows us to determine the number of times each of our pages is viewed, and ways to break that information down which I won't bother you with. But suffice to say that the numbers for the live coverage of the sporting events has been, as Frank Caliendo would say, "Jim Rome on a three-syllable word: in-cred-ible..."

I'm grateful to the tens of thousands that have come to our pages of the past 6 weeks. And the Super Bowl related pages have had 'through the roof' numbers. I also thankful to the tens of tens of Crief Case Nation that have followed your captain into battle.

And I think there are bigger numbers out there. Promotion and reputation I think will benefit our efforts in this area going forward. Again, we're providing ways to help people at Mahalo, and this is my contribution to our mission.

OTHER STUFF: A few months ago, I wrote here that Mets GM Omar Minaya needed to do whatever it took to get Johan Santana. I'm glad somebody is paying attention to me... I also know that Juan, a loyal member of Crief Case Nation, knew that I had the right spread and the right winning team in the Super Bowl, just the wrong score. You know, non-sports fans always want to hate on sports fans, and you know what, there are plenty of reasons to do so - but that game this past Sunday is just another reason why I keep coming back. Even the best of the "Reality TV" shows can't get the drama as good as that. Not only does Eli break free from 73 tacklers, and complete the pass to put the Giants in scoring range, but has the confidence to throw it up there and say go get it big fella to a dude that had 4 receptions all season! That's only 4 more than Max McGee had this year, and McGee is dead. And what a catch at that - oh, and memo to Rodney Harrison of the Pats, who did everything to try and break up that pass but have Jeff Gillooly's gang of thugs run out with batons and smack Tyree on the kneecap: hey Rodney, you obviously should inject more HGH next time dude...and finally, speaking earlier of Frank Caliendo, you must, must, must check out his guest spot last week at the Super Bowl on WFAN's Mike & The Mad Dog Radio Show. Not only does he do John Madden almost as good as Madden himself, but he does the best Charles Barkley I've ever heard too.

UPCOMING CALENDAR OF LIVE COVERAGE ON MAHALO:
February 17: Daytona 500, NBA All-Star Game, and WWE "No Way Out"
March 8-16: College Basketball's "Championship Week" - Live Coverage of all the conference championship games being played every night
March 16: NCAA Selection Sunday - get your brackets ready
March 18, 20-23, 27-30, and April 5 & 7: The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, a.k.a "March Madness"
March 30: Wrestlemania XXIV
April 13: Sunday at The Masters
April 26 & 27: The NFL Draft

You've been warned...