Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Pittsburgh: The Best City in the World! 'n'at

or Pittsburgh: 29th Best City in the World!

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette printed two very compelling articles in today's paper ( see Magazine gives city a jolly good No. 1 rating  and Marketer tries to boost city's profile.)  Pittsburgh is getting a lot of buzz on both a national and international stage for the first time in many years... and not for our amazing sports teams.  (Though it deserves mention that our Steelers did indeed win the Superbowl this year, with the players just now receiving their gawdily awesome rings, while our beloved Penguins have evened up an epic Stanley Cup match-up, with the championship to be decided in game 7 on Friday.)

But that's my point.  Two of our city's sports teams are of championship caliber, (sorry Pirates,) yet they are not what is garnering all of the attention.

Not only will Pittsburgh host the G20 meeting of world leaders in coming months, but our fair city has again earned title of "Most Livable City in the United States" and 29th world-wide, by British magazine the Economist.  But for some Most livable in this country is not good enough.  Eyeflow, apparently a Pittsburgh based web marketing company has this grand idea to basically spam the internet with the phrase "Best City in the World" linked to Pittsburgh's website.  I almost bit and did so at this site, but refrained from actually linking to the city based on the fact that it is a lie.  We are not the best city in the world.  The survey results printed directly above the marketing article (that's right I actually read the paper version of the newspaper) shows that 28 cities worldwide are actually better than Pittsburgh.  

However, who cares about the rest of Earth.  We are the United States right.  Bald Eagles, Apple Pie, Captain America, and whatnot.  In light of the many independent observers, from Forbes Magazine to Places Rated Almanac, who have all recognized the great attributes of the town we live in, is the United States not enough?  Will such fallacious exaggeration from "in the nation" to "in the entire World" help the city overcome its apparent inferiority complex?  

For the time being I accept that Pittsburgh is the best city in the good ol' U.S. of A.  But the world?  
 
Well... not until we win that Stanley Cup.  



by Lord Johnson


6 comments:

Phil said...

Lord,

I just wanted to let you know our goal is not to "SPAM the internet" but to encourage others to get other sites to write why they feel Pittsburgh is the best city in the world and then link to it.

This is totally within search engine guidelines. In fact, I'm sure Google would applaud our efforts as we are not trying to exploit a loophole in their algorithm. Remember Google is open how they rank sites and even provide rules and guidelines on how to do it. We simply listen and follow their guidelines and hopefully make their results more accurate.

As far as saying Pittsburgh isn't the best city in the world - that's your opinion not a fact. If Baskin Robins released a survey that most of their customers prefer Chocolate over Vanilla does that mean Chocolate is the best flavor? No, it simply means the data they used showed chocolate as the most popular flavor they sell. If hagen daz did an internal survey I’m sure they would get a completely different result. Bottom line is there is no “correct” answer to what is the best city in the world but our opinion is it is Pittsburgh.

Although I haven't been to every city in the world I can say of all the cities I have visited I think Pittsburgh is the best and I'm expressing that opinion online and asking others that feel the same way to do the same.

Heath said...

Yeah! I agree with that guy.

Pittsburgh IS the best city in the world. Three rivers, cool green spaces, mountains, fun neighborhoods, and great people.

And chocolate IS the best flavor.

And almost no one even eats spam anymore. You should really do more research before you write your blogs.

Chris Peak said...

Holy shit! You guys got a comment from a non-Pipe Club member who wasn't me.

You've outgrown me. This blog used to be my private little corner of the internet where I could safely go and no one else would find me. Now what am I going to do?

Marie said...

1. I don't think the Lord wrote that post. Lord Johnson did. I believe they are two different people.

2. I don't think anyone questioned whether Google would approve. The company celebrates Dr. Seuss' birthday for goodness' sake! Does anybody taken them seriously?

3. We let non-Pipe club members post comments? We should seriously start charging for this. I smell a pipe tax coming!!

Kara said...

IS the Lord and Lord Johnson two different people? I think there needs to be more research into THAT.

And Chris, you can still come to our little blog as your internet safe haven. I doubt any other non-pipe club members will provide us with comments unless the Lord writes anymore blogs that pisses someone off.

Anonymous said...

Hello. And Bye.