Accidental Popularity

Accidental popularity is when something becomes fashionable because it is real or genuine.

On the web, accidentally popular websites are otherwise known as real or genuine interest websites. The kind that are often found on BoingBoing.net, where Cream Cheese & Caviar originally saw an entry about Ian Fieggen and a better way to tie your shoelaces.

Today Mr. Fieggen's shoelace website and his knots were written about in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)--looks like it's starting to get popular. But was it by accident?

Mr. Fieggen's website is extensive in its content and you can tell he put a lot of time into it. Promoting "the fun, fashion & science of shoelaces," as his site professes, takes a lot of work. "When I was working full time," Mr. Fieggen says, "I would get up at six o'clock in the morning so I could spend an extra hour on it before I left."

And he goes on to say in the WSJ: "There are probably two types of Web sites, those that set out to become popular in some category and those that just end up that way by accident. Mine is one of the accidents."

Or is it? The site may be extensive, but don't let it's depth fool you. No matter how "accidental" it may seem, Mr. Fieggeri has done his best to capture even the most esoteric traffic. He once noticed, for instance, that many visitors discovered his site after plugging the term "shoelace tips" into a search engine. Eventually he realized that a good number of these passersby weren't looking for advice, but for the name of the hardened area at the end of a shoelace, officially known as "aglets." So he added an aglet page.

Further, in the last sentence of the WSJ article it became clear that we weren't reading about Mr. Fieggen by accident, in October of 2007 he will have his aptly named book, "Laces," published by Barnes & Noble.

So if Mr. Fieggen's gain in popularity is by accident, he'll have no problem selling copies of his book. However, if it isn't, he could always go on the road and help others gain popularity.