He might not be the most famous plumber in America, but he does own the most suddenly desirable address on the Internet.
That would be Joe the Plumber. No, not that Joe the Plumber — John McCain’s Joe Six-Pack, who was mentioned a thousand times in last Wednesday night’s debate — but rather Joe the Plumber from Amarillo, Texas.
Amarillo Joe, you see, owns the Web site joetheplumber.com.
Driving to work Thursday morning the thought occurred that someone must have owned it . . . although I was ready to whip out the credit card if not.
In fact, Amarillo Joe has had the site registered with Network Solutions since 2004, and, yes, there are indications as I type that it may be for sale.
Search Engine Land was quick with an analysis of what this reflected fame means for Amarillo Joe, in particular, and plumbers named Joe in general. Bottom line: They had better have sturdy Web servers.
Wrote Danny Sullivan: “I can only imagine what type of traffic they’re getting — and how puzzled they were if they noticed a spike in visits or phone calls. In fact, when I twittered about this, Shawn Collins twittered back that one of them (joetheplumber.com) had indeed gotten offers for his site already.”
One more thing about joetheplumber.com. In perusing the site, I noticed this telling indication of exactly how far the Internet has seeped into everyday American life: Amarillo’s Joe the Plumber has a mailing list. It features, “Breaking news about our business, helpful tips and exclusive special offers.”
A plumber, a mailing list.