No one knows what the Montauk Monster is -- a dead raccoon, a viral marketing ploy, whatever -- but it's definitely found an audience.
Hitwise says "montauk monster" and "monster of montauk" were two of the top 10 fastest-growing Web search terms last week -- no. 2 and no. 8, respectively. The only faster-moving search term was "earthquake" -- the monster beat "cuil," "big brother 10," "comcast," etc.
Meanwhile, Gawker's first post on the beast from last Tuesday has blown past 1.3 million pageviews, which, at Gawker's $5-per-1,000-views July pay rate, has scored writer Richard Lawson a cool $6,500. It also helped site owner Nick Denton rack up a new monthly record.
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