• Blogosphere,  Conservatives

    The Demise of the Conservative Blogosphere – John Hawkins Edition

    The demise of the independent conservative blogosphere is simply overestimated by John Hawkins. In other words, John boy has it wrong.

    Most bloggers are not very good at marketing, not very good at monetizing, there are no sugar daddies giving us cash, and this isn’t the biggest market in the world to begin with. In other words, this is a time-consuming enterprise, but few people are going to make enough money to go full time. How many people can put in 20-30-40-50 hours a week on something that’s not going to ever be their full time job? Can they do it for 5 years? 10 years? 15? 20? This is the plight that 99.9% of serious, independent conservative bloggers face. This has already created a lot of attrition and over the next few years, as people realize that their traffic is more likely to slowly, but surely significantly deteriorate rather than explode, you’re going to see a lot more people give up.

    Bloggers have asked me: So what’s the strategy to deal with this?

    Really, it’s simple: Get big or go home.

    Find a way to dramatically increase the size of your blog, expand into multiple websites that together are big, hook up with someone who’s already big, or accept that there isn’t much of a future in a small, niche market for you. Maybe that sounds a little grim, but unless something changes, independent conservative bloggers who haven’t already made it big don’t have a bright future.

    No, I cannot agree. There is more to life than traffic to blogs for the conservative world. There is Twitter which has jump-started the Tea Party and to a lesser extent there is Facebook where conservatives can more socially interact. Google Plus has just started and there will be a place for conservative bloggers there as well.

    The blogosphere and social media are interconnected and it is far better for the smaller, independent blogger.

    When I first started this enterprise over five years ago, nobody knew who the hell I was or cared. The large blogs (the ones with the most traffic) linked within themselves. Nobody gave a rat’s ass about the upstarts in the sphere. But, with Twitter and Facebook, content and opinion hit the internet without the filter of Instapundit or Powerline. Traffic to the independents grew and so did modest ad revenue.

    Power in the blogosphere shifted to the small, independent blogger who might cover more, especially in their own locale. Commentary was not limited to large blogs comments sections but to Twitter and Facebook.

    So, with these changes, why would anyone quit?

    In the era of the grass-roots Tea Party, it is time to get started.

  • AOL,  Arianna Huffington

    Day By Day February 7, 2011 – Choice



    Day by Day by Chris Muir

    Speaking about HERD mentality, look at poor AOL purchasing the Huffington Post.

    The Huffington Post, which began in 2005 with a meager $1 million investment and has grown into one of the most heavily visited news Web sites in the country, is being acquired by AOL in a deal that creates an unlikely pairing of two online media giants.

    The two companies completed the sale Sunday evening and announced the deal just after midnight on Monday. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. It will be the company’s largest acquisition since it was separated from Time Warner in 2009.

    The deal will allow AOL to greatly expand its news gathering and original content creation, areas that its chief executive, Tim Armstrong, views as vital to reversing a decade-long decline.

    Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.

    By handing so much control over to Ms. Huffington and making her a public face of the company, AOL, which has been seen as apolitical, risks losing its nonpartisan image. Ms. Huffington said her politics would have no bearing on how she ran the new business.

    The deal has the potential to create an enterprise that could reach more than 100 million visitors in the United States each month. For The Huffington Post, which began as a liberal blog with a small staff but now draws some 25 million visitors every month, the sale represents an opportunity to reach new audiences. For AOL, which has been looking for ways to bring in new revenue as its dial-up Internet access business declines, the millions of Huffington Post readers represent millions in potential advertising dollars.

    I think another disastrous purchase for AOL. But, I for one, could care less about the LEFT and its journalistic spin off operations.

    And, Arianna?

    Please.

    If I had all of that divorce oil money from Michael, I would park it on a beach some place.


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  • Harry Reid,  Hugh Hewitt,  Jim DeMint

    Audio: Obama-GOP Tax Deal to be Filibustered by Senator Jim DeMint

    South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint on the Hugh Hewitt Show

    Guess the LEFT is NOT the only ones who do not like the Bush Era Tax Cut Deal between President Obama and the GOP Senate leadership. I don’t know of any other GOP Senator who will not vote for cloture tomorrow but there will be others from the Democrat side for sure.

    DeMint argues:

    Senator JimDeMint just announced on my program that he will oppose the deal as well as a vote for cloture on the deal.  He is reluctant to criticize GOP Senate leadership, but believes the deal at a minimum has to be paid for, and that we need “a permanent economy” not a temporary one as well as permanent tax cuts, not temporary tax cuts.

    Senator DeMint also expressed disappointment with the House GOP’s elevation of Hal Rodgers and Spencer Bachus to key committee chairmanships, noting that the revolution of 1994 failed in part when the old guard took control of committees despite the huge freshman class.

    The machinations of this deal continue, including Harry Reid appending an online poker bill to it.

    But, remember either it passes or taxes will increase for everyone on January 1.

    Stay tuned…….

  • Arianna Huffington,  Rudy Giuliani

    Video: Rudy Giuliani PWNS Arianna Huffington

    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    Via Allah Pundit but the whole video is too good to not reproduce here.

    Rudy really makes Huffington look like an idiot and he didn’t even have to mention her former and gay husband’s disastrous race for California U.S. Senate or her inherited wealth from the divorce.

    Geeez and this moron is throwing stones in whose glass house?


  • Blogging Matters,  Blogosphere

    Sitemeter to Revert to Former System

    sitemeter-roll-back

    Thank goodness.

    Flap logged into the new system and it crashed my Firefox after looking around at their new stats system briefly. From what I saw it was complicated and unintelligible. Flap was going to rely on Google Analytics and look for a new blog stats system tomorrow.

    Then, Flap just as he noticed other bloggers having problems, my Yahoo Sitemeter widget began to work and that a notice was up that they were rolling back Sitemeter to their former system.

    Sitemeter as it is presently configured is fine. Thanks for listening to your users – at least for now.


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  • Blogger,  Blogosphere,  Day By Day,  Google

    Day By Day by Chris Muir July 1, 2008

    daybyday070108

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Google and the Blogger platofrm definitely have egg on its face for their treatment of the anti-Obama blogs. But, do they have a valid “EXCUSE” for their incompetence?

    A “kerfuffle” over the blocking of some blogs by Google — all of them “anti-Obama” — seems to be mostly over. The blogs have been unblocked and Simon Owens at Bloggasm, who had followed the developments, says that those who suspected a conspiracy led by supporters of Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama to shut down blogs critical of their man “might be feeling a little silly right now.” Google’s explanation for the blockings is that it’s spam filters mistakenly got tripped.

    Google owned Blogger’s explanation is here:

    Hi there,
    On behalf of the Blogger Team, I want to apologize for the recent trouble you’ve had with your locked blog. Automated spam detection is not yet a perfect science, and although we are constantly working to improve our tools, it appears that our filters have caused some Blogger accounts to mistakenly be blocked from creating new posts.

    While we are still investigating, we believe this may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the “Just Say No Deal” network of blogs, which in turn caused our system to classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam.

    Regardless, we have restored posting rights to your blog, and it is very important to us that Blogger remain a tool for political debate and free expression.

    So once again, we apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience as we looked into the problem.

    Sincerely,
    The Blogger Team

    Flap loathes censorship and disruptions. And, I moved to my own blog hosting over three years ago so that I could be the master of my own blog destiny.

    If bloggers want a “FREE” platform then they need to remember that there is no free lunch.

    The will need to move their blog.

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  • Daily Kos,  Joe Biden,  John McCain,  President 2008

    John McCain’s Teeth

    Daily Kos screen capture courtesy of LGF

    Notwithstanding the fact that John McCain was tortured and lost many teeth during his Vietnam POW captivity, but John McCain is 71 years old.

    Should Markos want McCain to have the teeth of a 30 year old? Then, the low class POS Kos would criticize him for wasting his money on a “fountain of youth” strategy to cover up his age.

    Flap has many dental patients who prefer to allow their smiles to age to show their “natural” character. I suppose it is the same with hair color. Some prefer to dye their hair or not as some prefer to bleach their teeth or whiten them with porcelain veneers.

    Now, what this has to do with ANYTHING in the Presidential race is beyond Flap unless American voters are selecting the President with the most photogenic PHONY smile.

    And, we all know who wins this contest:

    Joe Biden


  • Day By Day,  John McCain,  Michelle Malkin,  President 2008

    Chris Muir Watch: It PAYS to Comment for John McCain

    Sienfeld – Soup Nazi – NO SOUP FOR YOU!

    Michelle Malkin explains the background of Chris Muir’s Day By Day cartoon of today.

    John McCain’s “point” system for blog comment trolls is now a running joke across both sides of the Internet. RedState skewers the program here.

    Here is Chris Muir’s cartoon from this morning:

    daybyday052308

    Well, so much for enthusiasm in the conservative blogosphere for McCain who prefers “SOCK PUPPETS” to discussion of policy – especially that which may be critical of him.

    Didn’t we see the same when McCain “blew Up” at Senator John Cornyn over the illegal alien amnesty bill last May? Not a pretty display of class for McCain.

    Guess it is better to be safe than criticized.

    Get those points and sock puppets ready or NO SOUP for you.

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    It PAYS to Comment for John McCain