So I made an apology about Fine Fools last week but in no way was that a sign of the Network disappearing. Just don’t get things twisted. New 9rules tech comes out tomorrow and that will carry over to this Network so things are only going to get better.

I have failed. I have not met the expectations of some of the writers in this Network. Some feel that I have been simply playing a game and not taking this serious enough and therefore they are angry with me and if that is their point of view they have every right to be.

Cowboy quit because he just wasn’t happy with me and honestly there are many things I am not happy with involving this Network, but I understood why certain things were the way they were.

There are great writers in this Network. Did I not provide them with the means to being successful? Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. It’s hard to tell from the inside, but if you have people quitting then I guess you haven’t. I know that I am not the most popular person on the web and many people think of me as an “idiot” or someone who has no idea of what they are doing. Maybe you can now use Fine Fools as your proof.

Am I giving up on the Network? Nope, but I have given the writers the option of taking the url and content of their sites with them if they feel I haven’t lived up to my end of the bargain. Sorry, can’t give up the designs though. That means Cowboy can walkaway with his brand and content intact if he wants to. I am a lot of things, but I am not a person that doesn’t have values or likes to rip people off.

That’s why I created a network where you can write whatever you like, however many times you like (honestly who else would put up with Cowboy?). That’s why I took Rundle’s time away from him to make these beautiful designs and why I came up with such a lax Writer’s Agreement. Hell that’s why all the writers earn 100% of the contextual ad revenue on their pages. In the end though I guess there was a bit more I was supposed to do.

I’m sure though this Network will only become stronger due to what has happened and these lessons that I have learned. But then again the Blog Network doesn’t make the blogs, the blogs make the blog network.

If we had a CEO he would be wishing us all a Happy Festivus or something. Or giving Melissa Gira props for being the 3rd Sexiest Geek on the Planet. But our CEO is being held hostage in a cave with Osama Bin Laden’s niece so back to business keep producing content like its 1969. Our CEO is busy building a Sex Network for the handicapped or something.

So Happy Festivus on behalf of the executive slacker team of Fine Fools. I really appreciate all your hard work you haven’t done for us this year. Seriously.

Cowboy,
Chief Goof Officer
Fine Fools Community Network

I’m not sure what the “Boodle” is, but Successful Blog has it and the WashingtonPost recognizes it. Congratulations to Liz for getting some well-deserved recognition.

One of the sites that I am going to put a major focus on in the upcoming weeks is Chef Vault. The team over there has been doing a bangup job posting their recipes and other food tips. They don’t receive a great deal of traffic and that falls squarely on my shoulders. Now that some of the sites in this Network have got their momentum going it is easier to take focus away from them and help out the smaller blogs that deserve to be recognized just as much, if not more.

So with that I ask that if you are a reader of Chef Vault you head on over to the Accidental Hedonist and nominate them for the best Group Blog and New Blog if you feel they are deserving. By the time voting starts you can be sure they will have their new template up.

Today over at Work Boxers I wrote about the importance of design and getting links. In that entry I did a mini case study on Damn I’m Cute and the impact its new design has had on traffic. I also mentioned that today DIC would reach 100,000 pageviews for the month of December according to StatCounter.

I think what makes me most excited about this is that we are better able to leverage the traffic of one of the sites to push traffic to other Fine Fools sites. We have implemented a Network Headline bar at the top of DIC that displays the most recent headline from a FF site. We are adding this bar to every site in the Network to hopefully push more traffic around the Network and expose people to some sites they may otherwise ignore.

If you look at the two major blog networks, WIN and Gawker, you will find that each has a “flagship” site that helps push some traffic to other sites to help build them up. This is a great reason for the success of each of them. 9rules is successful because it is able to leverage the audience of sites that already exist and move those around the Network. Obviously Fine Fools doesn’t have that luxury and therefore it needed to take the WIN/Gawker approach and the first hurdle to doing that has been crossed I believe.

We are slowly pushing out the new designs to the sites and we should be able to finish the transition by early January. Very much looking forward to what 2006 will bring to the Fine Fools writers.

In a closed doors meeting with leading Democrats, and Paul Scrivens I have agreed to blog and blog often over here. And Scrivs will lift the suspension. In an effort to distract the liberals, and confuse the conservatives. While this isn’t my usual self maybe it will keep the comment whores from inciting a riot on the blogosphere. And burning down Scrivs mansion.

When was the last time a few readers got Jacked? A few seconds ago.

And yes Martin,and Nick it is a joke.

We have been messing with the servers as I mentioned before and all the sites should be functional with the exception of Jack of All Blogs. I have suspended the site until I speak with David Krug about his past actions and his constant attacking of all the other wonderful blog networks out there that continuously produce content that I can only dream of writing on my own. There is simply too much hate going on lately around the web and it is of my opinion that JOAB is the root of all this evil.

I am very close to posting the emails that I have exchanged with Cowboy publicly to show the world what he says about certain individuals. It amazes me that there is so much hate in one individual and if I would’ve known it was going to come to this I would have created a website for him other than JOAB. Maybe I would call it thatevilmotherfuckroverthere.com.

You may still be able to see the site, but that has to do with DNS issues. I don’t like writing on weekends so I must thank Mr. Cowboy for making me do so. Let’s hope we never meet face to face.

Having Sexerati on Fleshbot yesterday and then Damn I’m Cute on there today has not been kind to the server. Actually my shitty programming hasn’t been kind to the server. This isn’t about growing up too fast or whether I should pay the writers of Fine Fools or not (they pay themselves right now with the income from their sites). This is about me trying to create a network on a Microsoft Access Database…Access 97 no less! I have made some minor changes which should help, but I can’t upgrade to Access 10 till this weekend so please bear with us. I have to wait for my mom to hand over my allowance.

To all Fine Fools writers: Feel free to egg Cowboy’s house this weekend to get back at me.

What do I even say about this site besides that it makes me very happy to be part of it. Cowboy broke the writer to the masses on Sunday and if you don’t know about Melissa Gira, don’t worry because in a couple of months I think you will. This site was all her idea and I admit to just being there along for the ride.

So is it a Fleshbot-clone? Well I think it’s too early to tell, but we can definitely say that it fits in the same category as Fleshbot and if it achieves the success of Fleshbot you definitely won’t hear us complaining. So far the content is little more “fuller” than Fleshbot and being written by a female I do believe will give it a more erotic twist. Something about women being more erotic than men…

Hopefully from the title you can garner that the site isn’t safe for work so don’t blame us if you get in trouble. So ummmm, yeah, here is Sexerati. Enjoy. I know I will.