Fine Fools Community

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

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.

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.

I’m not one to miss crazes so when Derek Lakin came to me proposing that he write on Web 2.0 stuff I knew for sure I had to start a Web 2.0 site. Are you tired of seeing Web 2.0 in this entry well if so then go on over to the Web 2.0 blog and ignore everything Web 2.0.

Derek is a very smart guy and his entries over at Bill’s Baby have been making quite a splash in the developer community (more on that later) and I look forward to working with him on the Web 2.0 blog. Work with him you say? Yes indeed, Scrivs will be doing some writing on Web 2.0 and what it means for all of us because I like talking about stuff in which I really have no idea what I am talking about.

Should be fun.

Redd Omaha. Coolest name for an author is Fine Fools so far. Authors The Song Blog. Take a guess what the site is about? Anyways, the site like all the rest is in its beginning stages so we will give Redd sometime to get his feet wet and then we can start arguing who the best Hip-Hop artist of all-time is or the most influential.

Anyways, drop by and see what’s up because the site isn’t really just about music…

Haven’t done a case study on Fine Fools in a while so now is a good a time as any to see where things are going.

• Gardgy: 72,670/51/31
• Hollyshow: 123,067/23/20
• Work Boxers: 10,594/234/126
• Love Translated: 104,518/34/23
• Escape Blog: 46,377/91/44
• Bill’s Baby: 116,227/38/21
• Insert 25: 39,204/87/50
• Sports Four: 104,518/30/23
• Successful Blog: 7,124/392/169
• Damn I’m Cute: 64,064/54/34
• Proud White Trash: 130,346/19/19
• I Like Cameras: 25,566/175/69
• It’s Useless: 60,090/60/36
• Chef Vault: 69,738/41/32
• A Man’s View: 147,657/32/17
• Jack of All Blogs: 13,120/167/107

Two blogs have been put in detention (Songossip and Movable Phone) because they weren’t being updated enough and I don’t want to pollute this network with too many useless blogs. Having JOAB is more than I can handle anyways.

Obviously a lot of the sites need some work and what I am finding is that the sites that are the most successful are the ones that can combine original content with outside links. Without the outside links more promotion is needed in other ways. The outside links serve as their own form of promotion and seem to have people coming back. Also the sites where owners are run by just one writer seem to be doing better than the group blogs. I attribute this to the fact that a single writer can hold a single focus while group blogs have to do a better job of collaborating together, which means I have to do a better job of giving them the chances to do so.

Also Technorati ranking helps to give a small indication of traffic, but just because you are higher ranked doesn’t mean you are receiving more traffic. With the new designs popping up on sites over the coming weeks it will be interesting to see their effect on traffic.

So far I am still taking all of this as a learning experience. Liz and David have shown me more about properly running and promoting a blog than anybody else this year and the content that is coming out of some of the sites brings up some interesting options for those writers to make money in 2006.