The Adventures of Almost Hank & Kpaul

Well, The Adventures of Almost Hank & Kpaul Episode 16 Slidecast seems to be garnering some positive response. The advertiser, though, appears not to have even seen it yet (although he saw the pics seperately on the website.) I think a problem with selling these smaller operations is that they're not very hip to online. I have another bar owner, though, who *is* online, despite her age, so maybe there are some out there until the national ad revenue picks up some.

Anyway, I'm looking for opinions on my ongoing Slidecast - The Adventures of Almost Hank & Kpaul, especially episode 16.

Even better, though, is the small bursts of activity on the Muncie Free Press Classifieds front. The listings for the car lot (even unoptimized - or maybe because they're unoptimized?) are ranking high in Google. He's gotten one call already for a high dollar Beamer. Very, very good.

I need to show that to the real estate guy I'm trying to sell, though. He's hesitant to drop money on MFP, I think, because of our small traffic. While I of course can't guarantee search engine traffic, it's looking pretty good with the classifieds coming through slowly.

There's still so much to do. Last night was primaries. I had the info up by 9:30 pm, IIRC. The Delaware County Clerk and the TSP (local newspaper for those of you just joining us - owned by Gannett Inc.) both had the same results listed. It was CSS with the dimensions hardcoded. I really should've had a script ready for the data, but I didn't and ended up formatting it the best I could by hand.

Around midnight the traffic started pouring into the site, looking for who won the Yorktown Town Council spots, etc. Best Wednesday ever.

I also contacted Karen Wenger, the Delaware County Clerk and told her I'd also published the data and wanted to talk to her about working closer together in the fall. (who knows, maybe we'll have some sort of revenue stream by then and could hire a couple content or one sales person.)

She wrote back, which is good. I'm pretty sure she knew about the site already, but I need to start forging more relationships, I think.

I was just reminded of a quote by another local independent publisher online at the TSP forums:

In my observation, the characteristics of a "real journalist" would include:

1. must be an insatiable nib$h*t who likes typing, whether or not they employ the QWERTY method

2. must have a penchant for loose women, old cars, cheap cigars and expensive whiskey

3. knows on a first-name basis every significant low-life, criminal, black-market dealing and influence-peddling ne'er-do-well in his area, including many business owners, several insurance agents, a few local environmental activists, most politicians, all but three government employees and every last blues musician in residence.

4. and these days... must be a blogger.

Heh. Indeed.

I have to keep the hope. I have to keep the faith.

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