Peoria Pundit

The guy who runs Chi-Town Daily News — an all online news site — is causing a mini-sensation with his assertion that with as little as $2 million a year, his site could create a newsroom that could replace the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. I’m not going  to argue with his numbers,* but I agree with his premise.

I’ve been saying this for years.

Online distribution of the news is vastly more efficient, more user friendly and far less expensive than newspapers. The value in a newspaper is NOT that is printed on paper. It’s value is in the news itself. But the companies that own newspapers base their profits on the fact that it costs too much money for anyone to compete with them. Then the Internet came along and buggy-whipped that business model. Now, newspapers are tossing all their content online for free, thus making it hard for anyone else to come along and compete with online start-ups that are funded with small subscription fees.

* Actually, I think the guy is kidding himself if his thinks the costs of lawyers, accounts, etc. is going to be negligible. And he may not be spending money on a staff that sells ads, but public radio and television DO have employees devoted to doing nothing but talking people and organizations out of their nickles and dimes. And some of their support comes from taxpayers.

A buddy and I sat down once and jotted down on a napkin how much we estimated it would cost per year to operate a for-profit online news organization with two full-timers and a handful of part-timers and interns. It was close to $100,000 as I recall. Meanwhile, a handful of citizen journalists in Peoria is doing a halfway decent job watching the watchers already.

I’m tired of saving, scrimping, settling for less so that the government can go freakin’ nuts with my money.

The following Blog Peoria Network blogs updated on Monday:

• Peoria Pundit
• It’s Billy’s Blog
• The American Guesser
• Peoria Illinoisan
• A Dark And Quiet Room
• Askewed News
• Morton Malaise
• Angie’s Drama

Peoria Pundit received some incoming link love from Secret Server, Drying Ink, Marathon Pundit and Capitol Fax.

I have new posts at American Guesser, It’s Billy’s Blog and the Blog Peoria Network homepage.

The blog Legal Insurrection has posted a handy list of blogs that are all over the Rod Blagojevich mess. No, Peoria Pundit is not on the list, nor would I expect to be there. There are so many other blogs that are focusing on this issue.

Hat tip: Bill Barr.

Commenter Mahkno used to post to a blog called INTP. His last post was in December 2006. 

Well, that used to be his last post. I clicked on it by accident and discovered he made a post a few days ago. Unfortunately, it’s only a YouTube video.

Here’s hoping he starts adding to the blogosphere again

UPDATE: OK, I’m a little slow. He’s apparently starting a new blog: Now I Am Nothing. Just one post there, too: Another YouTube video.

Some advice for all your young bloggers out there: Beware the seductive power of embedded YouTude vids. Sure, it’s a quick was to add content, but people want to read sometimes, ya know?

I’ve opened just about every single blog operating in the Blog Peoria Network, and all seem to be up and running.

There’s one with a glitch that’s putting a error message on top of his site, but the blog is working at least. I have an asking for assistance with this error message on the WordPress forum. We’ll get it licked. And this member bloggers knows all about it, so if you haven;t notified me about a glitch, then I need to be informed.

Why so long? Well, you know how they tell you that nameserver changes sometimes take up to 36 hours to take effect? Well, that’s the truth. We needed for blogpeoria.com to take effect before some routine, post-migration troubleshooting could be done.

And all seems to be well.

Please let me know if you see any problems.

I can now concentrate on content, rather than nuts and bolts.

On Tuesday, I’ll be moving the site to its new server. As soon as the migration is complete, I’ll point the domain name to the new IP and all will be right with the world.

So, I highly recommend no one post any article after 8 a.m. on Tuesday. Posting of new articles can commence after I give the all clear.

I’ll ask BlogPeoria bloggers to post articles on their own sites telling their regular readers about the change.

Remember, you might be able to see any Blog Peoria blog, but that doesn’t mean any posts made on Tuesday will appear one the move is complete.

The benefits of the move will be as follows:

• Much faster loading times.
• Less down time.

Every single WordPress expert I’ve talked to about the issues affecting this site are amazed it operates on a shared server. I’ve running on a fairly well-loaded virtual private server (the most expensive they offer). If this doesn’t work, the next step is a managed dedicated server.

UPDATE: Any blogger on the Blog Peoria Network who did not receive an email from me today, please email me at peoriapundit AT gmail DOT com.

Laura Petelle has some good news on her site.

Peoria Pundit is not my only blog.

One of the blogs I operate is called The American Guesser. Its name comes of a pen name Ben Frankin used to advocate for American independence. So to maintain the tradition, I use a pen name on the site, although the “About” page makes it clear it’s me doing most of the writing.

The site is about third parties and issues related to individual freedom. Here are some posts I put up today:

• Now, where did those votes run off to, hmmm?
• Constitution Party to hold special convention in Peoria in January
• Good news, bad news regarding Obama and free speech
• Consensual high school sex play gets woman 12 years on sex offender list