Ventucky Santacon 12/21: Sleigh? No! Bike? Yo! Trolley? HO! HO! HO!
That’s right, the Ventucky Santacon will be mobile–a flock of Santas on bikes not sleighs flying your way Sunday December 21! Or else take the Ventura Trolley to hook up with Santa! What’s Santacon you ask? According to Wikipedia,
SantaCon is a mass gathering of people dressed in their various interpretations of Santa Claus costumes and performing publicly on streets and in bars in cities around the world. The focus is on spo
ntaneity, creativity, and the improvisational nature of human interaction while having a good time and spreading cheer and goodwill to all they come across.
Sometimes known in the U.S. as Naughty Santas, Cheapsuit Santas, Santarchy, Santa Rampage, the Red Menace and Santapalooza, SantaCon events are noted for cheerfully bawdy and harmless behavior, including Read more…
Fun Game: Throw Your Shoe at President Bush!
We have all heard about how a shoe was thrown at President Bush recently as a sign of disrespect. Lucky guy, huh! Now it’s your turn. Go here for an opportunity to throw some shoes of your own! I’ll tell ya from experience, it is very very satisfying!!
(NOTE: added 1/13/09–check out this post for a call to artists for a conceptual art show in Dallas–farewell shoes for Bush!)
SantaCon is coming to town 12/21!
SantaCon is coming to Ventucky Sun. 12/21 1pm!
Celebrate the first day of winter in style on a BIKE RIDE with Santa around Ventucky! (Make that MANY SANTAS!)
Return to this space for more details and instructions arriving DIRECT from SANTA himself any moment!! Slideshow, video, songbooks and more can be found here; the slideshows and video are great for ideas on how to get your own Santa on! More info here–including a link to learn how to make your own costume using red s
weats (conveniently on sale NOW at Target!) and faux fur and a glue gun! This could be you! Make your own faux fur beard or cut one out of a paper bag, glue on cotton balls, and pin it to a hat from the 99c store or a thrift store!
Poem: pray it is small
its smell informs: dead animal in the
house you follow your nose search possible
lairs no sign no sign no sign only wors
ening stink in life unknown in death dis
ruptive sending fugitives to your sleep
you deduce it inaccessible: deep
inside walls vents it insinuates its
self into the fabric of your clothes your
being light beeswax candles run the
fountain escape to other locales pray
it is small its carcass soon consumed flies
will plague you next
December 15, 2008 c. Art Predator aka Gwendolyn Alley
For other poems by other bloggers, ride the poetry train or check out Read Write Poem. For more poetry by Art Predator aka Gwendolyn Alley, go to my Poetry page for links.
So on and off for a week or so, I’ve been mining the September 2008 Technorati Report for stunning stats about the State of the Blogosphere: who, what, how, branding, and today, making money, aka “Blogging For Profit.”
Blogs are an increasingly attractive platform for advertisers. The majority of bloggers we surveyed have advertising on their blogs. Marketers realize that bloggers are creating high quality content and attracting growing, loyal audiences.
Bloggers with advertising are more sophisticated in terms of their use of tools, advertising platforms and even events to build reader loyalty. They also invest more resources (both time and money) in their blogs. We also analyzed the differences between the top 10% of bloggers in terms of ad revenue compared to the average blogger. Overall, this group exhibits the above behaviors but to a much higher degree.
Among the bloggers who currently do not have advertising on their site, the most common reason is lack of interest. Very few said that not knowing how to set up advertising was a barrier to accepting ads on their blog. Bloggers are savvy and self sufficient, so when they are ready to accept advertising they will have no problems figuring out how to best approach it for their blog.
Why don’t YOU (dear reader) have ads on your blog? Are you interested in monetization? or making money from blogging in one way or another?
Back to the Technorati Report–here’s someone who’s making enough money to be “financially” independent and sounds like he’s having a great time too: Read more…
State of the Blogosphere: Stunning Stats to Know & Tell
If the previous posts filled with stats about internet use and blogging caught your interest, you’ll also find this fascinating info from the blog of Dave Sifry (Technorati and more): Read more…
Santa Con is Coming to Town!
Santa Cons? Need you ask after the previous post? Of course it’s genesis and genious comes from the Cacophony Society who were there to instigate and participate in the early years of Burning Man. You gotta wear a suit! Here’s how to make one.
Watch some of the antics of LA’s Midnight Ridazz Santa Con Dec. 6, 2008 then click here to find a Santa Con near you! Read more…
Burning Man GIANT BRA interrupts BLOG
Yes that is a GIGANTIC BRA from Burning Man 2006 which you can see more of here.
Should you happen to have video, Amy is searching for some of it BEFORE she burned it. (I imagine she removed the valuable solar paneled shoulder straps first. Since I wasn’t on the Playa that year, I missed seeing it in the flesh, er, in person, er whatever; anyway, I wonder how it looked lit up?)
Burning Man Tarot Deck
Miss Magdalen is putting together a Burning Man tarot deck just in case you have any BMAN pics which might work. Or you might just want to check out the deck in process.
Need more Burning Man? Go see the photos of Gabe Kirchheimer some of which are on the Burning Man website (http://images.burningman.com), but his site has a larger selection: http://www.gabekphoto.com/portfolio/bm/burningman2008photos.htm including:
According to the latest edition of Jack Rabbit Speaks,
Our pre-sale of Burning Man tickets continues, so act now to get your favorite giftee a ticket to Burning Man for the holidays. Whether you celebrate Solstikwanzannakahmas … orrrrr just because it’s nice to gift things to people, it matters not. Get yours now, here: http://tickets.burningman.com Also, keep an eye on that very same web page, for this Friday, it will be populated with all the nitty gritty details of our impending full blown ticket launch, coming your way January 14, 2009. Yep.
Here’s more about this year’s theme, Evolution.
Now before we return you to your previously scheduled programming, the last two installments of STUNNING STATS about the STATE of the BLOGOSPHERE 2008–monetization and brands– I invite you to participate in a poll:
More Blogosphere Stunning Stats from Techonorati
Did you know 1 in 4 bloggers spends 10 or more hours each week blogging?
This section of Technorati’s September 2008 Report on the Blogosphere discusses the “HOW” of blogging: how much time we spend each week, what tools we use, how we attract visitors, how we track them, and how we keep them. You can find excerpts from the report below or read it all here.
How much time do you spend–more or less than average? How many posts do you put up a week? How do you get and keep readers on your blog? How do you fit into this picture?
I spend more time than average (I have no TV! and this includes time reading and commenting on other’s blogs), I try to post daily, I read and comment as much as possible and reciprocate with comments when people comment on my blog both for pleasure, interest, duty, and development of my readership, and I try to post a varity of items which I think will interest my readers and keep them coming back.
The following text, analysis, graphs and charts are from the Technorati Report. I will add at least one more post about the report soon.
Time Spent Blogging Each Week
One in four bloggers spends ten hours or more blogging each week, and about half spend more than five hours weekly on their blog. Only 15% of active bloggers spend less than one hour per week on their blog. Read more…
State of the Blogosphere 2008: Who Blogs? And Why? Do you see yourself in these stats?
- comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008)
- Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
- Facebook: 41.0 million | MySpace 75.1 million
- Total internet audience 188.9 million
- eMarketer (May 2008)
- 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of
- 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%)
- Universal McCann (March 2008)
- 184 million WW have started a blog | 26.4 US
- 346 million WW read blogs | 60.3 US
- 77% of active Internet users read blogs
ACCORDING TO TECHNORATI:
As the Blogosphere grows in size and influence, the lines between what is a blog and what is a mainstream media site become less clear. Larger blogs are taking on more characteristics of mainstream sites and mainstream sites are incorporating styles and formats from the Blogosphere. In fact, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs (see The Bivings Group).
The info above came from the Technorati State of the Blogosphere Report which came out in September 2008 and is based on info from 1000 bloggers. Do you see yourself in these stats? The complete article is here. Excerpts from the report follow.
Sincere, Conversational, Expert and Humorous are top blogging styles
We asked bloggers how they would describe their blogging styles. Although there is a perception of blogging as a means for writing a tell-all or gossiping about others, snarky and confessional were at the bottom of the list in terms of blogging styles. Half of bloggers consider their style to be sincere, conversational, humorous, and expert in nature.
Some differences emerged across all segments. International bloggers tend to be less conversational and snarky. Asian bloggers tend to be more motivational and confessional, while European bloggers are more confrontational. Women tend to be more conversational in their blogging style, while men tend to be expert. Finally, those under 34 are more confessional in their blogging style, while those over 35 are more expert in their style.
Fewer than one in five bloggers consider themselves snarky or confessional.
Blogging Style (% top 2 box agreement)
Self expression and sharing expertise are the top reasons for blogging
Self expression and sharing expertise are the top reasons for blogging followed by networking and gaining entry into the traditional media world. Career advancement and monetary reasons are cited by one in four bloggers as their motivations for blogging. “Other” reasons include: activism, book publicity, personal satisfaction, self promotion, share my passion, to become known as an expert, and our favorite: “to bake half-baked ideas.”
Why do you blog?
Personal satisfaction is the key success metric for three out of four bloggers Read more…
art predator 