SabresBeat Posted March 31, 2007 Report Posted March 31, 2007 I said earlier in the week that there was some things happening behind the scenes here that resulted in my deciding to finally commercialize this blog. What prompted that decision was an e-mail from Eric McErlain at Offwing Opinion, who asked me to join him and 4 others (James Mirtle, JD Press from Japer’s Rink, Jes Golbez from Hockey Rants, and Tyler Derrow from mc79hockey) to be the first 6 bloggers at the NHL extension to AOL’s Fan House Sports blog, which is currently the biggest sports blog in terms of traffic in the whole of the web. Last month = 9 million hits. By comparision this blog had it’s best month at just over 20,000. Eric, savvy guy that he is, titled the e-mail “How would you like to get paid for blogging?” Well, yeah, of course I would. Even craftier that Eric, he said that he was putting together what he considered his “All-Star Team” of bloggers. Well, y’all know that flattery will get you nearly everywhere with me, so, how could a shameless media like myself say no? The truth is that I was flabbergasted and humbled. Eric is in another world from myself and has nearly created this end of the blogosphere single-handedly, blogging about hockey before anyone else thought to use the two words together in a sentence that didn’t evoke laughter. For him to consider me for this project really meant a lot to me. I’ve had a long time to think about this as it’s unfolded and there’s a ton of people who I owe a great deal of thanks to, including, but not limited to, my mates at HFBoards (both the ones I have and have not had some less-than-friendly encounters with… I’m always a better hockey observer afterwards), Scott Sarama who had the foresight to extend this blog an offer of a real home, Matt Doak for his dedication to all things Buffalo Sabres, picking up my slack, and an endless running commentary via Y!IM, Kevin at Matt at Bfloblog for doing the heavy lifting in building the Buffalo community in the blogosphere (not a strong point here at SR, honestly), the occassional contributors like Mark Fagin and, of course, the real reason why I do this, those who stop by and read this site everyday or just on occasion. The wife’s support and constant harping on the lax editorial control exercised by yours truly always keeps me on my toes. With the playoffs around the corner and the Fan House ramping up, I hope to welcome a whole bunch of new people to the discussion here and around the the general blogging community. I’m excited and energized for this in a way that I haven’t been since I first started publishing this blog in July 2005. If any of you haven’t taken the time to do so, please sign the guest book and give us your feedback and your story. Ta, http://www.sabresreport.com/blogs/?p=458
Stoner Posted March 31, 2007 Report Posted March 31, 2007 Why are "bloggers" getting so much attention and credibility? Because someone came up with a cool name for what many of us have been doing since the mid 1990s? Tom, for you to say this "Eric" dude is The Heavenly Father of online hockey talk is as ludicrous, as execrable you could say, as, well, Al Gore saying he invented the Internet. I think I have this blogging thing figured out. It perplexed me for a long time. But it's now apparent that it's about "recentralizing" discussions online, de-democractizing the Net ? made-up words, but I think they work. A few commentators receive power and exclusivity ? and the mainstream media attention they crave ? and come to places like this only to go slumming and trolling for attention and clicks. Honestly, seriously... Tom, good riddance. SDS, bringing a blogger on this board was a bad idea. Furthermore, now that it's been revealed that this guy's in it for the money now, IMHO the posters on this board should be spared any more of this. No one here cares about making a Buffalo nickel on our love for the Sabres. As usual, I am probably in the minority here. But maybe not. The usual lack of replies to any of these "blog" posts is pretty telling.
inkman Posted March 31, 2007 Report Posted March 31, 2007 PA, who peed in your cheerios this morning? :lol: Why are "bloggers" getting so much attention and credibility? Fixed. I can't say I know anything about blogging, bloggers or blogs other than I started hearing the words a while ago and never paid attention to them. It seems like since the need for info is at an all time high, opinionated mercenaries shoot off their blogs and the masses gobble them up. It never became more apparent than during the trade deadline chaos. Every self proclaimed hockey pundit would pipe-off about their so called sources giving them the latest trade rumblings. Then fans, in their undying need for the latest trade possiblities would lend credibilty to these made up opinions by spreading them all over message boards, however much crediblity could ever be associated with that.
Stoner Posted March 31, 2007 Report Posted March 31, 2007 PA, who peed in your cheerios this morning? :lol: Fixed. I can't say I know anything about blogging, bloggers or blogs other than I started hearing the words a while ago and never paid attention to them. It seems like since the need for info is at an all time high, opinionated mercenaries shoot off their blogs and the masses gobble them up. It never became more apparent than during the trade deadline chaos. Every self proclaimed hockey pundit would pipe-off about their so called sources giving them the latest trade rumblings. Then fans, in their undying need for the latest trade possiblities would lend credibilty to these made up opinions by spreading them all over message boards, however much crediblity could ever be associated with that. Special K. On sale at Tops this week for $3 for the big box. I had to cross check Goli out of the way to get the last box. I guess the strikethrough of the word "credibility" is warranted. At least in the political realm, the bloggers are given much credibility in the mainstream media. Especially during the last couple of election cycles, they could be found all over FNC, CNN etc. Then again how can the mainstream media lend credibility to anyone when they have so little. Actually, I've had a chance to think this over and I want to clarify something. I will stand behind 90% of what I wrote up there, but I don't think it was fair or accurate to say that Tom is actively posting here. These posts are "autocreated" and come from the blog page itself. My beef regarding the posts here is with SDS.
inkman Posted March 31, 2007 Report Posted March 31, 2007 Special K. On sale at Tops this week for $3 for the big box. I had to cross check Goli out of the way to get the last box. He's too busy recycling the milk used in the cereal to be out buying any cereal.
X. Benedict Posted March 31, 2007 Report Posted March 31, 2007 If any of you haven?t taken the time to do so, please sign the guest book and give us your feedback and your story. Ta, http://www.sabresreport.com/blogs/?p=458 good luck.
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