The Future of the 9th Frame (continued)

I'm back. (Temporarily at least.)

So I've been thinking about this blog and where I wanted to take it (if anywhere) now that the election is over. I proposed some options in my last post that generated several comments. Many thanks. I haven't made any decisions yet, but here are my thoughts right now:

A. Guest authors. Some people have mentioned contributing to this site for many months. I'm inclined to do this eventually, BUT I'm not sure how attention this blog would generate. The 7-10 is my main blog. It has far more subscribers and a far larger readership than The 9th Frame. If a guest poster put something up here, I'm not sure how many people would read it. The 7-10 is much closer to reaching critical mass. So until this blog becomes more established and more popular, I'm not inclined to open it up to guest authors because I don't want people to invest a lot of time contributing to a community that is not quite there yet. Of course, adding diverse content may be what draws people to the site in the future, but I don't yet have enough time to serve as a blog administrator. So the short answer is, I want to open this blog up to guest authors, but not just yet out of fairness to you, this blog, and my own schedule.

B. Continuing The 9th Frame as a part of The 7-10. This is not an option. The 7-10 is a syndicated blog and has a certain "brand image" to maintain. So I'm not really at liberty to start injecting snark and three-sentence posts there. Doing so would result in being dropped from Newstex and other blog aggregator/syndication sites.

C. Multimedia as a part of The 7-10. This is more of an aesthetics vs. convenience decision. The 7-10 loads very quickly. For readers who don't have broadband access or who have slow or disrupted internet connections, that blog works great as is. But I also understand that adding a bit of color in the form of multimedia may make it more visually appealing. What I do at The 7-10 now is simply provide links to the relevant pictures or videos. One site that is a hybrid of The 7-10 and The 9th Frame is a site based in Nebraska called Political Realm. That site provides mostly detailed analysis, but also includes a lot of multimedia elements and a few short posts. Sometimes Political Realm doesn't load as quickly because of all the videos there, however. But it's a very good site that I check regularly. The Rothenberg Political Report, created by professional political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, has no multimedia content whatsoever. That site looks more like The 7-10. My inclination is that political junkies are more inclined to look for sites like the Rothenberg Political Report, but more casual followers of politics are more interested in sites like Political Realm. The 9th Frame seems to have a different set of followers than The 7-10. So I'll really have to think about this.

D. Keep The 9th Frame, but update it less often. This is the direction I'm leaning in. I still have occasional thoughts to share, but updating this blog the way I was doing earlier this fall (3-5 posts per day!) is not going to happen anymore. To fill the void, I could add the guest posting element, but that brings me back to the amount of time I want to invest in this site.

E. Shut this blog down. That's not an option. Politics will always go on, and so should political blogging.

So basically, I'm likely to pursue Option D, but have not ruled out Options A and C. Thoughts?

The Future of The 9th Frame

The election is over. Like political bloggers everywhere, over the next few days I'll be reassessing my blogging in general and what I'll write about in the future.

I did not intend for The 9th Frame to be a permanent blog. There was just so much information coming out before the election that I couldn't write about in depth at The 7-10. So I created this sister blog as an "overflow" blog of sorts. You'll notice that I haven't even fully added the blogrolls like I did at The 7-10.

Now this blog has almost 250 entries in just a few short months. I don't anticipate keeping it in operation too much longer, but I'm not so sure I want to completely shut it down either. It looks like this blog has developed a small, but steadily growing base of readers. I don't want to leave them hanging. But it's really hard work maintaining two blogs. And because the peak of the political cycle is over now, there will be less news to write about. So it would seem that this blog would become a bit more boring.

Before I go any further, I want to tell you all that The 7-10 is not going anywhere. That's my main blog, and it has really grown over the nearly 2 years it's been in operation. If I had to give up a blog, I'd much rather give up The 9th Frame.

So I'm thinking. There are several options.

A. I could open up The 9th Frame to guest authors. Maybe I could turn this into a political community of sorts, although I wouldn't have the time to write a lot of entries of my own.

B. I could freeze this blog and just start integrating some of The 9th Frame's content into The 7-10. The 7-10 is not known for short pieces. But it doesn't have to be that way. But then again, my writings at The 7-10 are not characterized by snark and attitude. I don't want that snark in The 7-10. Another problem is that The 7-10 is syndicated. It might go against the terms of agreement I signed if I start pumping out a bunch of one-paragraph long posts instead of the lengthier pieces I'm accustomed to writing there.

C. I could integrate pictures and multimedia elements into The 7-10 like I do here. That's currently a text-only blog, but it doesn't have to be. But I want it to be a content-rich and hassle-free blog that loads quickly and has the content that keeps readers coming back for more.

D. I could keep this blog as is, but update it far less frequently. Maybe I'd update it once a day. Maybe not. But now that this election is over, this blog has a much lower priority than The 7-10 does, especially in light of all the other stuff going on in my life right now (e.g., THIS PHD PROGRAM!!!).

E. I could shut the blog down and just pretend it never existed. The 7-10 would go on as it does now.

I will leave this as an open thread. It's been fun, but things need to change a bit. What do you think?

One last bit of snark

[ sarcasm ]

It sure feels good to be a part of the majority of Americans who hate America and want an unpatriotic terrorist sympathizer and avowed socialist to be their next president.

[ /sarcasm ]

Let's hope the next 4 years are more promising than the last 8.

About political prognosticators

I'm looking at the remaining tossups: Montana, Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina. It looks like I might have called every state correctly in my final prediction on November 3. I predicted a 378-160 victory for Obama in the Electoral College. When checking the CNN political site, I found that the Billings area had not yet been counted in Montana, one of the counties in the Kansas City suburbs had not been counted in Missouri, Obama has a 50-49 lead in Indiana and a 50-49 lead in North Carolina with 99% of the precincts reporting.

I should have entered the Washington Post's prediction contest so I could win a free T-shirt.

Congratulations to President-Elect Obama and Joe Biden.

CNN is incredible

I am looking at Wolf Blitzer talking to correspondent Jessica Yellin. But she's not in the studio. She's a hologram. Absolutely incredible.

And political analyst Bill Schneider and Soledad O'Brien have a very interesting "virtual drawer" that displays exit poll information. Extremely comprehensive.

I like MSNBC's edginess when it comes to political coverage and I feel a personal bond with their analysts, but I have to say that CNN definitely has its act together.

Give Palin a break

Sarah Palin cast her vote this morning in Alaska. A reporter asked if she voted for convicted Republican Senator Ted Stevens. She said she would exercise her "right to privacy" and not tell anyone who she voted for.

Now, I am not a Palin supporter at all. I do not want her to be vice president. I have strong disagreements with her policy positions and lack of intellectual curiosity. But this is one instance where I think she is right to not have to announce who she voted for.

People want to see if she would either support a Republican who is guilty of corruption and risks contradicting her message of reform or if she would support a Democrat she might not agree with. Maybe she voted for Stevens. Maybe she didn't. It shouldn't matter. In the voting booth, we are all private citizens and shouldn't have to share these private choices with anyone.

More unpatriotic BS

Country music singer Hank Williams Jr. suggested that Obama doesn't like the national anthem at a recent Sarah Palin rally:

"You know, I'm usually at Monday Night Football tonight, but Colorado, this is a lot more important tonight. Join me now in our national--you know, that song that, uh, Mr. Obama's not real crazy about, we're singing it right now."

Palin did not say anything about the remarks when she took the microphone after Williams finished.

I am so sick of this BS. I sure hope that the people who believe this garbage rally behind Obama if he wins the election because, according to their own logic, they would be, uh, unpatriotic if they didn't. How unbelievably childish.

Who wants to be a Republican these days?

About classiness

One thing I've observed from watching Obama's rallies is this line he uses whenever the crowd starts booing (usually at the mention of Bush, Cheney, McCain, or Palin):

You don't need to boo. You just need to vote.

It's a very classy line showing a level of respect and decorum he wants to convey. Even if he doesn't win, I have to commend him for raising our level of political discourse. At the McCain-Palin rallies, these boos are allowed to continue. Obviously, there are knuckleheads at every rally regardless of political party, but to hear a candidate himself tell the crowd to stay classy is rare.

It signifies mature leadership.

More SNL funnies

I have to say, John McCain has a good sense of humor. I really wish this was the John McCain that was running this presidential campaign. I think he could be a genuinely likeable leader that voters would trust. But he tried to campaign like George W. Bush even though he's not George W. Bush.

Oh well.

McCain would be so much better for comedians than Obama, however.

Final prediction

My prediction: 378 Obama, 160 McCain

Obama will sweep every state north of the Ohio River and overperform in the South even if he doesn't flip any of the states there, aside from North Carolina. The Montana flip is based on Republican apathy in the event that the race gets called early for Obama on the East Coast. North Dakota is another state to watch, but it is in the Central Time Zone and maybe less susceptible to early blowout fatigue than Montana.