I was writing a comment for (e:zobar,89) and it turned into this entry.

Well, having dealt with the news a bit, it seems that "The News" does not search for what is going on but rather relies on PR directors telling them what the news is. Frankly, I think that is a kind of skewed way of reporting about what is going on but everyone I have talked with that has real media experience says that it is just the way things work. Now that we have a director (e:theecarey) , maybe she can do a little stuffing on our part.

Considering how overwhelming active and alive our comunity is and the fact that we have over 15,000, ~13,000 images and over 3,600,000 views with little or no advertising other than word of mouth - it is amazing that we exist pretty much off the radar. I would say that it is 100% a lack of effective public relations. I have never had any interest in doing it myself.

On the other hand, it has worked well for us in a way, because we have not had much trouble getting enough members to keep to alive and exciting, while avoiding the mainstream myspace/livejournal crowd. I mean we were in the news a couple of times and honetsly, what kind of validation is being in the Buffalo News.

I think being in artvoice would be 1000 times more effective andexciting. It is something I have thought about a lot. Originally, I thought just being hosted by artvoice would make a difference. I am kind of surprised that Jamie Moses wouldn't want to pimp out our existence more to demostrate the benevolence of artvoice. I mean, the service that artvoice provides us, probably makes them the single largest contributor to any non-commerical online public space in Buffalo. If it were me I would brag about my good will ;)

Sometimes I think it is my strict anti-commerical stance that keeps us under the radar. Othertimes, I think it is the fact that we mix news with personal lives and so the outlets that try and emulate the "real news" (including the buffalo news, lol) frown upon that as tabloidesque frivolity.

Then there is the fact that some people try and keep their real lives separate from their journal life because of whatever it is they are confessing. It is a mix of wanting to share and wanting to remain private. As I said in my thesis. It is a combination of wanting to be present and involved while avoiding public scrutiny.

Frankly, we have had one of the most lively community based blogging site that I have seen. Especially for a town of this size. So I say if the news and other media outlets don't notice us without us telling them and shoving it in their face, then they obviously are not attuned to what is going on their city.

Even without being "noticed" today, we will continue to sew the quilt our existence until one day it is so large and old that historians will notice just how fanctastic we really are.

Maybe next year when they have their bloggerCon we should just show up with 100 (e:peeps).

point your links to estrip
First thing first. If you have your own website or some other place where you post links, please make sure to point your links to estrip.org. The more people that points their links here, the faster we take over who ever estrip medical is in the google rankings.

bumper stickers
Okay, so here is the deal. Is it more important to have your URL in your bumper sticker or a small keyword people can type into google. If you go to google and type (e:strip) with the colon we come up right away so maybe that is best. Plus it adds the extra step of discovery for the people who type it in, making it a little more fun for them.

So which design should it be? My fav is the first one with the parathesis. Also if anyone know a local shop where we could get this done, I would much rather support local busines than order them on the internet.







Thank you to all the people who made generous donations to make this possible. A special thanks to (e:olemanrunin) who made the largest single donation we ever had at (e:strip).

I am going to order the bumper sticker very soon, if anyone is gonna donate now would be a good time.

Well, (e:kara) our new Public Relations director and I were talking about some improvements for getting estrip out there and one of the things was bumper stickers. I had put it off for a while because elmwoodstrip.org was too long for the design I wanted. For about 4 years I wanted to call the site estrip.org but I couldn't buy it as someone had it reserved. Then when talking with (e:shawnr) I checked estrip out at godaddy and it was for sale so I bought it.

Soon you will be able to get here by typing estrip.org into your browser. But best of all it is just the right length for the new bumper stickers. They will look something like this. I might change the font but tahoma is what I use for estrip so it makes sense.



I designed them two color so we should be able to get away with around $100, if we raise more money, I will just buy additional bumper stickers

If you would like to donate to the bumper sticker fund, please click on the donate link above the latest entries list and donate whatever you can via paypal.

Sidenote: I got rid of the userpic control panel. It's back to clicking on your userpic to change it.