neonvincent

I've been a regular commenter over at Kunstler's blog for years, but I haven't been much of a participant over at The Archdruid Report until the past few weeks. There were three reasons for this. First, John Greer he Archdruid wasn't giving me what I couldn't already get at Kunstler's blog or The Oil Drum. Second, his comments are heavily moderated, while Kunstler's are only weakly so. Third, while he posts Wednesday P.M., he's just not a predictable as Kunstler. The latter two meant that I couldn't lure readers from his blog the way I could Kunstler's. So, I read when I had the opportunity, but didn't comment.

This year, that all changed. First, Kunstler moved from Peak Oil to finance. Then, The Oil Drum closed down. Finally, The Archdruid moved to a topic that he is uniquely suited to address, the role of belief systems in societies and how resource depletion would affect both societies and their beliefs. It was enough that, after two years, I finally found something of Greer's that I could feature on my blog, the description of civil antireligions in The Fate of Civil Religion that I excerpted and commented on to compose The Archdruid on Objectivism as civil antireligion. Then, he wrote an essay that I actually had something to say in response to, An Old Kind of Science, which I turned into A conversation with The Archdruid for the Solstice. The next week, he engaged in A Christmas Speculation, in which he called the GOP a bunch of closet Satanists who were hiding their true beliefs behind their devotion to Ayn Rand. I commented on that and converted the result into A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP. I despise Objectivism, and couldn't resist a comparison between it and an unpopular religion. After all, two years ago, I posted Objectivism and Scientology: a sublime to the ridiculous comparison.

So, Greer isn't directly good for driving traffic. He is good for inspiring my writing, which is proving to be good for bringing readers in. I posted a link to the most recent entry about the Archdruid to Kunstler's blog this morning. So far, I've pulled in 400+ page views to that post, moving it up to the second third most read entry this calendar year and the ninth most read in the history of the Crazy Eddie's Motie News. That only took 12 hours. I think I'll keep reading and responding to The Archdruid after all.

On August 1st, I made the following promise on Dreamwidth.

That concludes this irregular status update. Next one whenever I pass 500 on Twitter, 450 on Facebook, 150 on Daily Kos or LiveJournal, 50 on Dreamwidth, or 25 on any of the other services, whichever comes first. If it's Crazy Eddie's Motie News passing 25, I'll crosspost it there, too.

As you can tell both from the bolding and that you're either reading it on Crazy Eddie's Motie News or you're seeing the "crossposted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News" notice while reading it on Dreamwidth or LiveJournal, my Blogspot/Blogger followers hit 25. I'm actually a bit late, as the event happened late last week (thank you John Henry for being the 25th follower), but I had a good excuse--it's final exam time. Notice that my posting rate slowed down early this week, as I was grading. Final exams are now graded, so it's time to post the next update.

Twitter: 478
Facebook: 423 (was as high as 424)
Daily Kos: 140 (still down from 141)
LiveJournal: 124
(down from 125, although the person who defriended me is now subscribed to me on Dreamwidth)
Huffington Post: 107 fans and 106 friends
(I've had this account for a while, but never got around to including it until now)
Dreamwidth: 41
Crazy Eddie's Motie News: 25
YouTube: 18 friends and 12 subscribers
(I could have more, but I'm not impressed by the people who try to friend me on YouTube)
Journalfen: 8 (no movement for months here)
Google+: 5 (New!)
Flickr: 1
Posterous: 1

Now I'm wondering if I should get a Tumblr account. The coolest kids seem to be on that service.

That concludes this irregular update. Next one whenever I pass 500 on Twitter, 450 on Facebook, 150 on Daily Kos or LiveJournal, 50 on Dreamwidth or Blogspot/Blogger, or 25 on any of the other services, whichever comes first.

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Last month was an eventful one for me on Twitter--and it started during the last few days of January, when I conversed briefly with a critic of coffeepartyusaon Twitter. He decided to harange me after a few exchanges, at which point I left. He considered it to be a win for him, but according to Klout and Empire Avenue, he did me a big favor.

Also, my wife and I got involved with the tweeting of news about the protests in Wisconsin. That also improved my standing on both social media ratings sites.

( The month in images from Klout and Empire Avenue behind the cut. )