Is TNF celebrating April Fool’s Day early: 
Those two whacky middle school bloggers at Jacob’s Posse are running a poll asking if
their two whacky blogger heros at Thursday Night Fever have sold out? (The Scene’s Jason Spragens
has some theories.) I’m guessing the Jacob Posse guys are missing Mr.
Roboto’s bikini art but suspect one of them will give a thumbs up to LJ. As for me, I don’t
believe TNF has technically sold out as — and this is just a theory, okay — they would would
actually have to receive some money or other consideration to be
bought.

Blogad’s Henry Copeland 24/7: Last Friday, I visited briefly
with Blogad’s founder Henry Copeland in D.C. and then on Saturday (or
was it Sunday?), we ended up sitting next to one another in a session
in Austin and got to continue our conversation. And today, John Hawkins has an interesting interview (via: Patrick Ruffini) with Henry. And now, tonight, Dave Winer says that audio.weblogs.com has two ads from blogads “and it’s not chump change either (but) some real serious money.”

Like Dave, I like the way this feels.

(Note: While I’ll continue to stay
ad-free here on the rexblog, it’s fairly well-known that I support the
whole advertising business model thing.) 

And the winners again are: As I
said earlier, a server switch meant some of the posts I made yesterday
were lost, including a link to the winners of the Neal Awards. Today,
Folio:’s Dylan Stableford reports on the awards
and just because he quotes someone who whines about a certain company
winning so many awards doesn’t mean I agree (of course, it doesn’t mean
I don’t). (Disclosure: yesterday, a magazine from that certain company
won the Neal in a category in which a certain magazine I am associated
with was a finalist — for the second year in a row!)

Magazine high life: From the Boston Phoenix: “There are three questions people ask Rick Cusick when they learn he’s an editor at High Times magazine. “How did you get your job at High Times?” “Can you get me a job at High Times?”"Can you get me some weed?” (via: Romenesko)

After almost four years of blogging these sorts of things, I feel fairly confident in observing that Make Magazine has received more press coverage than any start-up magazine I’ve followed. (Perhaps Radar Magazine “start ups” have received more, but since it has started-up so many times, I’m not counting it.) While other magazine’s startups have been blog-savvy (Worthwhile, for instance), the folks at Make are providing the benchmark for how the blogosphere can help provide buzz-magic for a magazine launch.

I am not suggesting they had a “strategy” for using the blogosphere. Indeed, I think a big part of their success at using the blogosphere can be attributed to it being so natural for all those involved, from the publishing company’s CEO to its editors, writers and readers. Nothing about the use of blogs and bloggers in the launch of Make smacks of being “contrived” or “manufactured” or gimmicky. It has been merely a natural use of the blogosphere that, when analyzed, is nothing short of inspired.

For the record, I’ve said many times since the day I first heard about it, Make sounds like a winner to me. Last October, months before its launch, I blogged this about Make:

“Seriously, though. If I were someone who gives out awards for most notable magazine launches of the year, I would go ahead and pre-award the 2005 “best of show” to Make…Make magazine will be a huge success: take it to the bank.”

Here are some things (besides my earlier observation about it being natural, not contrived) that I believe helped Make generate buzz, first on the blogosphere, and now, offline.

First and foremost, it’s a great concept from a great publisher, executed with finese. They have over-delivered on their promise to publish a great magazine in a creative format — helping bring to the U.S., a new publishing genre in the process, the “mook” (magazine-book).

The editor-in-chief is a superstar blogger among the magazine’s intended audience, Mark Frauenfelder, co-founder/blogger of Boing-Boing.

The publisher of the magazine had the savvy to allow Mark to break the news of the magazine launch on Boing-Boing.

The magazine is filled with really cool articles that happen to be written by some of the most popular bloggers among the intended audience of the magazine. Folks like, well, take your pick.

They’ve loaded down their website with lots of blogger-centric features (an awesome group-blog, trackbacks, technorati cosmos searches, various RSS tricks).

Before hitting the “main stream media,” the magazine received the type of blogger coverage that is usually only seen when Apple announces a new product.

And, here’s a hunch on my part that I can’t document, I just “feel” deep-down at some visceral level: the cult of Mac (of which I formerly was a member) embraced early the magazine as an object of worship. Again, this is strictly a theory.

Just noticed that I blogged into a void yesterday: The
rexblog underwent some maintenance yesterday, including a server
switch. While stuck at LaGuardia, I made several posts that aren’t
showing up. I was warned this would happen. If you saw a post yesterday
that’s no longer here, that’s why. If you missed them, don’t worry. No
biggie.

Blog late day: Back in Nashville, but digging out. Back blogging later today. Oh, yeah. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.