For those of you checking in for our daily post, be not discouraged, neither be ye afraid. In other words, we upgraded to WordPress 2.6 yesterday and it has disabled our ability to upload images. We'd rather not post without those colorful pics, so we're hoping to resolve the issue shortly. Check back in an hour or two and hopefully we'll be up and running again!

Popularity: 11% [?]

Yes, for those of you who have spent sleepless nights waiting for the moment when Culture Feast paraphernalia would FINALLY come available, be of good cheer! Your day has come! You can now purchase all kinds of worthless/awesome stuff online from Cafe Press. Everything from coffee mugs and t-shirts to clocks and journals. We know you're brilliant. We just want everyone ELSE to know. And what better way than to express your love of all things culture. Exactly. 

We know you'll love these products. There are only two logo variations right now, but we'll work on getting some more variety online as we go. Because hey, we want you to look good (while promoting our website). 

We're not really in it for the money. We just want to get the word out. Help us do that by proudly wearing your very own CultureFeast t-shirt or cap when you hit the town. And when people ask, "What the heck is Culture Feast?" You can smile, feel nice and superior, and tell them that it's only the coolest culture blog around. Hey! Tell them that even if it's NOT true! Good. Glad we agree. 

If you have any ideas of other ways we can promote CultureFeast to draw more readers, let us know. We're only human…. mostly. 

Popularity: 6% [?]

Technorati controls our fate. You can help us grow. Sure, make sure you go and vote in the primaries today. But why not take 2 minutes and make a REAL difference when you can?

Do you enjoy the daily content here on CultureFeast.com? Are you willing to spend less than two minutes to help us grow? 

If you answered Yes to both questions, let me first say that I love you. Now that you feel all warm and squishy, please go to Technorati.com and click the pink heart that says "Favorite It." It will take you to a page where you have to sign up for a profile, which takes less than two minutes. Once you're done, make sure you've added CultureFeast.com as a favorite by clicking that pink heart here: http://www.technorati.com/blogs/www.culturefeast.com.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

Not only am I a regular contributor to Culture Feast, but I am also a regular visitor to the site. I have noticed that the site is seriously lacking in some of the fundamental elements of blogs. I’m sure that there are some of you readers that don’t know what I’m talking about, so I will offer up a bit of an explanation.

The most noticeable missing component is the “crybaby factor.” The “crybaby factor” is what makes a blog go from informative or entertaining to somewhat annoying. There is nothing like a blog that starts out with, “Do you know what I really hate….” The only way those ever end is with the reading thinking, “what a crybaby” or “informative, but what is all the crying about?” So I am beginning the push for less informative and entertaining blogs from you all.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

If you haven't noticed yet, we've added polls in the middle column of the page just below the Recently Written article links. The polls rotate each time you visit, so hopefully we'll get to ask you all kinds of questions.

Why Poll the Readers?

Good question. The simple answer is: we want to know you. You are a solid 51% of our motivation for blogging, so we want to know what makes you tick. Not only is it informative for us, we think you'll like to know how other people think too. 

So check it out, vote your best answers, and we'll see how it goes. While I'm thinking of it, feel free to add a comment to this post with your suggestions for poll topics and questions. 

Keep it real. 

Popularity: 4% [?]

As a bit of good old fashioned randomness, I wanted to share with you the most popular topics our visitors search for that lead them to CultureFeast through search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, Ask). This in no way indicates which topics we cover the most often, but rather just which topics/pages of ours are popular and rank well. 

Papaya Clothing Stores
This topic has been the #1 driver of traffic in the history of CultureFeast. I saw an opportunity last year when Papaya's website had been "under construction" for six months. No one could find the nearest store without a functioning website, so we had Papaya shoppers from around the country post comments about the stores they knew of. The Papaya site is now live, yet we still get a LOT of traffic from Papaya fans.

97.1FM The Eagle Returns
The rock station everyone knows in DFW is back on the air after several years hiatus. Why they left the FM I do not know, but there are plenty of people searching for more info on the returning rock station. There's still a good-sized rock fan base here to necessitate a radio station. I'm still surprised they disappeared in the first place. Welcome back, Eagle. 

Taylor Glover Leaves Kidd Kraddick in the Morning
Who would have thought that Taylor was this popular? Well… me, for one. The third most popularly searched topic that led visitors to CultureFeast was the departure of Kidd Kraddick's spunky valley girl. The show has not recovered from her absence. It lacks the energy and spunk she brought to the show each day.

The Celebrity Apprentice
Apparently, people are so bored with the Writer's Strike that they find Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice to be worth investigating. I have nothing more to say about this show. I lost interest the moment I finished posting this article. 

Dolores O'Riordan
The former lead singer of The Cranberries is still big news, and apparently has yet to shed the trappings of Cranberries fame. Despite her quality debut solo album, Dolores is still known and appreciated most as the lead singer of The Cranberries. I've always been a huge fan of her voice. If you haven't heard her sing Ave Maria, go to iTunes and check it out. Every song involving her is worth hearing.

And because I can, here are some topical runner ups worth mentioning:

Penelope Trunk Interview and also mentioned here and here.
Little Ball of Hate (Jennifer Engle)
Kidd Kraddick mentioned several times, including here and here.
Dale Hansen
Randy Galloway
 

Popularity: 100% [?]

CultureFeast.com is in the midst of change… again. While I have been the primary contributer, we've had guest bloggers on occasion covering various topics. Guest posts will continue, and you'll still hear from me every week. In addition to more of the same, I've invited some bloggers to join the team to contribute weekly. The hope is to have at least one blog post from a new author each day of the week. 

One of the biggest complaints I've heard over the past two years has been that posting here has been sporadic. No one will keep your RSS feed in their feed reader if they don't get regularly updated content. That's going to change. CultureFeast is going to produce content every day of the week.

The second most common complaint has been theme… mainly, people wonder what ours is. The point of adding a few new bloggers into the mix is to give each one the opportunity to focus on a category. Some team members will still roam the open topic plains, but most will be known for one or two subjects tops, and those topics will be released on the same day of each week. That way you will know what days are best to visit based on your interests. 

I'm still looking at people, so contact me (daniel-at-culturefeast.com)or leave a comment if you'd like to contribute weekly. If we get seven weekly bloggers, we'll grow to 14 people so you can get culture topics twice daily. 

Popularity: 6% [?]

For those of you who find the time to comment occasionally (no pressure, just do it more often) to the posts here on CultureFeast, it's time you got some facial recognition. We've added Gravatar recognition to comments so we can see your shiny mug each time you share your thoughts. 

How does it work?

It's simple. Go to the Gravatar website, and click signup in the top right corner. You'll create a user profile and upload a pic of yourself. You can add as many email addresses as you want to your profile, and give yourself a different photo per email or use the same for each. The point is, once you've set it up, you can go to any blog that has gravatar enhanced comments and just make sure you enter the same email address you used for your gravatar account. 

That way, you can be seen AND heard (or read, however that works)! Sound good? If you have any questions, post a comment here and ask. We want to see your shining happy faces and it only takes maybe 3 minutes to set up if you already have a photo ready, so just do it. 

Popularity: 6% [?]

As part of our identity crisis, CultureFeast has changed themes a second time. In our continual pursuit for heightened self-awareness and personal branding, blah blah blah. So really, I just decided it was time for a new look. I probably visit this site far more than anyone else, so the look and feel gets old quick.

We are in the process of messing around with the style you see right now. I’m hoping to add a logo in the near future, so if you do killer logos and you’d be interested in submitting one for full credit and promotion on this website, feel free to contact me. Contact info is available here, or you can submit a comment.

I like the sidebar and body of this style, but I’d like a total redesign of the header. I’m working on it, slowly and surely.

Update:

As you can see, the last design lasted a whopping six days. Something about the girlie reddish pink post titles and anchor text that just didn’t fly.

Go figure. My wife is telling me that the design before that with the revolving photos was a winner, and she mourns the loss of it as much as she could mourn anything blog related (i.e., not much). I would agree except for the flaws in the sidebar which I am not tech savvy enough to fix and a few other issues. I understand that it can get boring looking at the same stupid header all the time. I’ll consider a return of header images… just not yet.

Popularity: 4% [?]

I found myself enjoying (for lack of a better term) an existential crisis in terms of my CultureFeast identity. For so long, I focused on the Google Analytics, and constantly looked for blog topics that would draw in search visitors. But I don’t need to rank for Randy Galloway’s name or discuss the latest web 2.0 news to enjoy a fulfilling blog culture. CultureFeast has been anything but focused, and that means I have been anything but focused.

I reprimanded myself this evening when I realized that I no longer enjoyed blogging. I contribute to four blogs and one article column, and I am sick and tired of fitting into the mold of SEO / copywriter / PR consultant. Each of those jobs can be rewarding to the right person, but that person is not me… at least, not right now.

Yes, I will continue to offer those services to those in need. But there’s more to me than marketing. Way before I knew anything about marketing, I wanted to write books. I wanted to tell stories and I wanted to share life experiences. Ideally, I would find a market in young, curious adults who have more questions than answers. No, I don’t pretend to offer all the solutions to life’s problems, but perhaps I could share some wisdom that would make other people’s lives easier and less confusing.

The problem with writing from the heart is that people read what you write. It’s much like journaling, only without the privacy. That means that in the midst of my professional pursuits, those snoopy clients, employers, etc. may very well track me down online and read these words and reconsider working with me based on my publicized opinions and views.

Hence the spineless underpinnings of the blogosphere. Those intensely popular and utterly shallow industry blogs. Okay, I’m being a bit harsh, but only because I have no respect for an industry that promotes lives without political, ethical, spiritual, or moral beliefs. Everyone is so nice, they have no personality. We’re all a bunch of identity-less bloggers who have sold out to become well known.

Well, you can have it. I’d rather be uncommon. I’d rather be true to myself than to make millions as the how-to guy.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Here are a few numbers for this website for April 21 - May 21, 2007:

8,842 unique visits

12,161 pageviews

1.38 pages per visit

8,167 visitors from search engines

471 visitors from direct URL entry

204 visitors from referring sites

Traffic is up yet again. Good news. The only thing that’s not so great is the amount of traffic from referring sites. This means that we need more inbound links.

Popularity: 15% [?]