Self-Happenings

• I've just commisioned myself to write a collection of my own poetry.  I wrote a check to myself for $100,000 as an advance.  Damn, I'm feeling good about this.  Really feeling good about this.
  
• Got some kind of flu bug running through my system.  I hope it isn't the Bird Flu since I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to that.  The world is very colorful as a result of this onset.  Perspicaciousness rules.
  
• Prediction: I will lose 10 lbs. by June and cut 1 minute off of every mile that I run.
  
• I've been carefully editing and augmenting the Xanga entry on Wikipedia for the last couple of weeks.  Making it better and more accurate.  Seems like someone else added to it lately, too, and used several of my blog entries as source material for a discussion of Biancagate.  I'm kind of humbled that that someone considered me worthy of being an authority of things Xanga.

Recent Hook-ups

• Hooked-up with my buddy Paul, a home contractor, on SuperBowl Sunday and fixed his computer.
  
• Hooked-up with my friend and colleague, Mike, my co-author of 5 scientific papers, and had a lot of fun with words.
  
• Hooked-up for the first time with John by phone a week or so ago and talked of many things.  He referred to me as "the legendary nfp" - ha, that was a xangatrip.  He's one damn nice guy who really cares about Xanga as a community .

Trends

According to comScore Media Metrix, an Internet marketing company, Xanga's most advantageous market niche is with the 12-17 old demographic group.  It's growth in this niche (29% from Nov to Dec '05) is even greater than MySpace's (9% from Nov to Dec '05) although MySpace still had about 3X the number of visitors in this age range.

Among persons 18 to 24, MySpace grew at a strong 34 percent pace over the same period while Xanga's growth was 0% - static.  MySpace had about 5X more visitors in this age range for this period than did Xanga.

By the way, comScore Media Metrix considers Xanga both an SNS (Social Networking Site) and a Blog Host for purposes of its studies.  That is, it includes Xanga in SNS reports (along with MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, MyYearbook, and Facebook) and blog reports (along with blogspot, LiveJournal, typepad, AOL Journals, blogs, MSN Spaces, blogdrive, greatestjournals, and diaryland).  In other words, it is already considered a hybrid. 

Look for Xanga to do more in the SNS mode soon in order to yet better appeal to the now-burgeoning MySpace-Facebook crowd.