The Jets Kvetch turned one month old yesterday, and I’d like to take a day to not only shine some light on what we’ve been able to achieve in that short stretch of time, but also to comment on our flaws, and lay out a plan of attack for improving JK with the hopes of eventually living up to our self-proclaimed status as “the world’s #1 NY Jets fan site.” Before I get into that, however, I’d like to direct you to a recent feature on our site in the Journal & Courier, the primary newspaper of my new hometown of Lafayette, Indiana. The story, which took up about 1/5 of the front page of the Living section, was part of Tim Brouk’s weekly “Greater Lafayette Blogger” series, which highlights, well, bloggers from Greater Lafayette. So in a way I should consider myself lucky to have landed this write-up, given not only my non-native status, but also that this site documents a football team that some 90% of the locals probably have a strong distaste for. Here’s a scan –

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Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t my idea to describe my respect for Dustin Keller as being “mad,” but I suppose that seems appropriate. I also think it’s funny that he was able to condense such a lengthy post into about one hundred words, and that he retained my reference to Bill Belichick as the “Foxborough Fuhrer,” and left Thomas Jones’s name abbreviated as TJ, even if that probably left some people thinking of Bill Shatner in a cop outfit. Judging from my site statistics, that appearance in the paper also seems to have driven some traffic our way, which is great. Any exposure this site can get is great news for all of us.

But on that note, the J&C article was not the biggest thing to happen to JK yesterday. Instead, that title goes to our inclusion on SportsSpyder, an RSS feed aggregator that collects and redistributes sports stories and tweets from across the blogotetrahedron. In one day, SS brought almost 100 people to the site, only the second time this has been achieved, and the first instance of such not spurred by a link from a major Jets blog. Which reminds me of my proudest accomplishment thus far: gaining a presence. Small as JK is, most, if not every big-time player in the Jets blogging niche is aware of us, and has been here at least once. I tweet with some of them regularly, and have even been added to some of their blogrolls. This is a great thing, and it proves that sometimes all you have to do get out there and say hello. These blogs are not my competitors; they are my allies, and it is because of them that the Jets Kvetch is growing so well. So, to the guys at The Jets Blog, GGN, Jets Twit and the SF Jets Fan Site – thank you!

One thing that has me concerned is the amount of lurking going on around here. For every person that visits my site, approximately 0 comments are posted. That’s a net loss of -100% comment synergy!!! Someone should call the shareholders. So far, Max Strauss, a good friend of the site, has been the only prolific commenter, while the rest of you sheepishly keep your opinions to yourselves. What is that? Guys, I wouldn’t even care if you spewed out a long string of obscenities directed at me and my immediate family so long as you take advantage of the commenting feature. It’s a blog, folks. It’s designed for two-way interaction, and that doesn’t mean between me and Ari. Get writing! And please don’t be scared off by the seemingly complex commenting system. All you have to do is enter your name (or pseudonym), email and comment; there’s no log-in required.

Another issue is posting frequency. The original idea was to write once a day four or five times a week. The thinking behind this was that we are not a ‘news’ site, so there’s no need to throw something up every time we sign a practice squad member. Instead, we’d let the news come to us, and then post our opinions at our leisure. It would seem the online world moves too quickly for that. So from here on out you can probably expect a post each day, and we may eventually post multiple times a day, but not quite yet. If you want to encourage that kind of expansion (or the addition of a message board, which I really want to add), show your support by leaving a comment!

/Braces for this post to receive no comments

Lastly, I committed a major blunder this Sunday, when I read the terms of the Kerry Rhodes trade far too quickly, and reported the wrong information. As a result, I was called out on another blog (not in a malicious way, just in one that pointed out the embarrassing and unacceptable error). While this may not be a news site, I am still responsible for fact-checking, and I promise to show more of a commitment to that in the future. I want this site to become a serious player in Jets blogging, and for that people first have to take me seriously. I can’t expect that when I flub on even the most basic of information.

I expect big things for the Jets Kvetch over the next ten months, and things will only get better as the start of the regular season grows closer. If you have any suggestions, or complaints, for that matter, please let me know at max@jetskvetch.com. I’d really like to hear from you!

- Manhole Out.