Cool New Stuff At AB.com!!!

I've very quietly launched a bunch of new features and enhancements to keep AB.com fresh -n- clean over the past couple of months. Some of you might have quietly caught the kewl new "Necktie" logo. It was designed for me by a very talented cat named Bradford Coleman, who just happens to be an art student with his own website. Be sure to peep that and support the brother.

Some of the other features have been perhaps more noticeable. There's the new "bookmark" feature at the end of each post that makes it easier for you to pass along your favorite post. Subscribing to posts and/or comments is easier with the new RSS widget. I added the recent comments plug-in (aka: AverageNation™ Says...) at the behest of a few of you who needed easier ways of keeping up with the chatter here. The AverageNation™ Top 10 ranks you guys by how profilic you are with the Say Whuts. The PayPal Donation link is there just in case you wanna show this site some financial love, but are too cheap affected by this recession to purchase an official AB.com T-shirt. There's Live Traffic Feeds and a Recent Visitors Map if you're just curious about who else is coming here, from where, and why.[1]

Forget Lauren London, AB.com is really Nu-Nu.

Because I know how Black folks love exclusive stuff, I've also expanded the scope of topics. Now that I'm no longer a hostage to that darned Democratic nomination, I've gotten back on my creative grizzly. You'll see loads of new regular series like WorkPlace 101, C.Y.I.N. Case Study, We Owned The 80's, People I Strongly Dislike, and When Bad Movies Happen To Good Casts. The GuestList has expanded to include regular drops by co-defendants AverageCommenters™ EbonyGentleman and your new favorite CJames. And sure, I'll be talking about current events and Politrics As Usual, but you've prolly also noticed far more sports and general pop culture. Call me many things, but one-dimensional ain't one of em'.

And of course, there's the ads. I've tried to make them as discrete as possible, but they're there, and they're unavoidable so get used to it. It's never been my intention to monetize this site, but once the daily hits started skyrocketing, it seemed silly not to. How can I leave good money on the table when I've got a kid who'll need tuition for UPenn in about 16 years?[2] Do you guys have any idea how much UPenn costs for a mere semester?

So please, click on some friggin' ads already!!!

Just do it once a day please. Buy some junk on Amazon.com. Click on one of those AdSense links, then come right back. You're not just spreading the word about male-pattern baldness, you're also helping a middle-class black child pay for his Ivy League tuition. It's like the United Negro College Fund and some cheesy Spike TV infomercial rolled into one.

So again, I repeat: Please click on at least one Google-sponsored ad per day!!!

Educate a village. Build a future. Save a child. And whatnot.

[Editor's Note: It's 11am on Friday. Already today, thanks to your click-thru's, I have made more AdSense revenue than the previous month combined. In a single 1/2 day! Keep on clickin' thru, and send my kid to Harvard instead!]

The final new feature is called Poll Position. Thanks to the magic of Blogger widgets, I'm now going to be running a weekly poll of some sort. These will sometimes be timely and topical (ie: current events), other times administrative (ie: the current one about the site's visuals), and often they'll just be plain Negro Nonsense (ie: what's the best "hood/corner store/bodega" snack of all time?). Sometimes these will be multiple choice (like this week's if you didn't notice). I'll give a recap of each poll shortly after it closes. Stand up, and have your vote counted! It's all about Democracy! Power to The AverageNation™!

AB.com's pretty close to 600 posts in just over a year, and I'm personally on the verge of turning this blog into something far bigger than even I could have ever imagined. Stay tuned.

As I always say, this is you guys' blog, not mine. Thanks for supporting me, and I hope you stick around.

We're just gettin' started.

Question: What is your favorite new feature here at AB.com? Is there anything else you'd like to see? Have you clicked on an ad yet? A child's very expensive education depends on it, what're you waitin' for?

Bradford Coleman's Portfolio

Bradford Coleman's Intellibrotha Blog

[1] Thembi did a hilarious post on common search terms that lead people to her site. I may crib this idea too, cause folks search for some really odd idd'ish, man. You wouldn't believe how popular "Al B Sure", "KFC Commercial" and "Supermanning Dat' Ho" are.

[2] Of course, he could always go to my Negro College HBCU, but that's not gonna be cheap either. Click on an ad, already.