We are proud to introduce Red County Porter, Indiana. The focus of this new site will be to provide right-of-center insight and analysis of local politics in the Porter County area.

Red County has selected Steve Dalton as editor of the Porter County site. Steve is very active in local politics and has worked on many local and statewide campaigns. Mr. Dalton is an experienced blogger and has been covering political issues for a number of years.

Steve grew up in Indianapolis and moved to the Porter County area 10 years ago. He has had a long career in the home building, real estate and mortgage finance industry. Mr. Dalton maintains several consulting contracts, focusing on strategic planning and business development. Steve is married and the proud father of four great kids.

We are very happy to welcome Steve to the Red County team and look for ward to his insight and analysis of Porter County politics.

Editors -

We need your input. There is a field in your blog's profile settings that allows for a brief description. "Brief" is actually an overstatement... there are only 50 characters (including spaces) available in this field.

The content I need from you is a description or "tag line". It will be visible just after the colon next to the title of your blog on your homepage. For example, "King County (WA): Seattle Metropolitan and Surrounding Areas"

The goal is to maintain our "county" orientation, but to appeal to the broadest possible market in and around your community. Hopefully this will attract more readers from neighboring counties and throughout your respective states.

Please email your <50 character tag line to me at mail@redcounty.com.

Thanks! 

Okay... for some folks, Red County is way behind the times. They say, "What the heck took you so long to get on Twitter. It's only the hottest social networking tool out there!"

For the rest of you, you're probably thinking, "What the hell is Twitter?"

I was in the latter category about two months ago. Now I am kicking myself for taking so long to get on board. With the encouragement of Hugh Hewitt and a few of my blogger associates, I was convinced. Twitter is a key component in the integration of blogging, social networking, new media, and instant messaging.

First a primer on what it is and then I will tell you how we integrated into the Red County network of political blogs.

Here is a video that covers the basics...




This is how we integrated it onto the Red County website...
In the sidebar section of the right hand side of each local blog, we placed a Twitter module that includes the last five posts published anywhere on the Red County website.

This module allows visitors who bookmark your blog's homepage without visiting the Red County homepage to see recent headlines that have been published elsewhere on the Red County website. The feed is updated every 30 minutes.

At the bottom of the module are two choices. The visitors can choose to follow just the content from your local blog, or they can follow content from the entire Red County network.

This functionality is highly compatible with mobile computing. Users of the iPhone, the Blackberry, or similar smartphones can easily follow Red County headlines from their mobile device. Users of Twitter desktop applications will also be able to follow Red County headlines.

What does this mean for you?
More traffic. More exposure. More eyeballs. More of influence. More of everything. We strongly encourage you to learn about Twitter. If, as the editor of a local Red County blog, you would like to have additional functionality of posting tweets directly from your mobile device to the Twitterfeed of your local blog, please contact me at mail@redcounty.com.

On Friday, we sent out a couple of emails notifying you about our efforts to resolve server problems. After spending all day investigating the problem, it turned out to be the result of a perfect storm of server settings designed for fewer visitors and monster traffic (not by Drudge standards, but certainly by Red County standards).

The settings have been adjusted and web traffic continues to climb.

Our apologies for the growing pains. Thanks for your patience.

Starting today, you will notice that anytime an author's name is listed, whether in the blogpen or in the byline of an article, the name is hyperlinked to a "Contributor Profile" page.

The page is dynamic and displays a picture of the author, their display name, their bio, and a list of all of their articles.

The next time you login, take the time to click on the "Edit My Profile" hyperlink located in the blue box in the right column of the page. Once there, you will see a "Bio" box. Once complete, your bio will appear at the top of your "Contributor Profile" page.

Click here to read the post where I posted some helpful screenshots.

During the last several months, we have been keeping track of the top 5 Red County blogs based on the pageview traffic to the homepage of each blog. We track on a 30 day period.

The OC Blog, edited by Red County's online editor, Matthew Cunningham, has reigned supreme all year. Matthew has a loyal following and is a prolific writer.

Here is the challenge...

Unseat the OC Blog as the top Red County blog by election day, 2008, earn $300.

Your blog is relatively new, but you too have great content and many contacts. Spread the word. Notify your personal contacts, your professional contacts, and your media contacts. Ask for link exchanges between Red County and your favorite blogs. Tell other bloggers where you're blogging. Posts links to your posts in forums, on other blogs, and anywhere else you may find interest.

This is a critical election and your content can help change minds and influence people.

Good luck!