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Google Stuns Gazette, Serves Up Ads Unrelated to Drug Dependency

googlead

We embed ads on this site to offset the cost of running The Frankford Gazette.  So far that cost is coming to $4.99 a month from Godaddy to host us, and $24.99 a year for the business cards from VistaPrint.  In 18 months of running ads, we’ve made a whopping $27.11.  I’ve blamed Google for our lackluster ad sales because all they run are drug dependency related adverts.  So it was with great joy that I found Google had placed ads for driver’s ed and locker room storage on our pages instead of the usual treatment addiction.

Now for the unitiated, I do not get to pick the ads that get shown here, Google does.  It searches the site for relevant content in our site(stuff we post) and it looks into it’s databases to see what it knows about Frankford(lots of drug rehab goodness).  And so we end up getting ads about overcoming methadone addiction, drug rehabs, etc.  So hopefully as we find more and more things to post about Frankford not related to crime and drugs, Google will change what it thinks about Frankford and modify it’s advertising accordingly.  At the very least, keep an eye on our “Ads by Google”, sometimes they can be most amusing.

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RSS Feeds Now with Feedburner

Frankford Gazette FeedburnerI’ve changed our site’s RSS feed to get published by Feedburner.  You can now use the link “Subscribe to the Gazette” on the left to follow our updates.  It’s just one of a few changes I’m hoping will increase the Gazette’s visibility and readability.  Here’s a little tutorial about RSS feeds for the uninitiated.

Now I’ve been tracking visitors to our site with Google Analytics forever, but after rolling over to feedburner I was able to get a first glimpse of our feed users.  And it turns out we’ve had 20 visitors(not including myself) tuning in through feed reading, I really wouldn’t expect a number that high.  THAT IS AWESOME!  Thanks for tuning in.

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Counselwoman Guarantees Little in Town Hall Meeting, Comes Through With Snack Table

Town Hall Treats

Regular readers will know that I was more than a little miffed when Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez bailed on the Friends of Overington Park’s Tree Planting, leaving me hungry for the cookies and orange juice she promised.  But boy did she come through at last night’s town hall meeting.  She promised better interaction with city agencies, a more streamlined communication with our civic associations, and attentiveness when residents bring problem properties to her attention.  But she guaranteed tastiness coming through with that spread.  If she never does another thing for Frankford(or ever starts), her heroics calling in the snack foods will long be remembered.

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Freelance Journalist and All Around Awesome Guy Found Living in Frankford

Christopher WinkChris Wink appears to be quite awesome.  Here he is being named one of the 100 top young journalists by UWire.  He’s written for the Philadelphia Weekly.  He has spoken at Temple’s 08 Commencement, and has been a guest on Fox 29 talking about politics and shit.

My father found him 3 days ago blogging about moving in, and I met his unphotoshopped self last night when he actually showed up at the halfway house Town Hall Meeting and talked about community involvement.

In all seriousness, I don’t usually call any non politician out by name, but on account of how he’s thrown himself up all over the internet, I just had to bring him up.  I had always considered Frankford a hidden gem, that only I knew about because I grew up here.  But apparently others are finding out too.  That someone as cool as this made a (probably) rational choice to come stay here a while gives me a lot of hope, because the reasons he chose Frankford were the same as mine, and now that makes two of us.  Now where’s my third?

[link] http://christopherwink.wordpress.com/

[link] http://twitter.com/christopherwink

[link] http://neastmag.wordpress.com/author/cgwink/