Woo hoo, it feels good to have time to do a little blog today.  I know I have had little inspiration the past week on what to talk about but today that all turned around.  I read one of the newer Roadies blog entry a short time ago.  Tim has been featured in a couple of my past few entries because he and Doug write for their new blog about the very big problem of Network television becoming unnecessary in this digital age.  They both are just such a wealth of information, in my opinion.  I am amazed at the smarts these two have.  They write on such a high level, I require a dictionary next to me when I read their entries.  Their reasoning and logic is refreshing, true, honest, and much needed.  I can't say enough about how their blog is a must read for anyone out there that is interested in the entertainment media and it's future in this new age of technology.

I believe there has been two blog entries since the creation of the blog titled "PRIME TIME FOR CHANGE".  This is the second one authored by my fellow Roadie Tim.  I was so excited after reading this blog I had to share my favorite quote.  Please take a minute and click on the link.  Read the blog entry and learn something new about the entertainment industry.  You won't belive some of the clear minded, logical thinking, solutions, these two men have come up with.  They really do have the best answers for the networks, who should be taking a very close look at this blog.  Here's that link, please check it out, today:

 http://primetimeforchange.com/2008/07/cancellation-fallout.html

Here is my favorite quote:

"Take for instance someone who immerses themselves in a video game. They spend hours investing themselves into it. They get halfway in. The story gets better and better. They are drawn in and engaged and come to have a stake in what happens. They talk about the game with their friends, they make a video remix and post it on youtube, and blog about it.

Then, at the climax of the story and the game and in the midst of the action, a message pops up, which reads, “Sorry, due to factors related to underperformance, your game has been canceled.”

A second message takes its place, “On the positive side, do you want to try this new game we just developed, but may not finish?”

A third message appears, “Oh, and by the way, we really want to win you back. We know that there are other game companies who finish the games they start, but really, try out this new game that we might not finish.”

Cancellations have more fallout with active engagement."

Seriously the best analogy I have ever heard.  I wanted to stand up and cheer when I was done reading this.  It is what ABC is totally asking us fan's of October Road to do.  I felt like this is exactly what happened when I found out through the ABC message board that October Road was in danger the first season of being cancelled.  Stephen McPherson decided to bring it back again for a mid-season replacement.  Then I read on to find out after Season 2 went on hiatus, the network decided to cancel their order for the back 9 episodes.  Thus cutting the season short and putting it back up on the chopping block for cancellation.  I learned this in late Feburary.  By March I was completely committed to help save October Road from cancellation.  I of course did not succeed in this.

After reading Tim and Doug's entries,  ABC and Networks in general are blinded to the need to foster loyalty among their viewership.  It really is a problem that is getting bigger and bigger, in my opinion.  As more shows get killed or cancelled before their time, more and more viewers needs are pushed aside.  Show's like Moonlight, October Road, Men in Tree's, and even Las Vegas, are clear examples of networks not caring enough about their viewers loyalty to finish the story's they started.  The analogy told by Tim would apply to all of these show's because even though Las Vegas was on for 5 season's the finale left the viewers wondering if the women in labor was going to live or die.  I also harken back to two seasons ago, the season finale of Crossing Jordon ended with most the vital cast members trapped on a snow top mountian after a deadly plan crash.  

I have to admitt that I have day dreamed about the Crossing Jordon characters many a day during the past two years.  I have dreamed Jordon and the rest of them are still up there on that mountain, frozen to death, waiting for NBC to thaw them out.  So, silly, but so true.  Where does a story go to die in ones imagination, after a show is cancelled with no notice?  Why as a viewer should I trust that networks will keep a show I become invested in?  Do I need to become a ratings junkie?  If I am to choose my programming from the big three I would like a ticker running across the bottom of my screen like cable news does.  Giving me up to the minute Nielsen Ratings status so I can avoid thoughs shows that I'm sure the big three will cancel.  I think that is a reasonable request, do you?

My biggest passion driving my need to see this fight to the very end is the fact that there is still so much story to be told for October Road.  I would add Moonlight to that list as well.  It is truely the biggest insult, slap-in-the-face, brush-off, kick-in-the-gut, a network could ever deliver to their viewers is, cancel a show before the story is finished.  Disregard the viewers plea's to try and shoulder the so called short term losses.  Give these, so called, "under performing" show's another chance to prove themselves.  Roll with the new age, expanded the market ablility of these shows because of the deep loyal fan bases.  Turn some good will towards the network brand name instead of dunking it in the toliet, along with the pile of cancelled shows.  Stop the continued slide into Junk Reality programming. 

Calling the big three networks: 
SHOW YOU HAVE A HEART, PROVE YOU HAVE COMPASSION RUNNING THROUGH YOUR VIENS AND LISTEN TO WHAT WE ARE TELLING YOU WILL HELP!

Well I have time again today to blog, so of course I'm going to do it, aren't you all so lucky.  I spoke today over at my other blog about how I had been catching up today with my posting over at the web site www.heynielsen.com.  Here's the link to my other blog over at blogspot: http://meggan-onhersoapbox.blogspot.com/

So I will not cover that much of what I said over there.  What I wanted to do here is post a copy of my opinion from today from the HN site.  Here is what I said:

"IMO, O-Road can bring people together! I have a huge pile of evidence to back this theory up. Take a look at my life the past 4 mnths, that is proof enough. O-Road planted a seed in my mind & heart. With it's message of forgiveness, family, & friends. I felt the need to change my life. With out going into details, lets just say life has changed dramaticly for me. I joined the fight to save O-Road & I gained so much more then I expected...... (MOM) Resently she told me she was amazed to see the positive effect O-Road has had on my life. I love O-Road so much, but more important, I love my family & friends. I have healed relationships just by using O-Road as a bridge to start talking to people in my life. I have chosen my video because I think it is way cool! I love the Hymn! My mom loves it too! I hope you guys aren't offended in any way. Let me know if you are."

Needless to say I have only gotten one comment posted on this opinion.  I know the day is not over with yet, but I'm thinking I went a little over board on the personal information given here.  We are suppose to focus our opinions on the show, I was hoping to have a nice blend of personal & show, I might of missed the mark.  I posted this video with the opinion:  http://youtube.com/watch?v=BNvjgABbmLg  Maybe it was one of my favorite hymns sung by the Mormon Tab. Choir that did it.  Not sure, lol!

I also wanted to highlight a new blogger in this entry.  He is a fellow Roadie, but he just started campaigning with us heavy this week.  He, IMO, is really smart and I love how resourseful he is.  His name is Tim and his blog is totally worth checking out.  I read yesterdays entry and I loved it.  He has another person that is contributing to the blog, so you get two people for the price of one, lol!  I might of had to reach for my dictionary once or twice, but it really is a great read in my opinion.
Heres the link:  http://primetimeforchange.com/  

For my last topic, Tim read on our group page how some of us were trying to come up with at way to design a T-Shirt we could all buy and ware to help promote our cause.  Well magically after he reads this post he finds a way to make this dream a reality.  So I'm going to buy me a T-Shirt today from the following link, hope you all join me:  http://www.zazzle.com/pd/find/qs-october+road/pt-235

Ok, so I have reorganized, relabled, and deleted some of my many links posted on the right side of this blog page.  Take some time to check them out.  Oh, and I got notice that our press release was listed 4 out of the top 5 press releases today on the site www.prlog.org, have it linked in yesterdays entry & over on the right side list, so check it out if you haven't already.

Thanks so much everyone!
Tootle Pip!

Last week I was flipping thru the channels on my much used TV set and came across the ABC news program, Nightline.  I don't watch this show, ever, but I stopped because one of my favorite Food Network Stars was on.  Mario Batali was talking at a table and I heard him say this before the segment ended, and I switched channel again.  I quote, "I've stubbled across my theory in the last 2 years, that really all discord in the human race is based on two things:  YOU EITHER NEED A NAP OR YOUR HUNGRY!"

If you want to see the whole interview with this great chef click this link:
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4049174

I really loved this statment.  I totally agree with this theory of his.  I also thought that maybe that is what is wrong with the ABC excutives and all the Powers That Be, in charge of programming for all the big three networks.  I mean they all live in L.A. and we all know most people that live in L.A. don't eat much.  So this theory totally fits, in my opinion, October Road could be saved if all TPTB at ABC/Disney took a nap and ate something.

As for us and our fight, we are not stopping.  We have had such a great week.  We have sent letters, emails, & phone calles to ABC/Disney this week.  We have had a record number of people join our Yahoo Group page this week.  So maybe we should start sending food and pillows.  They could eat a nice little snack and lay on their nice couches for a nap after they eat.  Then they could wake up refreshed and see how stupid they are being.

I sent four new DVD's out in to the world this week.  Two went to an office my mother use to work at.  I have been told that one of the women I gifted it to, she is planning on passing it around the rest of the office.  She wants to start her own mini campaign to save October Road.  My oldest sister Ganel, who has just finished her job as Editor and Chief of a woman's magazine, just got the DVD I sent her.  She called me a couple hours ago to ask me a question.  First, she had never even heard of October Road until I started talking about it to her.  So last week she said, "When am I going to get my DVD?", I sent her one straight from amazon.  She got it this week, and watched 1 & 1/2 episodes today.  She says she "LOVES IT!".  I asked if she was just saying that to be nice, she said she really does love it!  She had a great question for me.  So we chatted about it for a minute or two.  So the "PAY OCTOBER ROAD FORWARD" campaign totally works!  I have proof of it this week.

This show could really catch fire if ABC excutives just took Mario Batali's advice to take a nap & eat something!

End of Rant!

Well everyone, I spent an hour or so over at www.blogpulse.com trying to figure out how they are scoring our blogging for October Road.  I came to a startling conclusion, I know little to nothing about all things blogging!  Not a big surprise since I have only been blogging for almost 4 months now.  What I thought was blogging for October Road and the score for the web site www.heynielsen.com, as being all in one, seems to be much more complicated then I originally thought.

This does not surprise me either.  I have to say every single time I have used one of Nielsen's websites to try and research anything to do with October Road, I have walked away more confused then before I arrived at their sites.  What I gain from all of Nielsen's number crunching, graph making, ranking, keeping track of, and all around craziness is this:  THEY DO NOT GIVE YOU A STRAIGHT ANSWER FOR ANYTHING!  If the Nielsen ratings system for television does not prove it, let me share some of my insights to what I have learned the past few months.

When trying to find the ratings for October Road while it ran it's second season, I went to www.tvbynumbers.com.  What a big surprise this site is run my Nielsen, oooo shocker.  It is not user friendly, meaning you can't just type in the words October Road and pull up all the information for that show.  It is not straight forward in telling you how they came to the number rating that they list when you do find the show and it's info.  Basicly I saw that they just crunch all these numbers together gathering averages here and there.  Very disappointing!

When trying to find out how www.blogpulse.com factors in to October Road's over all score at the website www.heynielsen.com, I assumed some incorrect things.  I thought once blogpulse showed it was picking up the blog's we all were posting about October Road that it was giving us points and thoughs points were being passed on to HN to include in October Road's over all score.  It does not seem to be that simple, I am sad to report.  I have posted at the October Road message boards today about this.  But I thought I might post a little bit more detailed information about this conundrum.

Here is some helpful basic information about what www.blogpulse.com say's about blogging and what it is.  The following link is where I found this information, feel free to check it out yourself.  http://www.blogpulse.com/about.html

What is blog?
According to the Wikipedia entry for blog, "A weblog, or simply a blog, is a website which contains periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts on a common webpage." 

What is BlogPulse?
BlogPulse is an automated trend discovery system for blogs. Blogs, a term that is short for weblogs, represent the fastest-growing medium of personal publishing and the newest method of individual expression and opinion on the Internet. BlogPulse applies machine-learning and natural-language processing techniques to discover trends in the highly dynamic world of blogs. BlogPulse is brought to you by Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

How do I submit my blog for indexing by BlogPulse?
Please use our Submit blog form. Remember, BlogPulse is a blog-only search engine. Please don't spam it with URLs to general web sites or other resources. Spamming our blog submission process costs us a lot of time and resources, and prevents us from offering a high-quality, free service to the public.

How frequently does BlogPulse index my blog?
At this time, BlogPulse will visit your blog at most once a day. Check here (the BlogPulse FAQ’s) next time you visit BlogPulse for any opt-in indexing plans we might offer in the coming months that include more frequent updating.

Ok, so I have good news I saw most if not all our October Road blog's showing up as being indexed by BlogPulse last night.  So they are showing up there, they just aren't viewed as important as some other bloggers.

Take heart bloggers we can change that around, with a little hard work.  Here is what blogpulse say's about our blog's profiles and what it means: (please see above link to see the whole page)

What are BlogPulse Profiles?
BlogPulse Profiles is a tool we created to answer the very simple question: "Who are these bloggers, how prolific are they, and is anybody paying attention?" Each profile contains basic information about a specific blog: its title, its URL/link, its rank (based on citations by other bloggers), how frequently the blog author posts new information and other data points. Many Internet users are still feeling their way around the blogging universe, and we hope that providing profiles of blogs and their authors will help everyone get a sense of what bloggers are writing about, which blogs are getting more attention and traffic, which have the potential to be influential, and what other sources of information bloggers use to present their opinions, thoughts and insights. 


Here are some helpful hint's I thought of after reading all the info over at Blogpulse.  I thought it might help our blog's carry more bang for their buck!  I have made a list that you can all use every time you go to blog for yourself or our beloved October Road.  I hope it helps!

1.  Stick with the motto of, "Put October Road in the title of your blog & body no matter what!".  I used thoughs two little words last night in a search on blogpulse and I pulled up all our blog's.  I even pulled up blog's from French speaking people, because the cast was over at the Monte Carlo Festivial this week.  Even people that just used thoughs words, I was able to find on blogpulse.  That was just a search though, so it is true, use that motto when you go to blog.

2.  Promote other October Road Blog's on your blog.  Most importantly include links to their blogs in the body of your post sometimes.  This is very important to the ranking of blog's!  How many other blog's refer a link to your personal blog, effects your ranking on BlogPulse.  It is the whole "click thru effect" I am always talking about.

3.  List a link to a news item, article, or popular blog in the body of your post.  For example, you can do a very short post one day by just asking people to follow your link to Rachel at about.com's blog and poll.  You can the next day, blog a short entry asking people to go read the article where they call us a cult of fan's, posting the link to that article in the body of your post.  You can post links to other sources, like where pictures of the cast are for the Monte Carlo Festivial, doing a short post about how cute everyone looks, and asking your readers to click on the links to look at the pictures.  Can you see how if you do this more often that it creates a "LEAP FROG AFFECT" for people looking at your blog.  Blogpulse picks that up as heavy activity and thinks you are one of the powerful influences that is in the so called "BLOGOSPHERE".

4.  Promote your blog to all your friends and family in your address book.  Tell them when you mention them in your blog and ask them to visit it when they can and leave comments for you.

5.  Ask all the October Road fan's to help support your blog by coming to it and just "CLICKING THRU".  Never discount your own voice and how powerful a call for help can be.  If you have persoanl relationships with other Roadies, ask them to help you out and click thru.  The more October Road Fan's supporting our blog's the more powerful thoughs blog's become.

6.  Don't worry how original or often it is you post an entry on your blog.  I try and do something 6 day's a week on both my blog's.  But I take breaks, I don't always have soming important or orginial to say, and yeah it get's hard some days.  But one short blog with some of the things I have listed about, really does help us.

I know this is a very long entry, and most, if not all of you don't have the time to read it all.  If you have gotten to the bottom here, you are all my hero's!!!  Remember we are all a part of the same team, no one more important or bigger then the other.  Those that can only "CLICK THRU" our blogs are just as important as thoughs that write the blog's themselves.  We need all of us to keep this fight alive for October Road!

I think you are all amazing, please know how much you all mean to me!

Tootle Pip!
MK

P.S. If you can find time to leave a comment here, please make sure if it is anonymous that you leave at least your first name in the body of the comment.  I love hearing from all of you, but some people forget to let me know who they are.  It's ok, I understand being in a rush and forgetting.  JeddieFan left a comment last night and forgot to sign her name.  She is so cute she came back and left a second comment to let me know it was her.  I loved it, it made me laugh!  Thanks Jeddiefan for that!  Thank you everyone for commenting it helps so much.  You all rock the stadium of my little ole heart!

Well it has been days since my last entry here.  I have found myself depressed, angry, and having nothing left to say about my fav. show October Road.  I have tried to change that everyday.  But instead I find myself silent to the empty thoughts and feelings I am having.  After the first round of Letter Writing campaign I was drained and burned out.  I stepped back from HN, blogging, and posting over at the OR boards.

I know I'm not alone in these feelings.  I know many of my Roadie Friends are probably feeling the same way.  They have stayed strong!  They have kept posting opinion's over at HN and sending in their letters this second round for June 17th.  I forgot about the second round.  I didn't get that all important email from the Yahoo group reminding me so it slipped my mind.  I feel bad, but that doesn't mean I have to keep feeling bad, does it???

I am trying to break thru this wall I have hit, by blogging, posting at the OR boards, and emailing from the Yahoo group today.  I hope if you haven't already seen the thread I posted over at the boards you will follow the link I provide here and read the thread.  It is a kind of survey to test the waters of what everyone is thinking right now.  I have had word that Deb and Jill are no longer able to be as up front in their leadership in the fight for October Road.  I was hoping to get a feel for what people think about having someone else step up and take over that leadership roll.  I think it is important if we are to keep fighting as a group!!

So here is the link to the thread I posted, please click thru if you can.  I will be posting this at my other blog as well.  Thank you all for helping in this matter!

http://abc.go.com/primetime/octoberroad/index?pn=mb&cat=41338&tid=380490

Tootle Pip!