We try to avoid too much self-promotion here on Team Speed Kills -- acknowledging that "too much" is a relative term in the blogosphere -- but I am pleased to announce that the site logged its 100,000th visitor earlier today. That we reached this goal in 10 months is perhaps not overly impressive until you realize that we did not log our 20,000th hit until our fourth month, and 50,000 of those hits came in our last three. June marked our fifth consecutive month of growth.
I tell you all of this not just to pump us up, but also to thank Year2, who has added a lot to the site, and to the countless much larger blogs who have linked to us over the last several weeks. I fear to start naming names, because I know that I will leave some out, but know that your efforts to throw us a miniscule portion of your traffic is greatly appreciated. And thanks also to the higher-ups here at SB Nation, who have always been supportive voices.
But, most of all, thanks to the people who keep reading us. And here, I think about all the members who were with us from the very beginning, or shortly thereafter. Again, names would only get me into trouble, but you know whom you are. We now have more than 300 official members at TSK, also rapidly grown from our slow take-off, and it is your attention and comments that both make us better and inspire us to keep going. You are the most important part of this site -- and I'm not just saying that -- and we are hopeful that the increase in voices to the community will add to its discussion.
In that spirit, below the jump is a brief primer on taking part in our community. For some, this is new. For others, it's a refresher.
First of all, it's easy enough to join. If you're already a member of SB Nation, just click the "Join Team Speed Kills" button under our logo. Non-SBN members can click the "Start posting" button in the same place. You can also log in with Yahoo! ID or Open ID. Once you do that:
1. Twitteration
2. What Team Speed Kills is all about
3. How this is also your blog
1. Twitteration
If you're on Twitter and you're not following Team Speed Kills, what are you waiting for? We're actually starting to branch into some tweets that aren't just recaps of the posts. We're more integrated now than ever -- from being able to tweet your own FanPosts or FanShots to being able to retweet the posts you like by clicking the green button under the post. And if you're not on Twitter -- well, if you haven't read Ron Zook's tweets, you haven't truly lived.
2. What Team Speed Kills is all about
For those new to the blog, we are an irreverent, opinionated daily trip through the wonders of SEC football, with a dash of basketball and baseball. If we make fun of your team, don't worry -- your rival's turn is probably coming up shortly. We start out most every morning with Sprints -- a summary of the headlines mixed with commentary from the blogs and from your humble correspondent. After that, it's a preview of the upcoming football season or a review of last night's big game or any other topic that draws our attention. Feel free to chime in.
3. How this is also your blog
At SB Nation, we prefer to talk about "communities" to "blogs" -- and it's not just lip service. In addition to the standard comments, there are the FanPosts that allow you to hold forth on a topic for however long you prefer to do so. We can promote some of them to the front page, truly making this your blog as well as ours. And there are FanShots, short bits of information, from a link to a video. Easy to post and easy for us to promote. Because, without your voice, it's just a couple of guys talking. And that's never much fun.