Demographically speaking, that is. Research polling firm Harris Interactive finds that homosexuals are a more receptive blog-reading audience than heteros, 51 percent versus 36 percent.

That includes both content and acceptance of blog advertising — meaning cha-ching for all those gay-themed AdSense ad units just waiting to render!

Despite this news, I kinda doubt too many gay surfers are visiting this blog all that frequently.

…At least, that’s how Wil Wheaton sees it as he expresses much love for everyone’s favorite microblogging platform.

I always appreciate gratuitous “Bust A Move” references, but I question the invocation of the “spam-spam-spam” skit, as that invites unfavorable connotations for any Internet-based communications/feedback system.

As for me, I wouldn’t call myself a Twitter hater, but at the same time, I don’t feel the need to jump aboard. Aside from the value of what I’d put into and get out of it, I don’t know that it’s any more innovative than any other later-stage social-networkish Web app. Besides, enough of my time is occupied with the macroblogging shown here.

Professional blogging: It’s around-the-clock bleeding-edge journalism with a sudden mortality rate:

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

Good thing I still have a daytime gig. And as my of-late dwindling output attests (down from an average of 3-4 daily posts to maybe 2), I’m not exactly straining the blogging muscles to the point of exhaustion. Not that professionalism in the permalinking game was ever a goal for me.

Perhaps as a nod to its allure among the greasier segments of American male society, Vegas.com is running a “Welcome, Douchebags!!” travel promotion, complete with $25 discount when entering code DOUCHEBAG at checkout. And for extra good measure, they’ve staked out MySpace territory for this campaign.

Want to take advantage of those savings for your next stint in Sin City, but unsure as to whether or not you properly qualify? No sweat — just take the provided Vegas Douchebag Quiz:

- Do you know where to get the best spray-on tan?
- Do you like to show off your nipple ring in public?
- Do you know the difference between beer and malt liquor?
- Do you wear your chain inside or outside your shirt?
- Do you own more than 5 different trucker hats?

Thankfully, I’m not even close to a “fo sho” on any of those questions. Never hurts to do a personal inventory, though.

Even more than the unconventional approach, I’m surprised that Vegas.com didn’t engage Hot Chicks with Douchebags — which is of course the douchebaggiest blog on the Internet — as a partner in this marketing effort. Missed opportunity all around.

It’s funny, the attention some random post in this space attracts. Mere hours after I wrote a little something about Web video distributor iAmplify, I got an invite from one of their sales reps to join their affiliate network.

And I did, as signified by the little javascripted video-ad box in the upper-left sidebar of this page, and the larger version of that box at the bottom of this page/post.

The little box represents the carving out of new advertising territory on this blog. The big box displaces the YouTube-AdSense video ad unit that Google rolled out last October; my willingness to toss that one should tell you how poorly it was performing, in fact contrasting the other AdSense placements I run here.

In any case, iAmplify is appearing here on a trial basis. I’m curious to see if it’ll bring in any money. I’m not optimistic: Not only does someone have to actually buy a video through iAmplify for me to see any coin, but the product selection is limited and not synced at all to specific page content. For a generalist blog like mine, that means someone cruising here via a Google search for, say, iPod information won’t be served up an offer for instructional videos for best practices in using your digital media player. The reason AdSense attracts clicks is precisely because it matches up relevant keywords in content and ads. So first task for iAmplify is to figure out some way to achieve that.

On top of that, the boxes don’t seem to be screwing with the blog template. If they turn out to do so, or somehow slow down loading times, they’re gone.

All that said, you never know. It’s worth a month or two of testing to see if it yields anything.

The Homicide Report is a crime-beat blog from the LA Times with a simple theme: Record every reported murder in Los Angeles County.

Reporter Jill Leovy handled those blogging duties until the end of 2007, and now provides some perspective on the act of online commemoration of some victims, and the need that fulfilled.

One could know the numbers in the abstract yet still be unprepared for the sheer volume, similarity and obscurity of the victims…

At a crime scene in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Newton Division, lifelong friends of a victim said they knew him only by a nickname. At another scene, a family had no recent photographs of their 19-year-old son. For some of those victims, a police mug shot was the only record of their presence in the world. A detective in Watts once asked me to run a photo of an elaborate norteño-style belt buckle, the only clue to the identity of a victim whose body had been burned.

Detectives routinely admitted that the names and ages they had recorded for victims were, at best, conjecture: Many victims, including illegal immigrants or career criminals, had lived entirely underground.

Ironic that a life in the shadows doesn’t get exposed to light until it ends.

Tom McMahon has come up with a delightful list of ways in which a blog mirrors a television-series run.

I won’t poach any of his bullets. But I will contribute a couple of my own. Regrettably, one of his commenters already beat me to the obvious joke about jumping the shark…

Anyway:

- Old posts/episodes can always be found in archives/reruns.

- A writers’ strike would have dire consequences.

I’ve been mulling a redesign of this blog’s template layout for, oh, forever now. It’s been virtually the same since I rolled out the domain three and a half years ago, and while I’m not unhappy with it, a periodic refresh is generally a good idea (which idea was instilled in me thanks to my print background).

But maybe I shouldn’t discard this old green-dream look just yet. According to CommandShift3’s tale of the tape, Population Statistic is winning head-to-head comparisons with other website templates at a 41 percent clip. Yes, it’s a losing record, but competitive!

And even though it’s not linkable, the tally of the most recent battles includes a victory over Pogue’s Posts! I don’t care if the typical New York Times blog isn’t optimized for prettiness — I’ll take my triumphs over the Grey Lady anytime I can lay a claim, flimsy as it is.

I wonder how many MySpace pages are in the mix on CommandShift3. If your site loses to one of those, it’s pretty much a sign that you need to vaporize your template code post-haste.

One of the persistent challenges of blogging is coming up with a reliable supply of material to write about.

Unfortunately, there’s little danger of Los Angeles Times crime reporter/blogger Jill Leovy coming up dry. She maintains The Homicide Report, where she’s attempting to create a running permalinked chronicle of each murder committed in Los Angeles County to date.

The bulk of the postings consist of simple police-blotter reports noting a random killing. But it looks like Leovy contributes some follow-up reporting, as in this look at a family’s lingering grief six months after a death.

It’s not exactly a revelation to see the steady stream and sheer volume of homicides in LA, but viewing it in this format is certainly sobering.

So now that I know that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad maintains a blog, I’m thinking about adding him to my blogroll.

Hey, traffic is traffic. I’ll overlook the social repression (ironically, against other bloggers in Iran) if Ahmadinejad throws back some reciprocal-linkin’ love. I’ll end up with a bunch of comments in Farsi, but you can’t be too picky when it comes to user-generated content anyway.

Besides, it all comes back to the overriding maxim when it comes to blogosphere relations:

Actually, take that phrase — “Most bloggers are assholes we just pretend to like each other because it’s good for traffic” — and sub in “politicians” for “bloggers”, and “power” for “traffic”, and you’ve got your overriding maxim for international relations, too. Maybe all world leaders should keep a blog!

For longer than I can recall, parts of this blog’s backend were running slooooooow. The WordPress dashboard screen would take forever to fully load, and publishing a post would take several seconds too long. I figured something was bugging out, and I’d just have to upgrade to the latest WP version sooner rather than later (despite the problems that always comes with for me).

When the problem peaked to the point where I couldn’t even post without a 403 Error cropping up, I investigated. It turned out that the Bad Behavior plugin that I was using (along with the built-in Akismet, as part of a blended comment-spam defense) was malfunctioning. It wasn’t as severe as what others were going through — I was still able to get into the blog backend, edit comments and do other things — but I couldn’t write new posts, owing to a false 403 Error getting in the way.

So I turned off Bad Behavior. The backend went back to normal, and I was able to post again. Problem solved!

Except I was left with only Akismet for spam protection. Akismet works really well, but it doesn’t catch everything. The reason I reinforced it with Bad Behavior in the first place was because I was tired of having to clean up the dozen or so false-positives that would get past the goalie. Sure enough, shortly after I went all-Akismet, a few random spamments slipped through.

I could have replaced the old Bad Behavior plugin with the fixed version. But I decided to take advantage of the opening to give the Spam Karma 2 plugin a shot. Just like BB, it’s supposed to play nice with Akismet (i.e., won’t cause conflicts that will kill off your website).

I installed SK2 today, and so far, it’s looking good. It’s got a load of diagnostic screens, and I’m actually scared to poke around with it too much. As long as it snags the spam without blocking the legit stuff, I’m satisfied.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though Spam Karma will be a long-term fix. Dr. Dave decided long ago to discontinue ongoing development, partly due to WordPress politics and partly to a widening of scope in the spam-fighting effort.

Upshot: Regardless of how well or not SK2 works for this blog, I’ll probably have to go back to Bad Behavior. So this all amounts to some blog-tinkering, which I haven’t indulged in for a while. I’ll ride it as long as it’s feasible.

Here’s a shout-out post to Bryson Nobles, who’s just launched his personal entrepreneurial blog, CEO Swagger.

I’ve been working with Bryson on The 8trk Project. Since I encouraged him to keep a blog in support of that venture, I’ll take partial credit for putting the bug in his ear to branch out to his own site. I think the new blog will highlight his drive to carry out Web-based business concepts, from idea-germination through to functionality, and beyond.

Hopefully, the swagger will start soon enough with 8trk, as soon as that site is ready for public unwrapping a few weeks from now.

Oh yeah, this is exactly what I envisioned when I signed up as a Google AdSense publisher: A top-level primary-placement ad link for “Gonorrhea Statistics”.

For the record, my AdSense revenue total for today isn’t markedly higher than usual. I guess it’s something of a relief that visitors to my blog aren’t itching (pun intended!) for information on STDs…

Here’s how to pare down the Presidential Cabinet, which is often criticized as being bloated:

Eliminate the Departments whose Secretaries are wasting time blogging.

Hello, Homeland Security’s Michael Chertoff and Health & Human Services’ Mike Leavitt!

Start packing up your desks now, boys. And be heartened that, once relieved of your post, you’ll have loads of time for blogging full-time.

So the new 2.3 version of WordPress is named “Dexter”, after the late great jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon?

Funny. Since my senses (mainly sight) have been assaulted for the past few weeks with ads announcing the upcoming second season of Showtime’s serial killer series “Dexter”, that’s the first thing that came to my mind. I’d accuse the WP folks of selling out via subtle product placement, but given the non-profitness of the development project, I’d say that’s highly unlikely.

However, the comparison to the serial-killer anti-hero theme isn’t wholly unwarranted. For everyone rushing out to download and install 2.3 before taking another breath, I’d like to remind them about what happened with version 2.1.1, when someone hacked into WP’s servers and planted malicious site-hijacking code into the install file. Is it really worth risking the potential damage? Do yourself a favor and wait about a week, when any funny business is likely to be uncovered. No one’s got a gun to your head.

That’s my plan. The only reason I’m even considering the upgrade is to try out the new integrated tagging option, even though I’m cool to the idea of tags anyway (my feeling is that categories should take care of the semantic mapping of blog content; tagging feels like overkill). Plus I believe there’s a built-in auto-backup option. But my WP upgrades never go smoothly, despite the promises, so I’m wary from the start. I do have a new host this time around, so we’ll see.

Once again, the MacArthur Foundation has announced its annual two dozen Fellows.

Once again, I’m not on the list.

Not that I’ve been trying. Still, my lazy-man approach should have netted me one of those phat MacA $500,000 “genius award” jackpots by now, based on the following:

1. My proposal, two years ago, to have John D. and Catherine T. anoint me as the first-ever MacArthur Foundation Blogging Fellow. (Obviously, the hoped-for groundswell of support for that never materialized.)

2. My geographic edge, as one-fourth of 2007’s Fellows happen to be based in New York City. I’m right here in the middle of the action! I’ll gladly accept the genius-by-proximity mojo.

But so far, no good. I’ll have to redouble my efforts for 2008. Maybe even take the drastic step of blogging about something meaningful…

I guess I’m not particularly unique in expressing a fondness for Manhattan’s Bryant Park. The movers and shakers at the New York branch of National Public Radio share that fondness, to the point of setting up The Bryant Park Project.

What’s that? It looks to be a new breaking-news program from NPR, with a hipper, youthful edge.

Since I don’t listen to any radio whatsoever, I’m both the least receptive and most-sought-after audience for this Project. As long as there’s the online component (more the blogging, way less the podcasting), I can always check at my convenience.

Actually, it’s been a good while since I’ve visited Bryant. I’ve been way too busy most of the summer to do more than just pass by. I guess NPR’s campout there will give me a mild incentive to drop in and check things out. Maybe especially inside of a month, when I’ll have my new wi-fi capable iPod Touch, and so will be able to Web-browse while I track down, say, BPP contributor and ex-MTVer Alison Stewart.

As the Web continues to mature into a more robust and polished media outlet, it’s downright refreshing to know that Hot Chicks with Douchebags carries on in the spirit of Web 1.0 text-and-still-photo snarkiness.

The classics never die, mon.

I think it’s funny that, despite the ordering of the two elements in the blog’s title, there’s far more focus on the douchebags (and their caught-in-the-act douchebaggery) than on the hot chicks. It’s something of a case of misplaced priorities, but completely understandable. After all, you can ogle a picture of an attractive woman without much editorial assistance; but can you come up with the fashion descriptor “cactus hair and amoeba mandana” on your own? Of course not.

All I know is that, the next time I get my photo taken alongside a pretty lady, I’m going to obsessively check HCwDB for the next several days afterward…

This 2006 assessment aside, Hugh MacLeod has been workin’ it, blog-wise, for tangible bottom-line business results.

The big payoff: Stormhoek, a winery in South Africa of all places, attributes its global spike in sales to gapingvoid’s conversational marketing efforts:

As Stormhoek’s representative, MacLeod offered a free bottle to any blogger who asked — as long as he or she was of legal drinking age and had been blogging at least three months.

Recipients didn’t have to mention the wine, but many of them did; nearly 100 bloggers posted related items or comments in just six months. MacLeod then used his blog to organize more than 100 “geek dinners” in Britain, France, Spain, and the United States — gatherings of tech workers and influential bloggers who were plied with Stormhoek wine.

A recent dinner in San Francisco, for instance, attracted local technorati like former Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) and RSS pioneer Dave Winer (Scripting News).

While the blogosphere’s reviews of Stormhoek have been mostly good (”drinkable” and “pleasant,” with the odd “disappointment”), MacLeod’s results have been amazing. Stormhoek sales have jumped nearly sixfold, from 50,000 cases a year worldwide to almost 300,000. The winery expects to sell a million cases annually within three years.

I guess being an asshole pays off.

I was initially disappointed that I had missed out on some free vino. But the free bottles were available only to Euro bloggers. Makes sense, as shipping wine in the U.S. is a quagmire endeavor.

Just as I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of a Freelancers Union, I’m not sure the gestation for a professional bloggers’ union makes an awful lot of sense.

And even if it did, I think Susie Madrak, aka Suburban Guerrilla, could have chosen a better argument to illustrate its worth:

Madrak hopes that regardless the form, the labor movement ultimately will help bloggers pay for medical bills. It’s important, she said, because some bloggers can spend hours a day tethered to computers as they update their Web sites.

“Blogging is very intense - physically, mentally,” she said. “You’re constantly scanning for news. You’re constantly trying to come up with information that you think will mobilize your readers. In the meantime, you’re sitting at a computer and your ass is getting wider and your arm and neck and shoulder are wearing out because you’re constantly using a mouse.”

A health plan for desk-jockeying physical trauma? Somehow, I don’t see this winning over popular support for a blog-guild.

Here we go. As I said I would earlier this week, I’m giving away some free stuff.

The freebie this time out: A book. Specifically, the hardcover edition of Joshua Ferris’ “Then We Came to the End”. It’s a debut comic novel about cubicle life in a big-city advertising agency that’s slowly going out of business. Click through the link for more. I’ll refrain from giving my review of the book, other than to say that I tend not to give away books that I favor.

Rules are dead simple: Either leave a comment in the Feedback link below, or email me. First one to touch base with me gets the book mailed to them. U.S. addresses only, please.

That’s it! This may or may not become a recurring feature hereabouts, so keep an eye out.