We joined the 9rules family

Paul Scrivens invited us to become members of the 9rules network, and I couldn't resist. Molly.com had already done due diligence on joining, so that helped our decision. But there were really five main reasons for our joining the 9rules community:

1) Killer content on their member sites ("we're not worthy!") makes it a wonderful group to be a part of.

2) I'll get to learn from the other members--most (if not all) of whom are much more experienced at web content than we are.

3) Paul invited me despite the fact that within 24 hours of one another, he and I posted almost violentally opposed views on the same topic (37 Signals-- he slammed them while I held a lovefest, complete with 9 hearts ; )

4) In their benefits of joining, they include:

* Admission to a growing community of slightly-too-happy people who share similar goals.

(one of the things I've been criticized the most for is being slightly (or sometimes way) too happy... )

5) It puts the pressure on to keep doing what we're doing and work on improving... a requirement for joining the group. From their Membership Responsibilities:

• Good content. Great design is nice but it's content that draws people in and keeps them coming back.
• The desire to actually work more on your site than you do now.
• The commitment to share your knowledge on what has made your site successful and what hasn't worked.
• Your advice and experience passed on to other members who have questions that you can answer.
• The ability to take a risk now and again to try something new.

So, we're honored Paul asked us to join such a stellar group, and hope we can hold up our end. I highly encourage y'all to spend some time with some of the wonderful sites on the 9rules network, and consider joining.

In other news, I want to thank Matt and Shaded for house-sitting the blog while I was gone. It matters not that they would respond the same way I would, what matters to me is that I trust them... something pretty amazing about the internet/blog world, given that I've never met either of them and not entirely sure they're even human ; )

Thanks also to everyone who has been commenting and sending me links and email -- I'm still catching up, so if I haven't responded to your email, I probably just haven't seen it yet.