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Game Director Suburban Wolf could not be reached for comment. Through his spokesman, Director Island Dave expressed optimism that the future of the market was "bright and sunny."

Despite the comforting words from Island Dave, we can report that all is not well with the market. An anonymous source intimately familiar with the inner workings of the market, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak with media, said, "We're [expletive deleted]! We're totally [expletive deleted] man! We are so [expletive deleted] that the word [expletive deleted] doesn't even begin to describe how [expletive deleted] we truly are."

Only time will tell, but the recent volatility in the blogs market would indicate that troubled times may be ahead.

Pundits on the afternoon business channel programs unanimously declared a profound shift in market dynamics. "It's as if blog valuations have been turned on their ears," said analyst Ken Adams on the Fox Business Channel's Neil Cavuto show. "We don't completely understand the phenomenon, but it's clear that the business cycle has shifted."

Once mighty Wonkette and it's affiliates were among the first to feel the pain, with values dropping precipitously through early after-hours trading. Rumors place the losses somewhere near 90% before all is said and done, and cash flow for these companies appears to be severely restricted.

Rob in China, spokesman for the Blogshares Securities and Exchange Commission, could not be reached for comment. Exchange director Suburban Wolf, meanwhile, deferred comment until after his pedicure.

Our first step toward eliminating the cap was to double it to B$ 50K. We decided that this would be healthier for the game than simply letting things float, as it would give players time to adjust to the new conditions. The chart below shows the end state distribution after this change -- about 75% of the formerly capped blogs were now at their "natural" state.

At this point, we had originally planned to implement a new algorithm for blog link value, and eliminate the cap, but I felt there was additional value to be gained in stretching out the transition. The next chart shows the impact on outgoing link values seen from increasing the limit to B$ 100K - we get even closer to a true power law, but it's possible there is still more room for improvement.

Looking at the 700 or so blogs stuck at the outgoing link limit, we can see that over half have no outgoing links, and only 112 have more than a single outbound link. This means that we are probably at the point of diminishing returns, and don't need another step in outgoing link value before moving on to Phase 2.

One final chart in this post - the daily valuation of the total blogs market since we started Potent Wind. For the first week or so of Phase 1, you can see a generally stable trend, followed by a huge leap on January 6th. In the early part of the project, we allowed blog values to propagate naturally as players indexed their blogs. This effort concentrated on the few hundreds of blogs with the most value, and gave us a relatively stable market value for the first time in recent memory.

On January 6th, we fed the remaining capped blogs directly into the spiders, and realized a huge leap in overall blog value. We then let things settle for another week, and raised the cap again. You can see from the chart that blog valuation appears to be accelerating upward, with a glitch on January 1th caused by the elimination of a top-5 blog from the game.

Our next step will be to introduce the new algorithm for outgoing link values. We will be removing the limits, and players should see a whole new class of blogs grow in value.

We've seen the launch of Turbo Chances (and saw the Chip Market prices surge for days as a result). In-game message handling got smarter. Composite scores are now figured hourly (previously every 3 hours). The Industry Trading tool is available once more. A rewrite of the Players Market (p2p ideas market) is in the queue. And the big one: Share searching is back online, bringing back a very long awaited and very powerful tool for share play.

We'd love to officially congratulate the newest BlogShares Elite: Sage Enterprises. She has stepped down as an Admin, but she'll still be around and in force. She's held practically every role the game has to offer, but has never lost her keenest of game smarts. A very much deserved honor.

We'd also like to welcome J.T. Sage and beachtiglet to the GIC team. Ken and Ts (along with many other beta testers and bug finders) have been invaluable to the Admin and BOD this week, and are eager to see the new recruits jump into the mix. Lots of cool things are suddenly possible in BlogShares, and I cannot wait to see what the team will come up with.

For what is a first to my knowledge, someone with certified legal education has joined the BSEC. We're not sure whether to be happy about that or scared, but either way, welcome to immunis. I'm sure someone will find a cheatypants for you to bust very soon.

Don't forget to get your vote in for BlogShares Wacko and buy raffle tickets for the upcoming Futurama DVD giveaway.

Let me leave you with a pic from October when ID and IT visited Jay and SubWolf in central California. SubWolf was on his way back to the UK the next day, after having spent an extra week in the US after his mom broke her foot the night before the original flight out. Twas a great trip, and I love this shot of the 3 guys that are Santa Cruz Tech finally in the same place at the same time.

No more excuses! This is an early warning to players to have a think about issues they want to raise. It's also a public announcement to get us to get our butts into gear. The programme of topics is quite loose at the moment, but certainly I'd like to discuss the following points at a minimum:

• Revolution in Share Play and Blog Valulation Math
• Changes to the Composite Rank
• Industry Captains
• Enhancements to Corporations
• The BlogShares Economy

Everyone is welcome to the Town Hall meeting. It will be held in one of the BlogShares IRC channels, and detailed joining instructions will be given nearer the time. For those of you who cannot make it, regular (every 10 minutes or so) logs will be pasted to the forums.

Just remember, if you're not there, you can't participate and help forge the direction BlogShares will take in 2008!

The thing about BlogShares, as many have noticed, is that volunteers keep it alive. Our Index Managers with their indepth expertise in all-things blog related; the GIC and their analytical minds helping to formulate the future of the game and coming up with innovative contests and competitions; the BSEC, rule enforcers and providers of justice for all; Tengrrl, our tireless Editor, ensuring that the documentation keeps up with the game and its myriad of changes. Everyone on this team each provide a unique and very necessary part of the puzzle and challenge of keeping BlogShares going. They all come in for continual demands from above, and hassle from below.

Thank you for doing what you do. If you've not thought of getting involved before, you can apply to join the team. Click here for more information.

Many of you, old and new, will probably by now be aware that the lead developer of the game suffered a stroke earlier this year. He has now returned to the UK from the USA to continue his recovery. I hope everyone will join me in wishing him a full and speedy recovery. We miss you, Subwolf.

This has sadly impacted on where we are with the continued development of the game. Dave, primarily committed with other Santa Cruz Tech projects (the owners of BlogShares), offers what time he can. I try and do the most pressing, small improvements or bug-fixes. We do have a great deal planned; changes to share play, share math, the voting process, and much, much more. We are accutely aware that there are issues with the game. The GIC have formulated a way forward on many of those fronts. Sage has grand plans for fixing what is wrong with a lot of the issues surrounding voting and more.

Please bear with us on these fronts. We're not burying our heads in the sand as some accuse, or simply ignoring the issues; It goes back to the volunteer nature of the game development. It has become over the years, a very, very complex beast. Even the smallest of changes have to be checked against a whole host of factors to make sure fixing one thing, isn't going to break 3 others! We will get there with time. I promise you that. Our walking-talking reference manual (Subwolf) isn't available, so everything takes 3 times as long.

With all that said, now, some good news!

The recent database crash reminded us just how pressing the need is for getting the new database server plumbed in. I am hopeful that this will finally be happening over the next 2 weeks. We were lucky that there were sufficient options available to finally get the repair to work, although it was touch-and-go at one point with just 118mb of free disk space remaining! The things we can do with the raw processing power available on the new box is almost limitless, and I'll be trawling through the forum suggestions for the last 2 years or so looking for the immortal phrase "maybe when we have a new db server"!

There's a new GIC Competition running right now and a side bet to go with it. Free chips and an artefact are the main prize, as well as potentially, many more thousands on the side bet. You'd be mad to miss it!

That's it from me for now. Until next time.

• Processors: 2 x Dual-core AMD Opteron 2.2GHz 2MB Cache
• Memory: 4 x 2GB PC5300 667MHz DDR2 ECC Registered
• Hard Drives: 5 x 73.4GB SAS 15000 RPM - Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 (RAID 5)
• Total Cost: $5,750 (the rest of the money raised will go towards shipping, hosting, and support expenses)

We don't yet have an ETA for installation, but that will hopefully be very soon after shipment. When the new server is installed, it will likely entail a day or possibly two days of downtime for the game. In addition to installing the new database server, we will use that time to do the wipe, OS upgrade, and re-installation of the web server as well. This way everything will be running optimally. More details about this process will be released when available.

Role Announcements:
I am also happy to announce several new role promotions. First, we would like to extend a belated welcome for Honey4evr and Enigma Chaos to the Index Management team. They have been in their roles for several weeks and dove right in to assist with the very complex task of maintaining our index.

Next, we would like to welcome T$ and Ken Adams to the GIC. These players are very knowledgeable about the game and we look forward to their assistance as we expand upon and improve the game in the future.

And finally, it is our distinct pleasure to bestow the title of Elite Player to R U Serious. RUS has been a valued member of the community for some time now and since the addition of the new composite scoring he has been prolific in holding onto the #1 spot. Well done!

Congratulations to all of our new roled players!

No, we haven't purchased the new one yet - this is taking some careful planning and execution, going for a balance of future security while not compromising on components. We're gonna shell out for a 3 year 4-hour response warranty out of our own pocket, on top of the community donations, to make sure that in the unlikely event of a hardware problem, we can get it sorted quickly. The hope is we'll have a box on order within the next two weeks, we'll keep you informed of any news.

Cheers!

Addendum: While doing some Java today, I'm reminded of a site that has helped me immensely in the maintenance and growth of the spiders, as well as our other projects, yet I've never given it props. It's Roedy Green's Java & Internet Glossary, a useful resource. Thanks to him for the help it's brought me.

You did it.

You, the players, have come through stronger than we could ever have imagined. This wasn't paid sponsors or advertisers or corporate investment, this was a diverse, wide-spread group of players who have given and given strongly. Thanks to your donations, BlogShares will soon have a more powerful box for the database, which means more features, faster pages, and greater flexibility in the game.

This is no small feat. You have given over $6000 in less than one year's time. To say we are blown away would be an understatement. We are incredibly thankful for your donations, and we look forward to selecting a box and getting it online for you as soon as possible. How can we possibly say enough 'Thank You Thank You Thank You'. We'll keep you up to date as we go through the process of selecting and installing the new box, and it will be our pleasure to do so. Best wishes and our eternal gratitude to everyone who contributed in any way to this fund drive, and we at BlogShares look forward to spending time each day in this community that you all have built as a unique, welcoming, generous, and positive Home on the web. Cheers and thank you, all. We can't wait to see what you will do next!

You may also have noticed that 3 of the Development Funds have had cash goals met. Thank you to everyone who donated to these and others! Now, we need to see those B$ goals met! Please, donate some of your B$ assets to these goals. There are dozens of players who could finish off these goals all by themselves, so let's get these goals met ASAP! Admin Sage Enterprises has offered to match B$ donations to the Text Ad Editing Fund to fill that goal, so take her up on the offer!

Finally, BlogShares' chat room #blogshares is one of the largest rooms housed in the WyldRyde IRC Network. Right now, WyldRyde has a fund drive going on to help pay for various expenses that add up quickly on a large chat network. Several generous B$ players have donated to WyldRyde, and we'd like to send them much more for the professional, spam-free chatting #blogshares regulars rely on. If you enjoy chatting in #blogshares, or any of the WyldRyde chat rooms, or even if you just want to help out the cause, please give what you can to help the folks behind wyldryde.org pay the network's bills! You'll get a special hostmask identifying you as a donor, plus loads of kudos and appreciation from the proprietors at WyldRyde.

Just launched are the new Development Funds. You can help determine what cool new features we work on, and help the coders spend more time on the game. Please donate your B$ and/or real cash to your favorite funds, and support BlogShares and the people behind it.

We now have a Lottery where you can spend your B$ for a chance to hit a nice jackpot. Some of the early wins have gone over half a trillion B$!

There is also a Birthday signup available on your User Preferences page (click the 'Prefs' tab from your user Profile or click [Your Preferences] in the right-side Members Area menu). If you would like to add your birthday, you can do so, and on your special day, your player name will appear in a special 'Today's Birthdays' box in the right sidebar.

Don't forget to add BlogShares to your Myspace friends list, and join the BlogShares Music Lovers group at Last.fm!

Thanks to tremendous work from Friendly Wholesale Bonds, Beverly Shaw, and ChrisB, our fund for a new database box has seen a healthy movement towards our $6,000 goal. Thank you, Rich, Bev, and Chris, and thank you as well to all the generous folks who have participated and helped B$ get closer to the new box!

My personal apologies for not being able to get the next community IRC Summit together. I've had some family issues that have kept me busy lately, and I've been unable to tackle all the work that goes into putting such a large gathering together. Don't fret, though, we will have a Summit in the near future, probably some time after New Years if all goes well, where we'll deal with many subjects, including fine-tuning and improving Ideas Math.

You may have noticed that we've put new blog addition (from our spiders) on hold. We were relying on the FeedMesh ping list to receive blog pings, but with the demise of PubSub, FeedMesh has gone offline. We have a couple of other ping lists / clouds that we can use, but we have unfortunately discovered that the urls pinging are very, very high in non-blogs and spam. We'd slaughter the index quickly if we blindly accepted these listings without a serious rewrite to our current code.

We are working on refining our automated ping reading, but until we can build, test, and implement such a system, the automatied pinging will remain offline. You can still add blogs yourself with Add Site. You can also use the Add Site bookmarklet (drag it to your toolbar) to quickly add a blog you are viewing. It fills in blog title and url for you, just double check and submit. We've just added Sigma and Chip rewards for your additions, awarding you 1 Sigma point and 20 chips for each URL you add. We are logging every addition, so be certain you are adding a blog and not non-blogs or spam. The BSEC will be notified if abuse is found.

Or so we thought. It turns out the PubSub Feedmesh has been offline for the past 24 hours, and we're worried it may not come back, after warnings a few months ago that they were about to close. This was our primary source of pings for new and recently modified blogs, and it's disappearance (again) meant it was time to try something else.

Whats our other option? Blo.gs. We've been approved to access their Cloud Interface for a few months, so we gave it a try.... after a few minutes, we were forced to turn it off again while we did some hard thinking.

Why? Here's an example of the quality of pings we were receiving - this is in raw ping format. Looks like about 90% spam, up from the more usual 30 - 50% spam we'd see from PubSub, and quite a bit of it was getting past our fairly decent filters. This is, as far as we're concerned, a nasty change from what we were quite good at handling, and our time is limited to handle this new torrent of, well, crap.

Some will have noticed we're still hovering just under 9 million blogs on our count, while Technorati now proudly proclaims to have 55 million. Piffle. Our model is different, however, we remove old/dead blogs from the index, plus our hardware restrictions (no VC funding for this little group, remember) means we have to ignore some legitimate blog groups (LiveJournal) that would otherwise swamp us. I'd say our spam filtering is a little better so far also - at least, it is while we dont use the blo.gs feed.

What to do now...

Quoting from the official announcement:

These are a veritable treasure. written by Rantz based on his mentorship with kucinichworldpeace, whose understanding of voting and the Index is virtually unparalleled in the game, and on Rantz' many months of voting and cleaning the Index followed by many more months of refining, testing, and amplifying his knowledge as he taught it to many players who participated in the Friends of the Index program.

The documents are not just an incredible resource guaranteed to increase your voting accuracy and efficiency, and your karma. They are an historic legacy of two great players.

If you haven't already done so, please take a look at the new docs. They start here.

Blog Demographics is a top-level industry for which votes cannot be cast. Its sub-industries contain information about Gender, Language, and Place as those pertain to the blog and its blogger(s)

This called for some re-organization. As the description indicates, the Gender, Language and Place industries are now subs to Blog Demographics and likewise non-votable. All the sub-industries of these three, however, are still votable.

We also created several new industries today -- several subs of the Gender Industry as well as Hometown Blogs and Communications

And to retool the Artefacts associated with the formerly votable "Language" and "Places".industries, we created an opportunity for players to participate for a chance to win B$50 billion. Check it out!