Plug This: Creative Minority Report

Not that they need it.

Creative Minority Report announced that they had recently passed the four million visitor mark. More than that, this was after passing the one, two, and three million visitor mark JUST THIS YEAR!

In order to appreciate the significance of this, you have to go back to when they started.

Four years ago, the most popular sites in the Catholic blogosphere were generally those of people who were either a) priests, b) pre-established in the Catholic print media, c) authors of their own dramatic conversion story, or, in at least one case, d) playing on a gimmick. Matthew and Patrick Archbold were definitely none of the above. They did not originate the use of a headline summary block at the top of the page, but they were among the first to do it well. They pioneered the use of an auxiliary site, Creative Minority Reader, where links to the work of others can be found.

They are also just plain good, period! Matthew is an established journalist in the secular media, which is enough to apply a certain standard and consistency to their work. Patrick has --- I dunno, five, maybe ten kids? It's a perfect combination. No relying on cheap gimmicks and stupid (usually photoshopped) images of nuns playing roller derby in full habit. There are other places to go for that. People go to CMR for good writing, well presented.

Finally, rather than a major Catholic publisher using the web as an afterthought for pushing print material, the National Catholic Register came to them, and incorporated them as an integral part of a web-based product which stands on its own.

In nearly four years, the Archbold brothers, and their other occasional contributors, succeeded in heralding a paradigm shift in the Catholic blogosphere. The Catholic press has taken notice of the need to shift to a web-based marketing strategy, as one publication after another begins the transformation to a "web-option" or "web-only" product.

And in the eye of the storm, a "creative minority" of two brothers are the ultimate case in point. Keep it up.

(And return my phone calls already. Geeez!)
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