More on the changes in store for the Grapevine

As I have stated, I will be making some changes to the Grapevine.

I am first off, trying to change the look, but I am having trouble. I want it to look sort of like the Grand Avenue News or something more magazine-y. But to tell you the truth, it really may not need that change now as I don't plan on publishing daily news anymore.

I would like to make it a more personal blog and less political and daily newspaper-like. Maybe more like a magazine style, you know, more features, less news.

I am going to restructure all the ads, maybe change the size and formats and pricing. Not many people have advertised over the years anyway. Riley Smith has almost always been there and up until a year or so ago, Greenstreet Cafe ran for four years straight! But the majority of businesses have overlooked us, I am not sure why, maybe because I simply never asked for ads. Most ads ran free or as in-kind type things. So all the money you all thought I was raking in honestly was not happening.

It's really not been about money. I had the notion one time of making it a "real" business, but that idea faded and I just wrote the Grapevine daily because I like to write and I was at all the Grove events anyway, so it was only natural to take the camera out and take photos. But make no mistake, this is a full time job. It takes 40 hours or more a week to produce this mishigas.

I tried selling it that time rather than give it away because a friend said that the person taking it over should have some "skin in the game," so that they would not run it into the ground by not having a financial stake, which made a lot of sense. But I didn't get any buyers or anyone who actually wanted to take it over for free. I tried.

Anyway, the plan now is to blog what is on my mind and not do the daily news, which may be more interesting since I can get more gossipy and more into people's minds. There are other news outlets now for Grove news -- The Grand Avenue News of course and The Coconut Grove Gazette and the Herald has a new reporter for The Neighbors, so hopefully they will get more involved in Grove politics. And I see that Facebook has so much, too. People post tons of photos of events like Mad Hatter and Halloween and even Grovetoberfest, so it's all covered, and I am sure you all see that as you are cruising the internet.

I have the Calendar of Events, so you can easily find out what is going out by checking that.

You'll see changes over time. When I leave town this month for 10 days, as I have done so many times in the past, you will know it now, because I may not have 50 stories backed up to run in my absence as always has been the case. As AnnaMaria told me so many times, just put up a "gone fishing" sign or fade to black until I am back.