ToM’s Dead, Welcome to Ectomo.com
Posted by John Brownlee
Welcome to Ectoplasmosis, now running in gasket-blowing alpha mode. From the mucousy sphincter of our ectoplasmic blogging protuberance, posts will start spurting out soon.
For those of you coming from Table of Malcontents, you’re going to notice a paradigm shift. Ectomo’s about low-impact blogging and saving cleverness for when it counts. Bluntly, we’re not making money on this. That means we’ve had to get day jobs. On her part, Eliza has gone back to her previous career: walking the streets like a ruby-lipped, blue-haired waif, seducing well-to-do ladies and gentlemen with her shimmy and then — withdrawing with them to a secluded, gas lit alley — jabbing two stilletos with paralyzing accuracy into their pressure points. She then sucks their wallets dry like a pecuniary spider. It is, by far, the better career path. On the other hand, I’ll go back to working for the man, blogging about rubber monsters and phallic silver spaceships.
What this means is that we need to be wise in spending our reserves of energy. Most of the time, Eliza and I are largely going to let the content of a post speak for itself, interjecting with a line or two when it’s appropriate. That way, when we have something real we want to write, our thalamuses won’t be dessicated husks from extraneous describing and opining, and you’ll hopefully get our best. To make up for this, we’re going to try to post a lot of stuff, as we come across it.
But other than that, Ectomo’s ethos is the same as ToM’s: fringe art, culture and ephemera, as judged by us. If you liked ToM, we hope you’ll like Ectomo just as much.
One more note: we are very definitely in alpha mode. Our current template is just a placeholder, and there’s definitely bugs. But since this pad isn’t being leased by Conde Nast, we can be a lot more adventurous, and we intend on introducing a lot of community-oriented features (like forums, a wiki, etc.) as we think of them.
One thing we’re particularly excited by is Twitter integration. You’ll notice an ectotweet box in our sidebar. We’re using Twitter right now partially as a link submission form, partially as a way of broadcasting our posts and partially as a way of building up our community. If you add ectomo to your Twitter friends, you can post to this box by preceding your tweet with @ectomo. We only want to see links right now, but the plan is that eventually, anything submitted will be pumped up in a digest post on the front page. In the meantime, we’ll be promoting the best ectomo tweets to the front page as posts with a link to your blog, and anything we get submitted will be displayed in the ectotweet box.
Please don’t @ectomo goatse.cx us though. It’s easy enough for us to remove you as a friend, but we’d rather not.
Bugs? Suggestions? Criticisms? Email us or comment in this post. It’s the beginning, so we can change pretty much everything at this point.
Categories: Announcements
Posted at 10:04 am on July 2, 2007
35 Comments -
Well this so just made my morning, I was ping’d to visit by Warren Ellis and I am not disappointed.
Oh and I am artist, my suggestion are usually pithy uppity comments about man’s inhamunity to man or Which detective was the best on Matlock -Tyler Hudson or Conrad McMasters.
Comment by Philip — July 2, 2007 @ 10:28 am
First post? Maybe, we’ll have to see after I “Submit Comment”. The wiki idea sounds great although a forum seems like it would be almost superfluous. Hell, as long as the archive system is better than that mess they had you use at ToM I’ll be happy, heh.
Comment by Ross R. — July 2, 2007 @ 10:35 am
OMG! First!
I popped yer comment cherry! YAY! Best thing that’s happened all day.
No other appropriate comment at this time.
Comment by Giania — July 2, 2007 @ 10:41 am
Ross, the Wiki is going to be aimed at plotting out ideas for improving the site, and I guess recording memes and the like. I’m also not sure about the forum, but Eliza, I and a group of our friends do a monthly mp3 mailing list spree that would be intiruing to translate to ectomo.
Comment by John Brownlee — July 2, 2007 @ 10:49 am
All I ask is for an RSS feed. And maybe candy. Mostly an RSS feed.
Comment by James — July 2, 2007 @ 10:59 am
Good luck with the new site. Let’s see where this goes.
Comment by Peregrine — July 2, 2007 @ 11:00 am
James: there’s a huge honking RSS feed button in the sidebar. But here’s the link: http//www.ectomo.com/?feed=rss2
Comment by John Brownlee — July 2, 2007 @ 11:05 am
Nice and dark, just like the inside of a tiki bar.
Comment by MrBaliHai — July 2, 2007 @ 11:08 am
SON OF A-! Beaten! Gianna, I say we team up against this Philip person for taking our first spot. Damn you Philip!
John, that’s what I mean though; wouldn’t that sort negate the forum idea? I really like the idea of creating a community that roils beneath the surface of the blog sending up strangeness from within its stygian depths…although now having typed that I think I see where you guys might be going with that. The wiki being both a “site improvement” type of tool as well as a compendium of ectomo subjects.
Comment by Ross R. — July 2, 2007 @ 11:08 am
Ross – that’s definitely an issue. And god knows there’s enough forums. Eliza and I aren’t going to go through the trouble unless we can come up with some decent idea for what to do with them, besides be a place where people can post 1 meg animated gifs of howling cats.
Comment by John Brownlee — July 2, 2007 @ 11:13 am
John, sure, there’s the RSS feed, but where’s my candy? :)
Comment by James — July 2, 2007 @ 11:14 am
John, ToM was the highlight of my workday, especially Thursdays. I am glad to find your new aquatic hive.
Comment by Julian — July 2, 2007 @ 11:21 am
Best of luck with this! I’m along for the ride.
Comment by Eric Millikin — July 2, 2007 @ 11:29 am
Now now, Ross no need for hostility even though they say your first time is always the most special…mmmm…so gentle…anyway…HA! Bask in the glory of my firstness!!!! :)
Comment by Philip — July 2, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
One day Philip, one day… *shakes fist*
By the way checked out your site; good stuff. *goes back to shaking fist*
John- Absolutely. The net does not need another cat gif repository.
Comment by Ross R. — July 2, 2007 @ 12:29 pm
Loose the black. Readability is D+. While the dark charcoal works for clothing, cars and exotic ladies, the strain is too much, Content, content, conntent. It why you exsist. Currentlt A-. Keep up the good work.
Comment by Lazzi Mann — July 2, 2007 @ 12:57 pm
I blogrolled you mugs! I was a faithful follower of ToM and look forward to spending my moments of distraction with you guys!
Comment by BelchSpeak — July 2, 2007 @ 1:08 pm
Good Luck Guys!!! Looking forward to your ramblings – I’ll try and avoid my own…
Comment by Greg P — July 2, 2007 @ 1:20 pm
Lazzi, I don’t have an issue reading it, and I generally don’t like white on black sites. I find this fairly readable though. Anyone else having an issue with it?
Oh, and Greg, please, ramble. We’d love to have a lot more comments than we did at ToM. And incidentally, it’ll be easier for us to reply here… ToM’s commenting interface was obnoxious at best, which is why we were so often aloof.
Comment by John Brownlee — July 2, 2007 @ 1:24 pm
Good luck in your day jobs guys.
And thanks a ton for keeping this site and all it’s content rolling. Much appreciated!
Comment by Covert7 — July 2, 2007 @ 1:26 pm
It’s readable enough for me. Looks good.
Comment by Josie Nutter — July 2, 2007 @ 1:37 pm
yay! link from the weekly geek updated. all is right in the world.
Comment by chris furniss — July 2, 2007 @ 1:49 pm
Glad you two have a new home, work would have sucked without these excretions to keep me sane.
Comment by Ameyer — July 2, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
Ahhhhhh! I already feel at home!!! Best wishes you two ectoplasmatic beings , vomited out from the big W’s belly !!!!
Comment by Camillo Miller — July 2, 2007 @ 2:55 pm
Oh foo. Curses unto thee, comment screening!
It’s okay Ross, we’ll be top of the heap sooner or later.
Comment by Giania — July 2, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
Good luck, John y Eliza. (Can I just keep calling you Florian? That’s how me and my girlfriend refer to you. Is it strange that we refer to you? Hmm.)
The RSS feed only seems to be spitting out the latest entry. Not sure if that’s on purpose or not.
Comment by Jim M. — July 2, 2007 @ 4:25 pm
I only call him Florian. I think everyone should. “John” just doesn’t have the same pizazz.
Comment by Eliza Gauger — July 2, 2007 @ 5:25 pm
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Comment by ashcraft — July 2, 2007 @ 6:04 pm
Oooh, 29th post!
Good luck on the new site – hopefully it will not only be a blast to read, but will show Wired that there was a market for what ToM had to offer.
After all, fun is fun, but revenge is sweet.
Comment by Latenite — July 2, 2007 @ 6:59 pm
I’m having a bit of trouble with the gray on black format also. Probably old eyes. Like the look very much, but I keep on having to re-focus.
Oh and I like, like, like ectomo very much.
Comment by JMudder — July 2, 2007 @ 9:20 pm
just floated in from an email saying ZOMG ELIZA AND *FLORIAN* ARE BLOGGING!!!!1!!!11
Comment by Niero — July 2, 2007 @ 11:55 pm
Life can continue happily now
Comment by Vil Clinton — July 3, 2007 @ 12:37 am
Nice to see you guys getting something else started so soon.
Comment by Mike — July 3, 2007 @ 2:54 am
all i ask is PLEASE keep it simple, when viewing ToM at home (vs at work) all the embedded vidoes and links and worst of all adds blew me up to where i couldnt even scroll. please consider us semiluddites who refuse to lay down the bread for a new MBP!
Comment by Maxwell — July 3, 2007 @ 9:22 am
Hey Guys. Great to see you up and running again, I have the feeling that once this site really takes off I’ll eventually have no reason to check Wired’s site. My only request is for you guys not to overdo the liberty that ensues from being released of the grasp of your corporate overlords. I’m not talking about censorship, but to keep the NSFW material out of the main arena, so we can type your URL from work without having to look behind our shoulders. Best of luck.
Comment by Francisco — July 3, 2007 @ 2:29 pm