MyClaySun.com launched today in Clay County, Florida, just west of Jacksonville. The blogs-for-all website is coupled with a four-day newspaper, around 30,000 distribution. The website has a couple of nits here and there that the tech team is still chasing down, but the community interaction seems to be off to a good start.

The Arlington Heights Daily Herald may think his conservatism is "the thoughtful, common-sense brand," but his legislation suggests Illinois state Sen. Matt Murphy is a clueless demogogue playing an ignorant crowd. Why am I saying this?

I've been very quiet lately as I rushed to get some real work done against a hard deadline. My friends in colder climates will appreciate the sacrifice I made in spending some time in Florida. MyClaySun.com launches later this week and it seems to be coming together nicely, and the staff has labeled Jonathan Bennett, the site's community content coordinator fresh out of University of South Carolina, as "our very enthusiastic," which is somewhat more restrained than the sign I saw on his door last week, which I think read "Captain Awesome" or something like that.

I was on a panel discussion of social networking yesterday with moderator Michael Odza and the Dans: Dan Strauss from Fox Interactive (Myspace), Dan Pacheco of Bakotopia fame, and Dan Wheeler, who's about to pop a new site called Big Lick U. (It's a Roanoke in-joke.) Despite poor conditions -- the hall was eight rows deep and about a zillion chair wide -- the place was full and the audience was engaged. They had to push us out to make way for the next session. Jennifer Johnson blogged the session.

In 1999 I declared that journalists must accept a new social role as guides, not gatekeepers. Today's New York Times has an excellent example of that principle in action, eviscerating the wingnut political online magazine Insight for publishing a stream of falsehoods.

I want to thank the members of the organization formerly known as the NAA New Media Federation for last night honoring me with the 2007 Online Innovator Award at the NAA Marketing/Connections conference in Las Vegas. Howard Finberg presented the award and pulled quotes from emails I had written more than a decade ago, which is a little frightening considering that sometimes I'm not sure I should have said what I said the morning after, much less more than 10 years after.

It's public now: We're launching another "daily" hyperlocal product, this one in a western suburb of Jacksonville, Fla., called MyClay Sun. It will have a four-day print publication schedule, "daily on the Web," with a participative community website. Some elements will be very similar to Bluffton Today, but there also will be some significant differences. Launch date is the middle of next month.