For the past few years, I've been co-owning some websites with my good friend Dave Podmajersky. These are all affiliate marketing websites, pretty much pure copywriting in content. But the venture proved to be quite successful, leveraging both of our talents, and developing a series of websites that have blessed us both quite well.

Continuing on this success, Dave and I wanted to see what we could do with blogs. We launched our first one about a full year ago, Genealogy and How. We then launched Political Dogs as our entry into the over-crowded world of political blogging. Then came Scrapbooking and How, and then came Girls Fastpitch Softball, where Dave talks about the trials and tribulations of being a softball dad.

Today, we officially announce the launch of our newest blog, Weird News Today, our offering into the genre of "odd news".

So to provide some kind of brand identity for this venture of ours, we present to the world, Smoking Dogs Media.

The name Smoking Dogs Media came from the logo on Political Dogs, which depicts two dogs smoking cigarettes and drinking booze. Smoking Dogs combines together all of the websites and weblogs that Dave and I co-own.

Most of the content on Smoking Dogs' websites are written by myself and Dave. Only on Genealogy and How do we have other writers, three of them.

What's up for the future of Smoking Dogs? Well, look for us to explore some new ideas for monetizing blogs. Right now, you're going to find AdSense on our blogs, just like with many other blogs. But we're going to be getting into other revenue models, including affiliate marketing programs, sponsorships, and who knows what else.

We're also going to be looking for new ways to generate content. No, we're not going get into splogs. We want to find ways to minimize our content costs and maximize our publishing output, all without clogging up the search engines with spam.

Smoking Dogs Media will be a platform for us to explore and experiment.