To answer any outstanding questions, no, I was not "rubbed out" by a militant wing of the Ron Paul army. In fact, last summer's Digg Dirt series opened up a lot of new opportunities for me.

For those of you with short memories (myself included), I delved into an informal study of Digg.com and the impact of social media on popularized websites. The whole thing led to a conflict with the Ron Paul army (rabid supporters of the libertarian presidential candidate actively promoting their agenda on Digg) in which the IAOC blog experienced the “Digg Effect” – a massive traffic spike.

So why the radio silence you ask?

This brief examination of social media led to some big things in my professional career, must notable a new job. Thanks in large part to the Digg Dirt series, I’m now an associate analyst for the SEO Global Solutions department of Avenue A | Razorfish. My responsibilities include search engine analysis, SEO copywriting, and, oddly enough, social media strategy. I’m also regularly contributing to Search Marketing Trends and writing a thesis examining algorithmic search relevancy.

It’s been a busy few months.

The reason for this short drop-in is that I’ve written a feature article on the Digg Dirt examination, which will be appearing this month in Ad News Magazine’s “Advertising 2.0, Version 2.0” issue. It details the experience in full as well as reports on the fallout of the Digg Effect.

I’m very pleased to see this all finally coming together. I’d like to personally thank Don Dunnington for making this all possible as well as Morty Schiller and Steve O’Keefe. Their insights kept me motivated and on track, and their constant vigilance kept me from breaking the website – even through the Digg Effect. This one’s for you, guys.

So please check out the November issue of Ad News, and look for more posts from me in the future. Cheers and keep digging.