When the Tribune Company launched Chicago Now last spring, they did so to great fanfare.  People said that it was going to revolutionize how people in Chicago shared ideas and information.

Wait, there wasn’t any fanfare.  Nobody even cared they were doing it.  The only reason we even knew they were launching was because they’d convinced Kermit to move Hire Jim Essian there.

They launched with a confusing name–wait, is this the site for the Chicago National Organization of Women?–and built in promotion from the Tribune and the Red Eye.  You remember the Red Eye, it’s the free daily that was supposed to get younger people used to reading a newspaper again.  That worked awesomely, didn’t it?

And so, like the Red Eye, Chicago Now has been a flop.  And you don’t have to go any farther than their homepage to see the proof.

On the homepage right next to their big, edgy OPEN FOR DISCUSSION, there’s a running count of the number of new posts and comments on the site in the last 24 hours.

They might want to rethink that.

The numbers normally hover around 140 posts and 400 comments.  So they’re averaging less than three comments per post.

Four hundred comments a day total, on a site that has 185 blogs on it. On a site supposedly supported by the eighth most read newspaper in the country.

Al Yellon can post a picture of a scaffold outside of Wrigley Field on a Tuesday in February and get 100 comments.

So why is Chicago Now such a disaster?

Allow me to be very scientific in my answer.  It is because most of the blogs are horrible.

Do they ever say no to someone who wants to have their blog there?  You could have a pretty difficult party game where you made guests guess if the names are made up, or real Chicago Now blogs.

Crafty Chicago  — real, and it has six comments on the last 10 posts, all on one thread.

Come Dance With Fabrice Camels — real, 13 comments on the last 10 posts

Come Dempster — not real, but if it were, it would be Ryan Dempster inviting all of out to open mic nights at comedy clubs to hear his witty Canadianisms.

Chicago RSVP — it’s real, and it has ZERO comments on the last 10 posts.  So does it even really exist at all?

Chicago OPS+ — Where Ryan Theriot loses his arbitration hearing every day.  Not real.  Yet.

Fry Cook on Venus — it’s real and it appears to just be a guy posting YouTube videos and generating a whopping seven comments in his last 10 posts

Gowhere Hip Hop — it’s real, it’s run by a guy named Sgt. Tibs and he says it’s the “#1 Hip Hop Blog in Chicago” and I’d hate to see who number two is because there aren’t any comments on any of the threads on his homepage.

Bunny About Town — it’s real, it’s terrible and it had four comments in its last 10 posts.

Ronnie Woo Around Woo Town Woo — Not real, but only because Ronnie can’t read or write.

Ask Mel — it’s real, she’s an advice columnist and nobody seems to care.  17 comments in the last 10 posts.

Etiquette Bitch — real, and easily ignored, much like real etiquette.  13 comments in the last 1o posts, and an impressive streak of six straight posts without a single comment.  I guess people are going with the whole “If you don’t have anything nice to post…”

Hire Chicago — it’s real and it’s a job about job searching.  You would think that with record unemployment this would be a busy place.  You’d be wrong.  Six comments in 10 posts.

Chicago Eats Allergy Free — incredibly, this is real, and five people have commented.

Stephanie Eats Chicago — I know this is real, I saw the movie–ten minutes at a time!  Wait, no this isn’t that.  It’s real, it’s ignored and it has nine comments ever.  And she tried a bold tact, after already writing five posts she wrote an introduction post.  You know a “Hey, look at my new blog post!”  Why?  Because nobody had commented on her first five.

Gardening Nude — real, based on a book by the author, and ignored in Chicago.  12 comments.

Groundskeeping Nude — Roger Bossard mows the US Comiskular outfield wearing only a Sox cap and sanitary hose.  Thankfully, not real.

Rent or Buy — real, a blog about real estate in Chicago and like the market it’s sloooow.  Four comments.

All the Single Ladies — This one’s real, it’s sad and it averages four comments a post, so it’s a hit–relatively speaking.

Seattke Sutton’s Healthy Eating’s A Life Changing Weight Loss Journey — This is what they call an Adverblog, which is a fancy way to say that Seattke is wasting her money by paying them to host this blog for her and her company, and nobody gives a shit because it’s gotten four comments, and two of those were just requests for Ron Santo to sign their toupee.  It’s actually real.

The Sleep Guru — real, four comments, all of them thank yous for writing a blog so boring it cured the insomnia of those four people.

Beyond the Pedway — Some hipster doofus writes this real blog about creative companies in Chicago.  The blogger has written 30 posts, he takes lots of pictures, and nobody has ever commented on any of his posts.  You guys need to fix that for him.

OK, enough of that.

Let’s look at the wonderful collection of sports blogs that our old pal Greenfi has assembled.

And because Cubby Julie combs the Interwebs looking for references to her, we’ll just start with hers.

She has one of the most read and commented on blogs on the entire site.  Her last ten posts alone had piled up 266 comments.  And that doesn’t even include a post where she slapped an f-bomb right next to the name of one of the Tribune’s more prominent advertisers.

So with Cubby Julie as one of the standard bearers for sports on Chicago Now (sad as that is), check out the rest, and the number of comments they have in their last ten posts.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed blogs are king

None of these numbers are good for a blog collective where they get links to their columns from the online version of the Tribune, but somebody has to be the “best.”

Da’ Bears Blog — 1,037 (A pretty impressive haul, actually, even if the guy needs to smacked for the Da’ part of the name.)
Bears Game Day — 869 (All but 17 of them are from game threads.)
A League of Her Own — 266
Bulls Confidential — 233
Blackhawks Confidential — 153  (This is as good as it’s going to get if you’re a Hawks blogger and if you can’t get an audience now, it’s never going to happen.  This is the blog written by the Kiley brothers, I hope Chicago Now is doublechecking Mike’s expenses.)

Somebody must be reading, right?

Chicago Fire Confidential — 73
SoxNet — 73 (The only White Sox blog on the entire site.)
The Rock Report — 67
That’s All She Wrote – George Ofman 61
Kap’s Corner – Dave Kaplan — 60
The Professor — 57 comments for Brad Palmer.  (The chalkboard needs more work, apparently.)
Fire Lovie Smith — 47 (Sad.)

Hardly worth their time

Designated Hotter – Cubby Julie 35 (How is this any different than her other one?)
Windy City Rounder – 32
Jay Cutler Superstar — 28
Jimmy Greenfi Sports — 24  (Surprisingly, not just 24 different ways of telling Jimmy he sucks.  And actually eight of them were on a thread he didn’t write.)
Red Light District — 22 (Written by Jay Zawaski, Mike Murphy’s old producer and the current producer of Dan McNeil’s show on the Score.  18 of those comments were on the shirtless Patrick Kane thread.)
The Baldest Truth – Mike Nadel 19 That’s probably more people than read him at his last gig.
Top Ten Chicago Sports – 18
Len and Bob — 17
The View from Vancouver – 12 (Yeah, we’re all excited about the Winter Olympics, aren’t we?)
Coppock on Sports – Chet Coppock 12 (Twelve?  Hee hee.)
Daily Chicago Sports Tab 11

Certainly not worth our time

Edgy Tim’s Illinois Prep Football — 9
All Q’d Up – Alex Quigley (whoever that is) — 9
Wrigley Bound — 7 (This blog is about as productive as most Cubs prospects, so it’s fitting.)
Chicago Sports Mob – 7 (The same guy does Jay Cutler Superstar, so that’s 20 posts and 35 comments.  Ouch.)
First and Big Ten — 5  (A blog about Big Ten football can’t even get 10 comments?  There’s not even an eleven craftily hidden in there, either.)
Blogshakalaka – Bruce Wolf 5
Chicago Red Stars (women’s pro soccer) — 4
Chicago College Basketball — 2  (Two!  In season.  Holy crap.)
O-Line to Normal Guy — 2  (Two?)
Call of the Wild — I think it’s supposed to be about the Chicago Wolves.  2 comments.

If a blog falls in the forest and nobody reads it, does it really exist?

From the Idle Mind of Fred – Fred Huebner 10 (Who thought he needed a blog?)
No Spain, No Gain – Sarah Spain ONE (One!  She’s averaging a tenth of a comment per post.)
Futbol Hoy! – 1 (The blog — and the comment– is in Spanish.  This blog is as popular as Sarah Spain’s.)
Illinois Outdoors — ZERO
Pow! Mixed Martial Arts – ZERO
Sports in Haiku – ZERO

That’s 39 sports-themed blogs.  Of those 39, 16 of them (41 percent) don’t average a single comment per post.  Not one.

Twenty-seven average less than four comments per post.  (69 percent)

Well, at least I think I found a new job for Uncle Marty.