I put up Fire Quinito for a couple of reasons. The first and more obvious reason is that it’s a place where I can let off steam by writing about and discussing sports with people whom I may not have met if it weren’t for the blog. The second is that, as a new media professional, it would give me a sort of a real-world laboratory to figure the ins and outs of serious self-publishing on the Internet.

It has paid off both ways; as a sports blog, it is a modest success, carving out a solid niche and finding a following among passionate fans and people who matter. But it has also been extremely useful for me as techie self-publisher, helping me figure out what works (Kris Aquino posts do VERY well) and what doesn’t, as well as helping me cut my teeth in a lot of different things – server hosting and maintenance, SEO tips and tricks, social media promotion, crowd-sourcing, site layout and ad placement, running online advertising campaigns, online metrics, and a bunch of other things. The knowledge I’ve gained just running the site on my own has been invaluable.

I’d been dragging my feet about creating a Facebook account for the site, mostly because I’m lazy, but also because I had no idea what to do with it, save for posting links to the site. I quickly figured out what Twitter, the other popular social media platform, was good for: it was a fun way to throw out jokes while watching live sporting events along with other people online and it was useful for finding funny stuff from athletes, i.e. Wesley Gonzales tweeting about Yeng Guiao’s sweet nothings. (It’s also great if you want to pick a fight with a disbarred former pro league commissioner who now runs the country’s basketball federation.)

Anyway, this whole thing is just a heads up that I’d finally put up a Facebook page for the site which you can also access via http://firequinito.com/fb. I still have no idea what it’ll be good for apart from posting the latest links, but a few hours after putting it up, it has already generated a substantial traffic for Fire Quinito – which makes me feel like an idiot for not putting one up sooner. So join up, if that’s your type of thing, and let’s figure this whole Facebook thing out.