Teeter Talk: Joe/Josephine Totteree

Joe Totteree

Joe/Josphine Totteree
a person on board with the idea of talking on the totter
Ann Arbor, Michigan to Paris, France

Tottered on: Every day
Temperature: 71 F
Ceiling: sunny
Ground: snow-dusted
Wind: SSW at 5 mph

Ad Title
"Slogan"

When: day/date/time [or span]

Specific event or reason to visit your store: Unlimited description of the event or reason to visit your store. Each description concludes with a map showing your location and parking or bus stops if relevant.

Get there by car, bus, or bi-pedal transportation

announced as a public service

Shadow Art Fair
"Buy Indie in Ypsi"

When: Fri, 1 Dec 8pm-midnight

Day One of multiple-vendor, independent art fair: Venue is the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti, owned by Matt and Rene Greff. Friday entertainment (in addition to the merchandise) includes Patrick Elkins, Timothy Monger, Davy and Peter Rothbart, and Greg McIntosh.

Get there by car, bus, or bi-pedal transportation

announced as a public service

Shadow Art Fair
"Buy Indie in Ypsi"

When: Sat, 2 Dec 11am-8pm

Day Two of multiple-vendor, independent art fair: Venue is the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti, owned by Matt and Rene Greff.

Get there by car, bus, or bi-pedal transportation

announced as a public service

Skids and Sprockets
"An exciting up and down game for little riders"

When: Sun, 3 Dec Noon

Bicycle Race ($5): It's a bicycle race infused with the excitement of a roll of the dice. Start for riders is at the Bluish Barn. If you can staff a checkpoint, or you'd like more information, contact is holdfast3000 at gmail dot com

Get there by car, bus, or bi-pedal transportation

announced as a public service

Mittenfest
"Nine hours of music and nine thousand gallons of beer. You do the math."

When: Sat, 23 Dec, 2:00pm

Live Music ($5): At the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti (proceeds benefit 826Michigan).

ACT ONE:
02:10-02:40 Emily Bate
02:50-03:20 Need-based Paint
03:30-04:00 Emily Jane Powers
04:10-04:40 The Victrolas
04:50-05:20 Joiya
05:30-06:00 Frontier Ruckus

INTERMISSION
06:10-06:20 Santa & Rudolph

ACT TWO:
06:30-07:00 Patrick Elkins
07:10-07:40 Jim Roll
07:50-08:20 Misty Lyn
08:30-09:00 Matt Jones
09:10-09:40 Chris Bathgate
09:50-10:20 Fred Thomas
10:30-11:00 Actual Birds (fresh off the plane!)

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announced as a public service

Improv Inferno
"Laugh til it burns"

When: Fri, 19 Jan, 8:00pm (7:30pm doors)

Citizen Improv ($10): The premise of Citizen Improv is that non-actors from the community ascend the stage and tell three 5-minute stories. After each story, the improv cast creates scenes based on these stories. It's not a re-enactment. The citizen's stories are just the inspiration. The 'citizen' for this event is John Hieftje. Last summer, as the citizen of Citizen Improv, Mayor Hieftje told a story about neckid voters. That might be tough to top, but I'm sure he'll give it a shot.

If you'd like to be the citizen of Citizen Improv yourself, there's contact information on the Improv Inferno website. Or go to this show and talk to John (not the Mayor, the improv actor who'll likely be emceeing the event).

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"Slogan"

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Background on Teeter Talk

Teeter Talk is a website dedicated to the premise that people enjoy the back-and-forth of authentic conversations, especially when they're grounded in content that is local to some community.

So the vision of Teeter Talk is to let folks across the web eavesdrop on some good conversations with an inherently local angle.

The built-in local perspective of Teeter Talk is Ann Arbor's. That's because the content published on Teeter Talk stems from actual conversations with actual people who are actually riding the teeter totter in a backyard on

“This is hometown
Dada media at its best.”

Karl Pohrt
Shaman Drum Bookshop

Ann Arbor, Michigan's Old West Side. If Teeter Talk can contribute to the corpus of community conversations, without letting anyone fall on their head, then it will have accomplished its mission.

Teeter Talk has already documented the rides of over 100 guests over the course of the last two years. Most of the totterees live somewhere in the greater Washtenaw County area. They range from prominent elected officials and leaders of business and non-profits to ordinary people who you never knew were that interesting. But along with the natives, there are other folks represented as well. Some were on their way out of town. And some are just passing through. What they all have in common is they've straddled the wolmanized wooden board mounted between two posts in my backyard.

If that's compelling enough, then you can sign up right now. If you've got questions, here's some answers.

The Ad Program FAQ

First off, just to be clear, you're not required to ride the teeter totter in order to subscribe to the advertising program on this site.

Q: But what's in it for me?

Access to a unique blend of local readers.

The regular readers of Teeter Talk are people who have an appreciation for a local perspective. The local perspective of Teeter Talk is centered right here in Washtenaw County. So by supporting a local publication, with local regular readers, you look after your own interests as well.

Teeter Talk enjoys a steady supply of non-regular readers as well. Friends, family, and colleagues of totterees are sure to read Teeter Talk at least once--if only to find out if their friend, family-member, or colleague said something interesting, or just fell splat right off the totter.

And because Teeter Talk is published on the internet, it allows you to connect with non-local readers who discover Teeter Talk while searching and reading the world wide web. But what do you care about non-local readers? Well, some of those non-local readers will visit Ann Arbor. And some of them will even receive an explicit invitation to ride the teeter totter. How else do you think visitors from London, England and Paris, France and Melbourne, Australia have wound up on the teeter totter? Those invitees will typically skim through at least a few Talks to preview their experience--even if they aren't able to ride.

Besides a perfect audience, what's in it for you are ads highlighting some reason for people to do something in your bricks-and-mortar world. Sure, it's nice to have links to your website, but what's even better is a reason to go to your physical place in the world. That's why Teeter Talk gives priority to ads with some specific, time-based reason to go to your physical location. For details, keep reading.

Q: How much does it cost? And what exactly do I get?

The current rate for 6-months worth of ads is $250.

You get:

(1) Event and Non-Event ads that look generally like the example mocked up in the left sidebar of this page. Below the mock-up are actual public service ads that have appeared in the past on Teeter Talk. Specifically, they'll typically include:

(a) Logo, linked to your website, if you have one.
(b) Layout with Title, Slogan, Event Description (flexible in length with text links to your website as appropriate)
(c) Link to a map locating your place of business

(2) Creative support: Graphics and copywriting support for creation of at least one Event Ad and one Non-Event ad.

(3) Creative freedom and variety: You can create as many different ads as you like using your own resources. You can control every last pixel of each and every ad you'd like to run. The number of different ads you have active on Teeter Talk at any one time is in principle unlimited (They'll be updated once a week.) The left sidebar ads are additional reading material, adding interest to the website, not annoyances that might bother readers. So the more variety, the better.

(4) No hassle: I pester you only twice a year to renew

Q: Where exactly will my ads appear?

Your ads will appear in the left sidebar on every page of the site. For purposes of display on the web page, Teeter Talk ads from all advertisers are first sorted into two categories: Event Ads and Non-Event Ads. Event Ads are all displayed in a stack above the Non-Event Ads. Event Ads are displayed within their stack sorted chronologically based on their event date. So, as the time for its event approaches, an Event Ad will rise towards the top of the page. Event Ads expire automatically when their event is over. Non-event ads are displayed within their stack in order of the advertiser's date of first uninterrupted participation in the Teeter Talk ad program.

Q: Good grief, that sounds like a lot of ads in that very long left sidebar! How will people see my one ad??!!

The number of ads displayed when a particular page is viewed is limited in a systematic and fair way to one of each kind of ad for each advertiser. The alogrithm for displaying Event Ads on a page is:

(1) randomly select 15 advertisers who have currently active Event Ads
(2) for each of these advertisers, randomly select one active ad
(3) sort these ads chronologically for display by date of the event

The alogrithm for displaying Non-Event Ads on a page follows the same principles:

(1) randomly select 15 advertisers who have currently active Non-Event Ads
(2) for each of these advertisers, randomly select one active ad
(3) sort these ads chronologically for display by date of advertiser's partnership with Teeter Talk

There are several advantages to this simple system. First, lots of ads, each from a different advertiser, translates into a high probability your ad will be displayed when a page is viewed.

Second, because the ad set chosen for display on a page is not limited by date (it's just sorted by date), you control how far in advance you want to start promoting an event. And there's no need to promote some event way before you really want to, just for the sake of keeping an advertising presence on Teeter Talk--that's what your Non-Event ads are for. In addition, you can be as creative as you like in developing various different ads--even multiple ads for the same event--without worrying about incurring additional charges, and without worrying about overkill from the point of view of the reader. The reader will never see more than one of your Event Ads or more than one of your Non-Event ads on a single page.

Finally, it's a system that puts all the advertisers in the program on a level playing field in terms of number of ad displays.

Q: I don't really have 'events' per se at my business. Well, maybe once a year or something. So why should I be excited about this ad program?

You should be excited about the Non-Event ads. Readers see your Non-Event ads and get used to seeing your logo and some words about your business on Teeter Talk. Then, when an event you want to promote does come up, you can have Teeter Talk load up an Event Ad. And the best part will be ... it's already paid for!

Q: Great. How do I sign up? And does my 6-month subscription start as soon as I sign up?

You can sign up by making your payment. The 6-month clock on your subscription will not start until your first ad appears on Teeter Talk. Teeter Talk prefers that the full payment be made at one time, but there is some room for flexibility here. To discuss that specifically or clarify other details of how the program works, feel free to contact me.

--HD

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