Shhhhhh… just don’t tell anyone. Why? Well…

21CR.INFO is to be a blogging/social network that provides “The INFO You Need to Live the 21st Century Renaissance.” With 21CR.INFO, I intend to create of community of people who want to learn how to create content and blog about something about which they are passionate, promote the content that they create, and monetize that content if they so choose. I also intend to provide powerful blogs to people in the community to get them started and teach them how to create, promote, and monetize their content.

Which leads me to the reason for the “Shhhhhh” above… the blogging network isn’t quite ready for bloggers just yet, and I’m not quite ready to start teaching just yet.

First, I need to do a little blogging on it myself. If it a fairly sophisticated blogging network that I have set up here (if I do say so myself), and, although I have designed it to be simple to use, I need to make sure that I know how to use it, (and iron out all the kinks and squash all the bugs), before I start teaching others how to use it. (I actually have done a bit of blogging with it already: eBay.21CR.INFO.)

Second, I need to set up the Academy and the Forums. The Academy will serve as the community center of learning, and will provide video, interviews, and screen capture tutorials (amongst other forms of media) on how to do everything from publishing your first blog post, to doing research with Google, to using Facebook, to making your first sale. The Forums will serve as the community center of conversing, and will provide a place to ask and answer questions, share stories of success and failure, provide support and make friends, etc.

Finally, I need to get a few beta testers blogging on the network to test out the usability of the network, and for whom I can produce the first Academy lessons. (My cousin Dan has done some pre-Beta 1.0 testing for me and you can learn all about his semester in Australia here: DanMurphy.21CR.INFO.)

After all this is done, then I will be opening up 21CR.INFO to a larger scale and accepting new members. (That is, unless I decide to get the social network side of 21CR.INFO set up as well before I do so.)

Now, you may be reading this thinking, “That sounds like an awful lot to do before 21CR.INFO is truly launched… So, what is it that you are launching today exactly?” A fair question.

The answer: This Blog!

Yes, this is the first post to the central 21CR.INFO blog. I intend to have many blogs on the 21CR.INFO network, but the one you are reading right now is the central blog. It is the one to which I will be posting all the info that relates specifically to the 21CR.INFO network. Thus, now that this blog has been launched, I will be posting about all the work I am doing on the network as I progress through the steps that I have outlined above.

I launched the first incarnation of the 21CR.INFO network on New Years Day 2008. I launched it in the birthplace of the American Revolution, Concord, MA, at the domain 21stCenturyRenaissance.INFO. I put that network together pretty quickly, I didn’t build it for scale, and it crashed in less time that I even took to build it.

I am launching this incarnation of the 21CR.INFO network on Independence Day 2008. I am launching it in Santa Fe, NM, nestled in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the valley behind St. John’s College, with Los Alamos sparkling in the distance. I have taken my time putting this network together, and I have build it for scale.

It is in part by fortune that I have launched in these two places on these two dates. However, it is also by choice. I will find plenty of occasion to right about this fortune and choice in the future… and I have fireworks to go see in the bit… so, for now, let me end this post here.

Happy Independence Day!