Not too long ago, I posted this FanPost asking you readers your thoughts on a possible regional sports site for Indiana. At the time, SB Nation (the parent company for Stampede Blue) was launching regional site for places like New York, Philadelphia, Los Angles, and Dallas-Fort Worth.

In the FanPost, I asked each of you a simple question:

However, if they [SB Nation] did want to make such a [regional] site [for Indiana], what would you want to see?

Several of you offered your opinions, thoughts, and ideas. Today, I am very happy and very excited to announce that your opinions, thoughts, and ideas got the attention of SB Nation. Today, SB Nation launches SB Nation Indiana, your regional sports site for sports you care about in the great Hoosier state.

SB Nation Indiana

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Good morning and Happy Monday!

Yes, we have a lot of Colts news to post and talk about, but first I wanted to give a little announcement about Stampede Blue writer Jake "The Snake" Whitacre. Jake wrote articles every Saturday for our blog, but had to leave to move on to newer things. This is what he wrote in his last Know Your Colts history article for us:

I can't get into specifics yet, but SB Nation has given me the opportunity to do something really neat, and it's something that I really need to put all my blogging efforts behind, which is why I came to the tough decision to stop writing this column.

Well, today, I can finally announce what those "specifics" are.

This morning, SB Nation lunched several new sites with the focus on regional sports coverage. One of those sites, SBNation: Washington DC has Jake Whitacre as a writer. You can read one of his first SB Nation: DC articles here. Of course, it's about John Wall and how he is going to turn the Washington Wizards into a contender, or some such nonsense.

Aside from Jake wasting his time discussing the Wizards, he will also cover other DC-area sports teams, like the Ravens, Orioles, Nationals, Capitals, along with Georgetown and Maryland college sports. Along for the ride with him are Martin Shatzer and Mike Prada, both of which blog for SB Nation at specific team sites.

SB Nation also launched regional sites in New York, Boston, Arizona, Chicago, and Detroit.

In addition to all this, SB Nation had a pretty big write-up in the NY Times. The two schmucks in the picture are my bosses. If you think people like Bob Kravitz get annoyed with my insanity, they at least don't have to work with me. These two guys have had to deal with me for over three years. The guy on the right (Tyler) was the one who first brought me on board. We also argue about football sometimes. He's a Patriots fan. Go fig.

Anyway, the Times article highlights how SB Nation has grown and developed over the years at a time when other media entities have needed to cut back. The launching of these regional sites is another example of that growth.

I'm extremely proud that Jake got this assignment, and I (of course) take full credit for his ascent up the SB Nation ladder. Just like seeing Joe "shake n bake" Baker get that gig writing for the Washington Post blog, it is very gratifying to help writers who have a passion for sports. It's one of the reasons I still do this.

Now, for some of you, I'm sure the million dollar question is "When is SB Nation: Indy headed our way?" The answer is I don't know. Unlike Detroit, Chicago, or New York, our beloved city of Indianapolis is not as big a market. Maybe, after the cover all the really big markets, they will make one for us. I certainly hope so. For now, we Hoosier sports fans can enjoy our fill at places like Stampede Blue, Indy Corn Rows, Crimson Quarry, Hammer and Rails, and Rakes of Mallow.

Congratulations to Jake, the SB Nation: DC team, and SB Nation in general for a great launch. When you can today, take the time to check out the new regional sites. Oh, and if you comment in a Jake article, make sure you remind him you are from Stampede Blue. And make fun of the Wizards while you're at it.

MaPatsFan, the head writer over at Pats Pulpit and a person I consider a friend (even though he has horrid taste in football teams), recently lost his father to congestive heart failure. The senior Pats fan passed away this past weekend, which saw the Patriots defeat their rivals, the Dolphins, 27-17:

I have been away, off and on, for the past several weeks.  My father has been battling congestive heart failure for 3 years and finally decided to rest this past Saturday, November 7th.  I had a desperate need to participate in the last part of his life; without friends like JohnHannahRules and Marima, I could not have stayed focused on that mission.  They are truly wonderful people.

Please head over to Pats Pulpit and give MaPatsFan some support during this difficult time. It would be appreciated.

Also, just to prove that I am really nothing more than a sentimental softy at heart, we will break with tradition and offer up a little salute to MaPatsFan Sr. by writing two words I have never written on this blog: Go Pats!

Yesterday, our tech developers at SB Nation released some new features for us main page writers and for you, our community contributors.

Here is the rundown:

Share on Twitter

When you publish a FanPost or FanShot let your friends (or followers as they're called) know via Twitter. We've built an easy tool into the FanPost and FanShot editors that automatically creates a short URL back to your post and lets you send that to your Twitter stream along with a quick message. You can set this all up from your account settings screen, or right within the FanPost and FanShot editors. See more detailed instructions below.

Redesigned FanPost Editor

We've made a few changes to the layout and features of the FanPost editor:

1) Bigger textarea - more space to explain why ranking systems can't be objective or your GM should be fired immediately

2) Spellchecker - this isn't a spelling bee, it's a sports blog network

3) Draggable jump bar - we combined the intro and extended entry sections of a post and made it easy to decide where to split them

4) Sidebar inserts palette - tools to insert images, videos and quick, relevant, timely links in your post

5) Easy status + save - we made the auto-save message more obvious, combined it with the post status and made the whole thing a big button you can click to save as often as you want (without reloading the whole page)

6) Autotagger - adding player, team and game tags to your post helps everyone find your opinion on those subjects; we just made it super easy: write your post, click that 'run autotagger' button and we'll tag your post the most relevant players and teams + link them up as well. if you don't feel like clicking that button, we'll run that process for you when you publish.

A help box that explains all of this in more detail will open up the first time you try out the new FanPost editor. Now go fire it up on your favorite blog and try it out!

Twitter Instructions

1) LINK YOUR TWITTER ACCOUNT: Login to SB Nation, click your screen name in the network bar up at the top of the page, then click 'Edit Account'. From there click the 'Associate a Twitter stream with your account' link and follow the instructions to hook it up.

2) SHARE FANPOSTS + FANSHOTS ON TWITTER: Now when you click 'New FanPost' or 'New FanShot', you'll notice a checkbox at the bottom of the screen that you can click to reveal a text area to write your tweet. We take care of generating the short URL. All you have to do is click the 'Publish' button. BTW, if you skipped step 1 you can link your Twitter account directly from the FanPost and FanShot editors. And we make sure you won't lose your work in the process.

We hope you enjoy many of these new features!

I'm sure many of you longtime Stampede Blue (and SB Nation) readers have some questions about what the partnership with Yahoo means for this blog. Well, first off, let me state clearly that Yahoo did not "buy" SB Nation. I am not a Yahoo employee. Though Yahoo is one of the few companies I actually like (no, I am not kissing ass; it's true), I am still an SB Nation employee. Yahoo does not control this site's content. They don't edit it. They don't critique it. They don't phone me from their mother ship and tell me to stop bashing Peter King.

To best explain what this partnership is about, I shall quote the great Russ from Puruple Row (via Mile High Report):

Yahoo has no control over how any site runs or looks. They just get the most relevant content possible for each team instead of having to build there own network. We, as a network, gain credibility.

Yahoo wanted to get into the business of building a great, community-based blogging network, but rather than spend a ton of money building the network from scratch and hiring bloggers, they decided to partner with us. This means that my content (and the stuff written by shake n bake, mgrex03, and others) rolls up on Yahoo Sports' pages. Our articles are seen on their Colts page. Our articles will roll-up on box score pages. Yahoo readers can now log into SB Nation blogs using their Yahoo ID. 

This also means that SB Nation blogs are "Yahoo-Affiliated." This will hopefully break down a few barriers with leagues like the NFL, allowing us more access to players, coaches, and events (like the NFL Draft).

The one catch in all this is a small one: No cursing, foul language, or demeaning statements in the titles of articles. So, I have been asked (politely) not to write titles like "Mike Florio is a douchebag." What is said in the article body, or in the comments section, is still same as normal. They just want us SB Nation bloggers to clean up our article titles, making them more concise and easier to hook readers with; a very small price to pay for Yahoo affiliation.

If you have questions about the partnership, feel from to comment, or shoot me an email: sbnationcolts@yahoo.com.

If you want another indication of where SB Nation is going, check out this Washington Post write-up on one of our company leaders (Jim Bankoff) and the future of SB Nation.

Also, SB Nation is one of the Top 25 Most Valuable Blogs. I permit you to bow before our awesomeness.