I hope I’m not breaking any SD policy by mentioning a Chicago Reader competitor.* They seem to get less than a third of the traffic of chicagoreader.com, so I can’t imagine they’re much of a threat.
Gapers Block is a Chicago-centric web publication. It does columns about Chicago life, reviews of local entertainment and cuisine, and a calendar of upcoming events. Has anyone here heard of it? Does anyone have any impressions of it? A friend of mine writes for it, and not having lived in Chicago for a few years, I have no idea how big a deal it is.
- If so, hopefully it’s mitigated by the fact that they recently linked to the Italian Beef column.
I’m familiar with it but don’t know the people involved. They’re an aggregator with some original content, as you can see. They link to the Straight Dope (and presumably Reader articles) periodically. One of my projects is to get in touch with the people who run local sites, and they’re on the list.
Ed, as someone whose job includes keeping track of Chicago websites, you are a TERRIBLE indicator of whether people know about the site in general. 
Can I just say, that with all the appearances (1 2) I’ve been making on the main page lately, I am definitely bringin’ sexy back.
Thanks for the great response, Cecil!
Cecil has answered this: http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20090402.php
Consequently, I’m editing the thread title and moving this to the more appropriate forum.