The network launch is stalled because of a few last-minute decisions, like decideing to add OpenID and Video Commenting to the blogs now rather than adding them as bolt-on features at a later date.

With the race on for data portability, data sharing between sites and video becoming such a large part of mainstream users internet experience, it stands to reason that being an early adopter with those features can only help the network in the long run.

I’m also toying with the idea (ok, on the brink) of rolling out an extra blog with the launch. That blog ‘could’ even be replacing one I had originally intended rolling out. We’ll see as the day progresses.

Regular posting has begun across the Hub54.com network today and an official announcement will go out to bloggers within the next 48 hours, probably on Monday, May 12/08 in the Morning EST, unless someone discovers and reports the news early. We have started linking out to other sites and sources so that’s a very real possibility.

We’re coming out of the gate with 5 sites, this one, the Hub54 company blog and 4 others which are listed in the right hand sidebar. These initial sites will be built up to a certain point in terms of content, traffic and revenue levels and by mid year (July) we’ll be bringing 3-4 new sites into the fold.

And now… back to work.

For the past few hours I’ve been readying the sites for launch. Actually, I’ve been doing this for about a week now, but whatever…

Each blog will be getting at least 10+ initial posts before going ‘live.’ These posts will establish a few things that will carry on in the initial stages of development:

1. Initial posts set the stage for future content development.

2. They give the impression of a ‘full’ blog where there’s something to read when initial visitors come to the sites.

3. It gives the opportunity to create and populate initial categories with some content so readers and search engines know what the main topics will be.

4. Helps build up research and posting techniques for each blog.

For now, these initial posts will be a bit generic with no, or very little outbound linking within the content. Outbound linking will be much heavier upon launch and it’s a critical technique I’ll be using to ‘announce’ the blogs to other bloggers and site owners because those links show up in the other site’s stats or control panels.

The planned launch date for the Hub54.com blog network was originally May 5th but as with almost any startup, planned launch dates are usually optimistic.

At any rate, we’ll be coming online in a few days with a total of 5 or 6 blogs including this one. More here as time goes on.