Following up with Indieanimator

So I mosey'd back on over to Indieanimatornetwork and registered. I did so in order to contact Johnie Tidwell, the name behind the page in question. Well, while I waited for my registration, Johnie, to his credit, got in touch.
Here's what he had to say:

Hi Michael,

I am writing you, because I came across your post on your site regarding the C.A.R. news feed on indieanimator.com - whether it is complimentary or theft. We hope that you find it as complimentary, but I will understand if you are conflicted with being feed through this site. We have no intention of presenting your blog as a product of IA.com. Your feed was only added maybe a week ago to encourage the members to visit resourceful links and blogs on the net. We are fans of your coverage on interesting topics within the animation industry and community

IA.com started about a year ago as small group networking with other animators and to provide a platform to advocate the independent animators. There are not a lot of online platforms on the net to connect other than facebook and myspace - so ning provided the best option for us. Our purpose is to mainly empower the animator and find others that share our interests. We were happy to be under the radar, but it seems that more people are taking notice which is fine. There is a lot of talent out there and it is a shame that the commercial animation takes most of the lime light.

We do not want to take credit for your hard work and will be happy to release the feed. This is not our intention to steal, but only to share information to our members to become followers of various blogs we like to read.

If you would like us to minimize the feed to the sidebar or exchange the feed into a logo link to your site - we will be happy do this as well. Or we can just delete the entire feed all together. It is your decision either way - we welcome you to still be apart of the indieanimator.com community.

Let me know what you think?

Sincerely,

Johnie Tidwell
indieanimator.com

Good for Johnie for taking this step. He's put his page together for much the same reason I did mine. I still would have appreciated this contact before the feed went up though. I'm glad he finds value in what I'm doing here and that he saw it worth posting. But selfishly, I'd like people to be reading it here. As someone who is seeing this hobby turn into an occupation, numbers are something I have to consider. That being said, it's my pinko zeal for sharing information and experience that got me doing it in the first place. So I'm considering my options here.
I'm sure we'll figure something out, linksharing is a very common practice, and the whole point of this blog is to share. So it looks like Johnie and I will have a conversation. I'd like to know if he's contacted his other feeds, although most of them are not featured quite so prominently. Either way, he writes a pretty good letter and his his complimentary approach certainly won him my ego's vote.
M