SOME RANDOM DUDE

As I mentioned not too long ago, this site is in the process of being redesigned. I really did not go into any details about what to expect from the new site, so I wanted to drop a few ideas of what I am working on.

Here are a few things to you will be seeing from the new blog:

• There will be tiered content - large scale, medium scale, small scale and (possibly) micro scale.
• Each tier will be viewable separately or together.
• Publishing will be decentralized with content siphoned into this blog.
• Posts will be much more frequent because of the tiered, decentralized nature (and yes, I have been testing this to make sure it is the case).
• Daily blog statistics/metadata will (hopefully) play a larger roll in the general experience.
• Comment Love will play a larger roll and be more integrated into the blog.

I could get into the design and other details, but frankly that is not too important in the big scheme of things. The content is what really separates the mediocre blogs from the good ones. The way I see it, if I can make creating content excruciatingly easy, there is a much better chance that I will do it more often. Since I already do in fact “publish” a lot of content outside of this blog, I might as well take advantage of that.

But enough from me, the reason why I posted this is because I want to hear about any ideas you think would be great to see in the new SRD. Ultimately, I will only be able to do so much, but I am certainly still in the “open to new ideas” stage. I have been looking at other blogs to see how this site could improve, but at the end of the day I am only one person with limited knowledge. Please lend me your experience and thoughts. I have no doubt it will make the new blog better in the end.blogs, decentralized nature, love, micro scale, opinions, redesign, srd thoughts

Well, May and June were supposed to be a big couple months in order to generate enough comments for a special Comment Love project. I dropped the ball - big time. The beginning of May started off really well and then tapered off extremely quickly and I have yet to recover. A couple large projects, a vacation and a continuing battle with burnout have done my blogging in for about a month and a half. I know I will get back on the horse eventually, it just has not happened yet.

All that said, the charities that we were supporting for May and June, the International Rescue Committee’s Iraqi Refugee Program and the Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust were extremely important and I feel extremely guilty that my otherwise unimportant problems got in the way of hitting our goal. Therefore, I decided to donate the maximum amount ($100 to each charity) even though we barely hit half that mark in comments. I really dropped the ball in terms of posting - frankly, I’m surprised we got as much as we did.

The posting frequency will be back up to normal levels soon - hell, just posting this article was a major accomplishment for me in my current state. Ironically, I have been doing a tremendous amount of interesting work that I am really looking forward to sharing. Be on the lookout for posts sooner than later.blogging, burnout, charitable service, charities, charity, comment love, disabled american veterans, international rescue committee, iraqi refugee, love, month and a half, refugee program service trust

He is knee-deep in Actionscript and unable to post any articles. In terms of articles, this month started off with a bang and is ending with a fizzle. Add a much-needed vacation and there are not going to many most substantiative articles coming through the pipe in the month of May. This is extraordinarily unfortunate due to the special month of Comment Love we have going in May. Since I was forced to drop the ball on publishing this month, I am going to extend this Comment Love project into June - hopefully that will help get us to the $100 mark I am shooting for.

So my apologies for the lack of posts. I honestly have not even had time to post the weekly links of the weekly photograph - it has been that hectic. The regularity of posts will increase dramatically once I am over this hump.actionscript, apologies, busy, hump, love regularity

Even with less posting after mid-April due to the ramp up for next month’s special Comment Love, we still managed to generate $16.50 thanks to 33 comments. All $16.50 was donated to KQED.

I was really surprised by the amount of comments that came in - more surprising were the articles they came from. I am hoping to spend more time actually analyzing patterns on participation on this blog so I can create content that interests more people yet sticks to the format and niche that I wish to focus in.

Stay tuned for this upcoming month, there should be a lot to see here.
april 2008, comment love, donate, kqed love

So it is a Thursday and there are still no posts on Some Random Dude for this week. What gives? Well, I am most certainly writing and putting together a collection of posts and (believe it or not) real articles. However, I am holding onto them until the month of May where I will (hopefully) be pushing much more in-depth content on a weekly basis than any other month I have blogged. The reason for this is that May is going to be a special month of Comment Love, where the maximum donation will up increased to $100. This means that we will need 200 comments during the month of May to hit the goal. Considering the highest month of comments was a little over 100, I am really going to have to work for those 200 comments.

To get the roughly 50 comments a week, the following must happen:

1. I will need to produce some really good articles - probably more frequent than on a weekly basis.
2. I will need serious help from readers like you to not only comment, but to encourage others to comment as well
3. The month of May must have exceedingly above-average traffic

The only thing that is truly in my control is the first item, so I am working hard to make that happen. If all goes well, I will have some pretty cool stuff coming out in May (fingers crossed). I will be finishing up projects that I swore I would complete and finish articles I swore I would write in order to make this happen. However, to do this, the rest of April is going to have to suffer a bit. I should still be able to put the weekly photograph and the weekly links up, but not much else.

Just a quick update.

blogging, comment love, cool stuff, depth content, fingers, love, may 2008, photograph traffic