SOME RANDOM DUDE

If you have been reading this blog for even a moderate length of time, you are most likely aware of the unusually high amount of Nine Inch Nails articles on this site (seen here and here to name a few). Considering the general theme of this blog, I could see how this could be seen as strange to many. Still, I tend to write a lot about how digital media (which design-technology intersects with) is changing not only mainstream media, but the society which consumes it - which in turn impacts how we do our work. For the past two years, Nine Inch Nails has really been on the frontlines of pushing media away from the consolidated, copyright-heavy, corporate-run model to a distributed, grassroots, artist-run model.

Last night, Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I-IV, an independently-produced album that is available for download for the price of $5. There are 36 songs in this album, so that $5 looks even more reasonable than ever. For those of you into the tangible, CDs can be purchased as well. Additionally, 9 songs are available completely for free - no questions asked. While this is distribution model is new, it is not new - we have seen it with In Rainbows and Niggy Tardust, each with their own little tweaks on it. However, make no mistake, Ghosts is unlike any other album distribution we have seen.
(more…)amazon, business, cd, copyright, creative commons, digg, distribution, download, ghosts, information, internet, marketing, media, money, mp3, music, myspace, nin, nine inch nails, online, p2p, peer to peer, pirate bay, piratebay, promotion, reddit, riaa, social bookmarking web

Promoting your own site can be a tricky thing. You obviously want people to visit your site, but you do not want to be labeled a spammer in the process. There is a very fine line to be walked when promoting your own site - and I am not the one to give advice on how it should be done. What I can say, however, is that we all be lenient towards self-promotion. If not, we might end up missing out on a lot of great new content on the web - and it just might be from your site.
(more…)linking, online communities, online ethics, opinion, promotion, self promotion, spam, traffic visitors

I have been a Mint addict for quite some time. I do not go a day without looking at it multiple times. For all that looking however, I have failed to peel beneath the surface of what those numbers mean or start setting goals other than “more traffic”. With each day, I consider this blog increasingly important for both exposure and the learning experience. I am going to start taking my traffic seriously and begin to set goals and create strategies to meet those goals. Because of this, I am rethinking many structural, informational and experiential elements of this site. I am going to make changes to each of those facets in order to meet those goals - I will then analyze if those changes make a positive or negative impact on some metrics I am following and adjust appropriately.
(more…)design, marketing, metrics, mint, pageviews, promotion, traffic, unique visitors web statistics