SOME RANDOM DUDE

It has been around a week since I wrote that this blog was going through a redesign. Unfortunately, until then, I was most likely be writing about the its progress. Still, I thought it may be interesting for some to read snippets of where it is in the process.

At this moment, wireframes are around 80% complete - which sounds good - however, because of the 80/20 rule, that means that I am still a long way off. I have tried to scatter my work around so as to diminish the potential for tunnel-vision on some aspects of the design, so I took some time to begin on some necessary icons. Up to this point, the vast majority of traffic to this site funnels through two icon sets I made a while back. Ironically, those sets took all but 2-3 hours to make whereas this set is taking much longer.

Here’s a preview of some icons:

(more…)bitcons, blog, icons, launch, personal project, redesign, sansons, small pieces, snippets, traffic tunnel vision

This post will have been the 8th blog entry in two months. To put that into perspective, in the month of March 2007 this blog had 34 posts alone. Frankly, this is not surprising - updates have slowly trickled downward for the past 3 or 4 months now. There are a few reasons for this - which I can get into in a later post. However, it has been clear that the current model of how I have blogging up to this point on Some Random Dude is not sustainable, nor is it smart. The effort/reward ratio is just not high enough - and while I was willing and able to a year ago, I am no longer.

The thing that has gotten to me the most is the amount of manual labor it takes to publish frequently. I would post 3 or 4 times a week and the traffic would frankly not reflect what I think it should have. Make no mistake, I am not in the camp that believes traffic is the sole measure of success and value - however, it is important. About one year ago, I started setting goals for what I would like to achieve with this blog - goals that I concluded would only be possible with a relatively high frequency of postings. That notion then put me into the pattern of regular weekly posts which became more of a chore than it should have been. I do not think that there’s no coincidence between the fact that some of my most popular posts were written before I started posting weekly content. In retrospect, I sold-out quality for quantity and I am kicking myself now for that.
(more…)blog, blogging, cms, goals, redesign, some random dude traffic

Back in 2002 or 2003, when Internet Explorer reigned at the undisputed leader in browser market share, I was very outspoken over the need to support all browsers - even those with only 5% share or less. I argued about the need to provide a consistent experience for all users, regardless of what browser or version they decide (or as forced) to use. This ideology was all the easier to adopt considering how had market share at the time - I feel as though my strong feelings were just as much about not idly allowing the “evil” corporate browser to swallow even more share by helping make it the de-facto browser on the internet. Fast forward 5+ years and oh, how the tables are turning. A new generation is jumping online and they’re not just blindly clicking the blue ‘e’ on their desktop. Firefox 3 shattered the record for most downloads and, according to some metrics, is passing up 20% global market share and well above 40% in some European countries. The underdog is now the up-and-comer.
(more…)browsers, consistent experience, conundrum, downloads, european countries, global market share, internet explorer, metrics, netscape, new generation, philosophical difference, production time, traffic, underdog, undisputed leader, web exprience web projects

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

Surprisingly, there are very few political articles in this week’s collection of links. You would think Iowa and New Hampshire would have dominated, but they didn’t. Consider this the one article on the internet where you can take a breath from politics.

Enjoy the links.

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