Bryan Veloso is hiring at the next big social site company that will get bought up by some stupid media company. You heard it here first.
*sigh* I have to add more words to this entry just so that it doesn’t break the homepage. That’s what I get for not paying attention to where I am posting these trivial entries. I place the blame completely on Bob. Yeah, that Bob, the one in the corner.
I am a man of many ideas. I used to come up with about 3-4 new websites a day that would be interesting to develop. Get me online talking to Mike, Colin and Matthew and we can come up with 2-3 good websites ourselves on top of the 3 I already came up with when I wokeup. I don’t mean just websites that are there just for the hell of it, but these are ideas with potential. Of course all of our ideas always seem like they have potential. So many great ideas get tossed around the 9rules forums it’s not even funny anymore. I figure we might as well setup a mini-angel fund just so we can see these projects get off the ground.
Last week I wrote about the 80/20 rule and the Design Blogosphere and although I think generally the rule is quickly disappearing, on an individual level it still exists. So I thought it would be nice to see what your top 20 design sites are for news, information, content or whatever. Actually lets just do 5 since 20 can get out of hand fast and most of them would be 9rules Members. Heck the top 5 might all be 9rules Members.
My list:
And to put into words my thoughts on this subject enter Cameron Moll.
Though the idea of a *personalized* 80/20 — from the perspective of the reader — is likely still relevant, regardless of my original list. I personally don’t have enough time in the day to stay current with hundreds of sites. I still look to a few dozen to keep me current on trends and news. And that was the original intent in penning the list.
Who are the top 20 today? I’m not positive a global list along those lines is even all that important now, but I’m certain each of us as readers still has our own 80/20 list…
Note: This is a repost from an entry at workboxers, but since only my dog and Keith read the site I figured I would post it here as well. Damn, I don’t even have a dog.
At about 2am this morning I made a post in the 9rules Member forum about a couple of sites that I own that have been sitting idle for some time. I asked if any of the members would like to write for the sites and mentioned the terms that I would come up with. No big deal.
Fast forward to 11:30am this morning and I get an email from Duncan Riley telling me that he heard through the grapevine that I am starting up some network owned sites and that I was paying 100% of the advertising revenues to the writers. Geez, this might get out of hand fast I thought, so I figured it best that I write about it now.
It started all with the entry on Preordering books. I knew the best way to sell the books was to prove once again that I could make money from sites starting from scratch. I looked at the domains I had and saw that some of them could be put to good use. I also figured that I could make some extra money and put my Yahoo Beta account to good use.
Looking to further help members of the Network I saw how I could bounce many of my entries on these sites off of entries posted on member’s sites. I thought I would help them out even more with attaining traffic and readership.
Then another lightbulb flashed above my head and I thought I would ask 9r members if they would like to write for any of the sites. I took it a step further and thought I would ask anyone out there if they would like to write for these sites.
This is the main reason I didn’t even want to write anything on this issue. The comparisons to the wonderful b5media will no doubt be made. I explained how this idea came about and it’s different from b5. b5 is their company, this mini-network is not part of 9rules and I can’t say I will be around to coach you or give you high-fives (even though I probably will). If you want to learn to be a great writer then b5 is definitely a great option for you.
Just thought I would get that one out of the way. 9rules is my baby and that’s what I am watching over. Speaking of which, you really should try to catch a glance of 9rules Network 2.0. If you ask Rundle nicely, maybe he will preview it.
If this was planned for a couple of weeks or months and became business option #1 I would definitely have put more thought into this compensation plan. As it goes, here is what I came up with:
Sorry, I would’ve came up with something more difficult, but I already explained the reasons for these sites so anything more difficult would just make my life more difficult. Yes I own the sites and therefore the content and if you are against that kind of thing, that is what the 9rules Network is for. However, these sites will be promoted as I will be getting back to hitting the pavement for my case studies so take that for what it’s worth.
There are no banner ads up on these sites and if they do show up I will make sure to speak to all writers about compensation for those ads before they do.
You will also get linked back to your site (if you have one) on every entry you write along with a cool little bio page because bio pages are cool.
Warning: The concepts behind these sites aren’t new and there are already more well-established players in these fields. But who cares? I had the domains so I am using them. Ignore the fact some of the logos say “9rules Joint”, remember these have just been sitting idle.
If you have a topic that you want to stick in this conglomeration talk to me and we can do a site up.
I guess just shoot an email to scrivs{AT}workboxers.com (hmmm, maybe it should be the WorkBoxers Community) with what site(s) you are interested in and how often you plan on writing. As is the case with 9rules not everyone will be allowed in. I am not starting these sites without the intention of them being top-quality so even though you will have fun working on them, you best make sure you are serious about your commitment.
I don’t have an agreement or anything written up, but if you saw the 9rules Member Agreement then you know it will be short and sweet.
I will probably write more about this project Monday, but for now I am going to take a nap and enjoy my weekend. You should do the same…unless you are at work, in which case you shouldn’t even be reading this site.
As a designer I am sure you come up with some really great ideas to implement on your website. However, either you or someone else will chime in on how that specific idea is not usable or does not follow standards. A lot of times you may be hesitant to go with a certain design because you fear the backlash of the community, which some people really do fear, for example if you launched a new site using tables.
Designers should design sites that they are comfortable with calling their own, yet also follow the guidelines that their clients have set for them. However, there are design issues that sometimes clash between the two parties and a lot of the time I have seen that it is the designer who has to make the sacrifices.
First I am not going to tell you why you should or should not use a WYSIWYG editor. I am going to say my thoughts on why we should hand-code our pages.
To learn how anything works in this world most of the time you have to dig into the guts of it. You can not sit there and look at it and figure out what little intricacies make it tick. I can not look at a computer and tell you how it works. I could read a book and then tell you, but how could I tell you how much thermal grease should really be applied to a cpu/heatsink without having done so myself? If you want to understand your page then you have to make it…by hand.
Every artist has a story behind their painting. They can tell you that every stroke has a purpose. Nothing is ever done just for the sake of doing it. When you hand code your pages every item you add is added for a purpose. You take a greater sense in what you are doing and have a greater understanding of your own pages. Your work should be your own and if you do not understand it then it never becomes your own.
I have a theory about classical literature. I believe that there are more classical works and will always be more classical works written before the typewriter than there ever will be after. The reason I believe this is because writers had to take more care into what they put down on paper before the typewriter came about. They could not waste too many resources on unnecessary words. When they wrote the first “T” in “The” to start the novel they knew why they did it. They felt the “T” being written and therefore immersed themselves in their own novels. Their works truly became their own. You can never get to that level of immersion with a typewriter or word processor. You can not get to that level with a WYSIWYG editor.
Hand coding your pages gives you unprecedented control over where each element appears on the page. You control where each element goes. You control how your code is formatted. You have the power.
I am not saying that you should write out every single XHTML page on your site. It would be silly to hand code a hundred headers when all you need to do is write one header and simply include it in all of your files. I hand coded my header and side bar for this site. I hand coded the templates to every page and therefore I know what makes this site tick. I do not hand code my entries because there is no need. MoveableType does this work for me. The site is coded and now automated for me so that I can focus on the content that I write (be it through a keyboard). My entries usually only consists of a <p> here and a <h2> there.
I never understood why schools make their students design pages through WYSIWYG editors. I am sure there are reasons, but to me it is like teaching someone how to paint by numbers. If you really want to be good and gain an appreciation for your own hard work then hand coding is where it is at. After you become somewhat knowledgeable in XHTML/CSS then by all means find the best tool for production.
Friday I said I believe your message is the most important aspect of your site to keep in mind when designing it. For me, the second most important issue is your audience. When designing a site it might be easy to say that you are designing for everyone, but you must realize that every site serves a specific audience.
When I say this I do not mean generic audiences like single white males age 20-35. What I mean are specific types of audiences. For this site I perceived my audience to be web designers and others who may have some interest in design or programming for websites. This along with my message helped me to develop the design of the site. I realized that most designers work with resolutions above 800×600 and so I made just a little bit wider than that. Content wise, I know I have to bring something different to the table to attract readers because there are plenty of other well-established design blogs out there and I also know what kind of style and tone is allowed. Finally, I knew that most designers would respect a minimalist site because they would also see the usability involved along with the design and understand that it is not easy designing something simple that is different. Once you have figured out your intended audience (besides “everybody”) then you can have a better idea of how you should structure your site.
The message. This will always be the most important element of any design that you do. The message that your design gives will resonate through the minds of your users. If your design delivers your intended message then you have succeeded. If your design supercedes your message and hides it, then the design has failed.
Let’s start with an easy question and one that probably has the same answer no matter what type of econonmy we are living in. Have any of you been experiencing that more and more clients are willing to spend less and less money for your quality work?
At Business Logs we seem to be encountering this problem and it is starting to get on my nerves. You want clients coming to and you especially love it when they heard about your work through the grapevine, but for some reason it also got passed down the grapevine that you do work for $5/hr (exaggeration). We are in the business of building and nurturing brands through communication. A company’s brand is the last thing they get to hold onto, yet it seems it’s the first thing they are willing to skimp on.
Now I am not talking about throwing out a $15,000 proposal for a $2,000 job. I am talking about $3,000 jobs being knocked down to $1,000. There is always some bartering involved.
We are run by two millionaires, but seeing that we are a young company we don’t have that much money.
My personal fave will always be:
But we found someone else who can do it for $xxx, but we really love your guys style.
I am going to start a new strategy and markup 50% higher than usual and when they scoff at the price drop it down to what we usually would charge and they will think they are getting a deal. Branding is not a used car dealership. Sure, design isn’t the only part of a brand, but it can play a major role in it.
Maybe we do charge too much. Maybe competition has gotten so fierce on the web that beggars can’t be choosers. Who knows.
Whatever. Frustration has gotten the best of me and I need to rant for the 87th time this year. I am going to work for Template Monster.
*Note: If you don’t know who Edward Tufte is I highly suggest you read up on him and buy all of his books.
Craiglist, like MySpace, is a site many people use because that’s where everyone else is at. The community makes it worth the hype it receives, but besides the community and some viral marketing how did the design play a role in making Craiglist a huge success? With MySpace it was hard to find anything about the design that lead it to fame, but with Craigslist I think we can see that the design played a significant role in making it an online leader for classified ads.
