State of the State

Members

Friday, October 17, 2008

This blog has looked pretty desolate for a while now. I haven’t posted an update in a month and I really haven’t put much effort into it. Like a lot of bloggers I was using this as a way to vent, but then I got caught up in other ventures. A traffic spike of over 3,000 views in one day from an MSN featured story (you can probably guess the article) had me chasing meme’s, and I lost sight of what I was after.

First off, I have started several other blogs and I have become a huge fan of wordpress. This blog isn’t run on wordpress, I intend to change that, along with providing a look and feel overhaul shortly. A lot of my posts have been on internet marketing because that is the community that I follow and it is where a lot of my interests fall. That wasn’t the initial intention of this website though. My alexa rank has fallen over 100,000 points in the past month and I’ve done nothing but watch it dwindle. Some of you might have noticed the monitization, particularly the irrelevant dating site advert on the right and the kontera popups that seem to work for John Chow, but bring me in just pennies a day. I later read that John Chow is paid to use Kontera, which might explain his success with them in his income reports.

Shoemoney has revamed his blog and I like the new look. I also like that threaded comments are now following a more structured approach and I intend to use them in a blog that I will be publicly announcing shortly. I’ve also purchased a flip mino that has collected, dust for the past 2 months. Again, another trend I intend to change in the revamp. Things will become much more informative and engaging shortly. To aid in this movement I have decided to quit my full time job as a web developer. I mentioned in a previous post that I fall victim to the newest make money fast schemes often and that I (and anyone interested in the MMO realm) need to focus on what I know and what I can make work.

One downfall of my current blog is that the RSS feed is unreliable. It’s done through feedburner and more often than not, it’s not broadcast. I think this may have something to do with the current setup (expression engine). I’m really impressed with the ease of use and functionality of the current WP release. I like the new features they offer like XML RPC, threaded comments (plugin), and paginated posts. I’ve also built my own lightweight CMS that I have been using on client sites and I intent to expand on that for future projects.

When I rebuild, “projects” will probably be the heaviest category, since that is what I will be focusing on full time. I want to share my journey with you and log my efforts along the way. I even have a few experiments and successful endeavors that have made my life as a developer / marketer much easier. I intend to share these with you. I am not trying to package together a “Shoemoney Toolbox” for you, these are useful applications and resources that will help you do the every day things that online marketers and web developers need on a regular basis. I am an open source advocate and I hope to sort everything out so that it makes sense for both you and myself as I start this new journey. It should go without saying that I will also be launching a business website, this will give you a little more perspective into who I am and what I’m after. I will tie this in closely with my blog. I have amassed on a small group of highly talented individuals that I believe can help me achieve my goals and I can refer you to these people as well should you need anything done that is web related. Stay on the lookout and when the new face comes, things will be much more cut and dry. I am trying to unravel everything I’ve learned in my 5 years experience as a developer, self taught, self made and hopefully soon to be self sufficient .