Toughest Month

Blame it on the economy, blame it on a business decision that did not work out quite as planned. Blame it on me. My lease was up at the end of February and I decided there was no point in renewing. It feels like the first step in a dismantling of my business. The end of a long era in my life.

No rescue for me, I'm sure. I'll not expect anyone to ride up and hand me some bailout money. It's a small business, after all, one of many.

But I really don't want that anyway. Just want my office back. Sure, I can work quite comfortably from my home office, a study I built a long time ago and there is the elimination of a long commute to Springfield and back.

But I miss the place. More for what it represented than for what it really was. The office was a stage where ideas were bantered and discussed, many pitched out with the trash but a few really good ones that stuck. And it was a place to have a cup of coffee, share thoughts, fret, converse, laugh, worry, the range of human emotions.

It was only a place, but it was my place. My place in the world.

freshare Podcasts

I decided to start a podcast series on the freshare site and actually produced the first one in late December. Click the program title to listen to that installment: freshare Ozarks Outdoors podcast.

The plan was to create a new podcast every week following a format of introducing listeners to some of our top stories before a segue into the feature: an interview with someone who has close ties to the Ozarks outdoors.

But the format proved to be an awful lot of work to undertake on a weekly basis for a company our size and with a lot already on our plates. Still, I think podcasts are a great tool to reach a new and different audience, and I do like the idea of introducing some very interesting folks to our listeners. Eventually, we might be able to accomplish the weekly interviews but that would be after we clear some of the other items we have going like the t-shirt site, design work, and promting that site, the fresharestore.

So, I think I will take some middle ground and use a format that includes a brief summary of some of the top stories on freshare, a commercial (to promote the store), and a feature that could include an interview but might be a story, or an outdoors related poem or a description of some new photos added to the freshare gallery. I think this format will ease the pressure of researching, interviewing, cutting and editing tape and producing an extended piece every week. Plus, it will mix things up a little so the podcast doesn't get stale.

That said, I think I'll start in on this week's installment.

Fluid Mechanics

One thing I like about websites is that they are easily changed and updated as suits the readers and visitors. We've been running a poll on freshare as well as checking which content gets the most reads, what topics get the most attention, even which pages have the highest Google rankings.

From all that information, we are getting a clearer picture of what our readers want, what brings visitors to the site in the first place and what we should be offering.

The next revision of freshare won't be nearly as exhaustive as the last couple were but it will soon be time to update the site and put the emphasis where readers want it to be. I think this is and should be a never-ending process for web sites.

2007 Review

We are coming off one of the toughest years I have ever faced as a businessman. We abandoned a dying print publication in late 2006 and replaced it with what is now freshare.net. But the whole process was like launching a brand new business instead of building on an old one.

Our customer base for employmag was much different than the one we'll have to continue to develop for freshare. And, building a regular readership has proven more difficult than anticipated, at least at first. Plus, the actually physical construction of the site was a learning process that was both expensive and time consuming.

Still, we built the web site traffic to a decent rate by year end, and in fact really only did so between our official start date of June 5, 2007 and year-end. That building will be a never-ending process, but we have the tools and knowledge necessary now to carry it further.

There are still tweaks and a few features we have left to develop for the site, most notably the freshare store, but those are in process at year end and into 2008.

From the knowledge gained building, re-building and launching the site, we learned a great deal about web site construction and aesthetics. That knowledge base has already led to a new side business we hope to continue on into 2008.

While 2007 was difficult and finances strained about as far as they could go, there is new hope going into 2008 that we have a solid platform as well as the means to continue building on it.

Here's to looking forward instead of backward!

Panel Discussion at MSU

Last month, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion sponsored by Missouri State University's Journalism Department. The panel met yesterday and discussed ethics in citizen journalism. It was a great experience and I felt privileged to be a part of the group which included Brian Lewis, a columnist for the News-Leader, and Doug McGill of the McGill Report and formerly of Bloomberg and the New York Times organizations.

What most thrilled me was how readily the professional journalists on the panel including the moderator, Dr. Andy Cline, embraced the citizen journalist movement. On the surface it seems journalism practiced by untrained people could be threatening to career professionals, but these folks saw it very differently. Rather than be concerned with how the trend affects individual journalists, they viewed citizen journalism as an enhancement to the process of reporting the news. They explained that there are many experts out there who need to be sharing their expertise with others and that this new way of reporting would only make the flow of information faster, better and with more detail than could be done before.

It was the process and the result of news reporting that most impressed this group. They see journalism as an extension of democracy and citizen journalism as a better means of making democracy work. Very refreshing to see professionals advance their cause instead of defending their territory.

freshare Site Version 3.0

I had the best of intentions. Really, I did. My plan was to design a complete makeover for freshare.net. And I did that part. I was lax in pursuing the other part of my plan. I wanted to blog my design process and talk about some of the pitfalls encountered and successes achieved along the way. But I got too busy designing and constructing with a fast approaching deadline. There was little time to write.

So here is the condensed version of how it all went:

I needed a more navigable site with a front page that would give visitors a sampling from each major category we had to offer. I wanted to move away from a detailed menu that told what was available and instead display the samples that would show visitors what stories were inside. And it needed to be clean, no ads on the front page.

My html and css skills are improving, but I am still pretty slow at the process. Since I have to run the publishing business and write content for freshare, most of my site building needed to be done before or after work each weekday, or on the weekends - time I usually spend writing stories for my blogs and in my journal.

The content management software I used for the upgrade was the same one I started with: Expression Engine. It is powerful, top-notch, php-based software that accomplishes everything I need it to and has more features I have yet to use. It is a low cost alternative with one drawback: there is no direct customer support, which is OK if you don't mind investing your own time into figuring out how to use EE to build your site around.

If you enjoy programming and coding, the trade off is well worth the effort. Besides, there is unlimited, 24/7 access to the Expression Engine Forums where hundreds of helpful people can guide you through the rough spots.

All in all, it is the way to go. I paid under $400 for my license,and I get to upgrade every time a new version comes out for a small fee of $19 a year. Compare that to other options that cost in the five-figure range and I think I did the right thing.

The results were great and I was able to accomplish all the goals I had for the site upgrade. We add the content, but how and where it is displayed is dynamically generated by the Expression Engine cms.

Although the most difficult part of the re-design is behind me, we will be adding new features soon, like a freshare store, podcasts and video. All supported very well by the cms.

Take a look at the (almost) final results at: freshare.net.

Website Update

Well, our stats continue to climb in terms of the number of visitors and the number of page views. The "viral marketing" components - email articles, print stories, tell-a-friend - all are picking up steam, so that should result in ever higher numbers of visitors and page views.

The MySpace page also seems to be sending traffic to freshare, although it's difficult to measure exactly how much.

We are at a point where it is possible to approach potential advertisers in the area.

Spike in Visitors

The publicity package actually did hit on June 5. Since then, we have been seeing about a thousand page views per day as word gets out about the site. Pleased to note, too, that people are going deeper into the site than just viewing the front page. They are also reading articles, emailing them and printing them off.

We completed work on our MySpace this past week as well. Already boasting nine friends. Kristen Dudley put the site together for us and did a great job. Check it out right here: freshare's MySpace. I have to admit, I was very skeptical about having a MySpace spot. Sydnee Crain, our editor, finally convinced me that we needed that presence to help draw attention to freshare. I think she's right. We are also exploring a Facebook site and Squidoo lenses to round out our networking presence.

Traffic Trends

We are beginning to see a bump upward in traffic to the freshare site. Google ad revenue is showing upward trends, too. The publicity package has yet to be completed, so we may be seeing traffic from new links we requested from a variety of other websites.

We also launched a unique search engine powered by Google technology that only searches the top quality blogs in the Ozarks. It's a great way to get word out to the world that good writing and good photography blogs exist in Missouri and Arkansas. We have a search bar right there at the top of our home page.

This week, we hope to have the publicity plan executed and would like to see measurable results in terms of additional page views.

Things Are Looking Up Again

Finally got to speak with our linking strategist about plans for the freshare site. I told him that the linking strategy was going slowly - a lot of tedious work with very few solid results. I wanted to move on to the publicity part of the plan.

We discussed that strategy and what was needed. Then Eric made the best suggestion yet. One that made the wait worthwhile and the consulting fees money well spent. He suggested we put a very specific search engine on our site. One that only features the best bloggers and citizen journalists in our region. Such a search engine would greatly simplify things for visitors who only want information from local bloggers and it would help gel our relationship with those bloggers. We put the engine in the very next day.

This weekend, I'll work on the site announcement for Eric to send out to his contacts. After that, I'm hoping we'll see a readership begin to emerge.

Another Tough Week

Our expert in linking and publicity strategy has pretty much ignored my emails requesting the final conversation and the publicity package I've already paid for. Today I sent out an email reminding him I already paid him (two months ago) and expect an immediate reply. I got one. We are slated to finish up tomorrow. We'll see.

I've also been looking into affiliate programs to see if I can find some webmasters who are interested in selling ads on our employment and classifieds sites. I tried HydraMedia and, after talking to a rep, the program sounded solid. All that was left was for me to sign a credit / financial agreement and an insertion order.

Good thing I read through them first. Hydra wants to check credit anytime (presumably even if we decide to dissolve our business relationship) and they want to use only their figures in determining affiliate payment with no room for discussion if we see an error.

I don't mind a credit check, but unlimited ones? Accessing credit reports can have a negative impact on credit scores. Would you give a stranger that kind of freedom? Probably not. Neither would I.

Using Hydra's numbers for calculating affiliate payment does make sense. But give up my right to challenge those numbers? Never.

I presented these concerns to my rep. So far, she has not replied.

Links

We've spent the last week and a half or so emailing hundreds of web site administrators requesting they link to freshare. While we were extremely busy, productive emails have been hard to come by. We picked up about half a dozen or so links, some unfulfilled promises of links and a lot of unanswered emails.

It's not like we spammed or shotgunned our efforts. We hired an individual who is known in the industry as a links expert. The web administrators we chose were well thought out and were already linking to some of our competitors.

It's tough to keep focused on the task when there is so little success to celebrate. This week, we are going to try to fire up the publicity portion of our campaign. We think that generating a buzz will not only help promote the site, but we will also see an increase in the number of inbound links we receive.

Writing Code

For me, writing the code behind the website was a slow, sometimes painstaking process. I knew a bit of HTML, but precious little about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Expression Engine, or EE (the software I chose to power our content management system).

The HTML part was not too bad. Fairly straightforward and not to cumbersome to work with. Mostly, I used HTML to divide up the page, create links, make lists and fairly mundane things.

The real workhorses behind the site are the CSS, which I'll talk about tomorrow, and EE. They perform all the real work.

I read anything I could find, searched the Internet and hung out at forums trying to pick up whatever I could about working with EE. Luckily, someone I hired to put together that piece of the site had laid out enough code that I could follow the logic and improve on it. The gentleman I hired abandoned the project without warning or explanation about halfway through, so I was forced to pick up the pieces from there. Looking back now, he did me a favor because it forced me to learn the program.

Just so you know, Expression Engine is powerful yet inexpensive content management software. The trade off is, the only tech support you get is via their forums, wikis, knowledge base and documentation. But, let me tell you, those folks are fantastic to work with. I posed a lot of questions on the forums and got the help I needed quickly. Day or night. If you are considering content management software, I would highly recommend Expression Engine.

Back to Blogging

Well, it's been quite some time since I last blogged here. But now that the website makeover is complete, I have a little more time to write English instead of xhtml and CSS code. Over the next several days I'll be recounting the process we've gone through in our website transformation.

For example, while I was away from the blog I revised the "YourPanorama" web site twice. The last revision was a complete makeover. Even the name has been changed - to freshare. We pronounce it "fresh air" but you could also say "free share" as some people do because that's accurate, too. It's a citizen journalism site where visitors can share news, opinions and photos in a free exchange of information.

Freshare just seemed more like us. YourPanorama was fine but it was too long and not as descriptive of our project. Luckily, we had not branded YourPanorama to any great extent so we were early enough on in the process to make the switch.

Tomorrow, I'll talk a bit about the code behind the site and some of the resources that I found helpful.

Site Changes Coming

It's time to take the YourPanorama site and give it a major makeover. It has served its purpose well for a couple of months, but the time has come to pretty it up and add some new features while we're at it. In fact, we're even going to change the name of the site to give it a jazzier sound and shorten the number of syllables it takes to accomplish that.

Most of the site re-design work will occur over the weekend, but if you would like to check the progress, just go to: www.yourpanorama.com/newsite/index to see how we're doing. In fact, I would really appreciate any input, comments or advice you would like to post here at Abbozzare about the YourPanorama update.

Designing the Future

We took some time last week, in between the holidays, to lay out plans for YourPanorama. Up until now it seems we were making decisions daily as to what sounded like the right thing to do, which direction to pursue and which means appeared the best way to achieve our goals. The result was that it felt more like we were floundering than setting sail in a prescribed path.

I should have learned a long time ago that a vision and a written plan to realize that vision works best. Did that all the time in my previous life as a manufacturing manager. No reason I can't apply the same technique to this new venture.

Our plans fell into three categories: 1) Improve financial conditions: which includes reducing costs where it makes sense to do so as well as finding and implementing new revenue streams. 2) Increase the number of contributors and visitors to the site: two different, but related activities. Thus far, a small handful of contributors supply all the content to the site. Our plans are to expand this number so that the site is truly participatory. 3) Improve the overall look and feel of the site. By design, we started with a simple layout and a few things we thought were necessary to include. We knew that we would learn and discover what else needed inclusion, what need to go and what design features we wanted to apply. YourPanorama will be constantly changing, so this is an on-going process.

Beginning tomorrow, we will be putting these plans into action and I can't wait. It would be wonderful to see results immediately, but I think we are more likely to see things evolve a little bit every day, then take off rapidly at some future point. We'll see and we'll keep you posted.

Revisions

We've been trying to get some of the local bloggers to take note of YourPanorama to help us promote it and to add some fresh new content to the site. One blogger, Steve from House of Warwick, had suggested that we need to take a closer look at our terms of service. He indicated they made it sound as if we were going to steal ideas and materials from members then market them as our own. Not at all what we want to do. YourPanorama is a community journalism site where we celebrate the ideas of others.

Anyway, I took a look at the terms with a new eye and discovered that Steve was right! The language sounded awful and made us look like devious people. So I changed it today - all of it. Took out four pages worth of repetitive legalese and poorly stated objectives. I'll leave it up to you to see if what is left clearly defines how we treat copyrighted content and what we do not want posted to the site. Our revised terms are here. And I wrote a brief article to include on YourPanorama describing the events that led to the revisions.

Where Are All The People?

We've built a great web site, although it does need some tweaking now that we have the initial site running, but we just aren't seeing the level of traffic or participation we had hoped for at this point in time. We are currently looking at new ways to draw attention to the site and to increase visitor's length of stay. Tried Google AdWords, but with little success even after refining our key words. The books all tell us to focus on articles, news releases and viral marketing techniques so we are in the process of implementing our plans in those areas.

Most disappointing has been the lack of solid revenue growth. And, of course, we do have bills and salaries to pay so revenues are very important. We have been running affiliate program links on each page but they require three things to happen: 1) need visitors 2) visitors have to be compelled to click through 3) visitors have to buy something from the spot they click to. I think it may be time to try Google AdSense. That eliminates the third criteria noted above. We have used AdSense with some success on other sites we own so it may be worth implementing here.

I have not given up entirely on affiliate programs, but I do think they would be more successful with significantly higher levels of page views. We downloaded a free piece of php software that allows us to deliver ads in almost any manner we choose including by keywords from articles and other content on the site. That would work similar to AdSense delivery, so it is still on the table as a consideration.

I am convinced that no matter which revenue stream we choose to pursue, it will work. We just need to make a strong effort to drive traffic in order to produce the results we need to see.

Wrestling with Keywords

I've been trying to come up with a productive campaign using Google AdWords for the new web site, but it's very tough to hone them down to a workable number ... a productive, workable number.

I tried the local market and got few hits. Nationwide presented plenty of hits but they were not quality page views as few people stayed on the site and no one joined as members. We have a regional news site so if Google content ads are shown to people not interested in the local area, they won't stay. One click and they're out of there.

From the data shown in my Google AdWords account, it's difficult to decipher the detail as to where the page impressions are coming from. I know most clicks arrive through Google content, but that is, apparently, not keyword based. I think the ads will work out eventually, but thisis going to require some trial and error.

It Starts .....

We're in the middle of starting up and trying to make a go of a new project at the office. It's a big undertaking and a major new direction for the company. I'll talk about that a lot in this blog - what we tried that worked, what failed, what we could have done better. But I'll also want to take some time to discuss other things on my mind each day. Some funny stuff, some serious stuff and just about anything else that makes this journey through life an interesting voyage.

Something will be going on here every day. Hope you'll stop by once in awhile to see what it is.