A new and fun little project / initiative from Devlounge that allows you to submit your favorite work piece to our [soon to be] large wall / quilt (think Million Dollar Homepage meets a design gallery) has gone live. Hopefully, this will help boost forum activity around here, and allow everyone to have a little fun (and get a link back ;)). You’ll find that the forums have a lot more information about the project, so you might want to check it out once you get the chance.
Creating That Perfect Project
New Internet projects and ideas capture entrepreneurs imagination all the time. If you’re one of these people who dream up the next big thing for the web, then start it but never get it off the ground, you’re missing your shot.
This is because, regardless of the uniqueness of the idea, there will always be a place for it. That’s what happens when billions upon billions of people all use the internet for all different reasons.
Original or Not, There’s Room for You
Of course, project originality helps, and it helps a lot. The first to create a web based application that helps do something no other application has yet to do (and if its executed right) will always dominate over copycats. But still, copycats have their place.
Take a look at Basecamp. The original project management web application spawned the creation of many similar applications, with many of the same features and few of their own. Some were even the same thing, but with just a refocused main purpose.
The same can be seen for just about every web service. These days, it hard to find an original idea – and even when an original idea sprouts up, someone takes it and puts it into their own version, making it harder to figure out “just who was the first to come up with this anyways?“.
With it apparent that there is room for any project – no matter how many of the same there are out there – it seems there’s always room for yours.
Marketing Can Help Anything
In the end, the success a project will or wont have comes down to the execution. Take a look at our buddy Shaun Andrews’ latest venture, XHTMLGenius. Upon a visit, you’ll notice that the entire site is two pages – an index, and a submission page. The purpose? Getting psd’s turned into validated xhtml & css quickly and easily for $250 bucks a pop. As designer and developer myself, when I first came across this site I found myself asking, will someone really pay $250 to have their site coded? I soon found out the answer, as Shaun reported on Mintpages that in two days he had two customers. I consider that pretty good myself, seeing how two customers is about 6 days work and a quick $500.
So how is it successful? I can tell you what, it’s all about marketing. I could see myself launching the same site, and receiving complaint after complaint about the price being way too high – but yet, Shaun can pull it off?
For starters, reading the index takes about 5 minutes, and explains to you in plain English (no technical mumbo-jumbo, because the target audience doesn’t understand it – which is why they need coding in the first place) exactly what the purpose of Xhtmlgenius is about. By having a strong portfolio to back him up, it becomes evident fairly quickly that you’re getting what you pay for – and it works.
Now we could have used many different sites as examples of marketing helping projects and startups get the ball rolling, but we decided to use Xhtmlgenius because it demonstrates how, even in a few days, if you do something right, it will work.
Be Original in Your Ideas & Let Them Flourish
Following these few tactics listed above can help an otherwise useless project find its own in an internet where there’s always a need for something, regardless of what it may be. Who would have known that starting a site for people to buy 1 pixel worth of advertising for $1 would have actually sold all 1 million spots. There is always a need out there, it’s just up to you to find one and put your ideas to work for you.
New private community
Prash’s latest project includes a new private design community called Mintpages. After just going live yesterday (about 24 hours ago) with only him and I as members, Mintpages has already exceeded 50 members, most of them extremely talented. The point of mintpages is to be a private community only allowing the best and most experienced designers and coders involved. For the time being (just a few more days), the registration is open to get things going, after which the community will be locked and be invite only. Of course we have our forums which you should be joining and participating in as well ( 🙂 ), but if you are a serious designer or coder, Mintpages is quickly becoming the place to be.
Managing Multiple Sites
Managing multiple websites can be a daunting and challenging process. For many people, even keeping control of one site isn’t the easiest thing to do. This guide is aimed to help you manage and run multiple sites, without giving up on them.
Know Your Goals
Many designers wait until they have just settled down – and then jump right into a new project or site. This is common. It also can create very many problems. Depending on the types of sites you may have open, you could be require to have new content flowing in everyday, and with every additional site your working on, it becomes quite a hassle to keep track of everything.
So the first thing you do is figure out exactly what you want and your visitors expect out of each site.
- How often does each of your sites need to be updated?
- Will you be posting original content that takes longer to write, or just making small updates from time to time?
- If you are managing multiple sites, will you have a few other contributors, or will you be the sole contributor of content and images to your site?
Prioritize
The next step is to prioritize your sites. Most times when you find yourself managing multiple sites, there are some that have a much greater importance over others.
Take a look at Devlounge right now. As we head into the summer months, I’m managing Astereostudio for displaying work and a personal blog, Soundchronicle, a music review site I threw together in three days, and of course Devlounge. Out of all of these, Devlounge holds far more importance, because of it’s much higher popularity and it’s importance to me to provide constant and fresh content for my visitors. Keep in mind a few things when prioritizing your sites:
- Which one of my sites is currently the most active and most popular? Keep the focus on this one.
- Before I start a new project, am I sure I can handle the workload? Know in advance whether you may become busy before you are able to get the new site off the ground, because if you become sidetracked, chances are the site is no more.
- Plan before action – Many times, you’ll come up with a new idea and jump right into it without any preparation. This can almost always lead to failure. Devlounge was in the works since December of 2005, and finally launched in April 2006. By giving yourself time and a chance to manage the creation, content, and launch of your site or project, you increase your chances of successful launching and keeping another site active.
