Weblog entry #63 for Steve
See all weblog entries made by Steve.
AdvertsI've noticed that a lot of registered users here have homepages suggesting they work for ISPs, or heavily Unix-orientated companies.
I wonder how many people reading this are involved with selling Unix, or Linux, services, support, installations, etc?
I sometimes install and manage Debian servers for people, but mostly I'm just your average in-the-office-sysadmin.
PromotionI've made a minor change to the site today, after a discussion in the pub about site promotion last night.
For the next couple of days the advert block on the articles might be moving around a little. This is just to get a feel for which looks / works the best.Feel free to complain if you don't like a particular placement. (Although do it here - not in an article, no point causing pollution!)
NamingIn a similar vain to the advertising I'll be trying to do some more site promotion over the coming weeks.
One area which was suggested as being useful was the idea of giving interviews. I'm sure that is true - although I don't consider myself terribly interview-worthy. (Because I might use bad words, or laugh too much at the questions .. not to mention get sidetracked into amusing stories about dentist chairs...)
Anyway we'll see how things work out.
One thing that I'm going to be looking at is the layout and usability of the website - so any comments on that front would be appreciated.
Buying advertising is something I'm not liable to try again. Since I have no real "product" to sell it is essentially throwing money away. (Although I'm sure having a site with a lot of captive readers would be profitable in some way I have no sponsorship deals, etc. ANd I can't really see that changing).
I like the way that Kuro5hin allows members to buy adverts for display upon the site - but I think that doing that wouldnt' be terribly profitable - more of a drain upon my time than anything else.
TechOne suggestion was that the term 'administration' in the site's name was perhaps a little intimidating.
To me that is natural as it has been my job title for the past five or six years! So I didn't really consider it being inappropriate when I registered the domain name(s).
Now I think about it it does seem a little unfriendly to the kind of home-user who might only have a single Debian machine.
I suspect renaming and rebranding the site just isn't going to happen partly because it would be a big effort, and partly because losing inbound links would be harmful.
Coming soon: RSS feeds of recent comments.
Will take me a day or two to finish my testing.
Only mentioning this now to have something which is actually complete and concrete!
Comments on this Entry
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I am a sysadmin dat mostly admins windows / novell systems. But my company is going to move his webservers to Debian. Those systems I admin to.
Cheers, Sebastian
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I guess having a linkable-logo might be useful for that. I tend to assume that people who wish to link will manage themselves. Certainly several sites, both small and large, manage to do so.
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I'll certainly look forward to that, you've done a great job already with the CSS rework.
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Anyway, I guess your conversation at the pub went something like "I run this popular community website, but I don't make a profit from it, I break even at most." Then a friend would say something about advertising, and you'd say that you already have that, but you just about break even, even with all the time you spend on it.
Truth is, this site is great. You're spending time on it because you like doing it. Otherwise it wouldn't exist. If you are looking for a return on your time investment, you get just that - because you enjoy running the site. A second benefit is the recognition you will get - you're Steve Kemp from DA, and many Debian SAs will know your name. Many future employers will find you through Google, or through the url on your CV.
As for promotion - go for it. But I'd guess your site has got popular so far mostly through recommendations. Why not ask your readers to promote it first, and if you need more exposure, then do something else?
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An interesting take on the entry .. perhaps predictable since the talk of advertising did come up.
The actual conversation started off more like:
- What makes a small site a medium site?
- And what then makes a small site a big one?
I'm always interested in seeing how things grow, and how other similar sites succeed or fail. Mostly because I want to keep doing this, and partly to avoid any obvious mistakes I might be making.
One of the topics of conversation then turned to advertising this site - so adverts were discussed. But not in the hosting-adverts sense. I personally believe that paying money to advertise this site is a losing proposition, since there is no "product" as such to sell.
I guess it depends on your market. The person I was talking to is in a different situation his site went from small to large over a reasonably short space of time, and does have a product. So great for him!
Anyway you're right that this is enjoyable to me personally, and that is likely to continue. (Or to put it another way when it becomes non-fun to run then I'll stop / give it away / whatever.)
Incoming is certainly nice to receive, but it certainly isn't a strong motive. Not by a long shot.
Right now the focus is likely to be usability. It has been interesting to watch people new to the site find their way around, and that is an interesting thing to experience. That's one of the motives for moving the adverts...
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promotion: you work hard on this site, so your will of attracting more people is completely normal. I have the idea of putting a link to this site on my blog (the "button" is already done...), but the redesigning is taking more time than I initially planned....
naming: I think the debian administration name is ok, because the aim of the site is essentially that : tutorials and tips about debian administration. Moreover (as you said) renaming it will be a pain so keep it!
tech: a rss feed of newer comments is a good idea.
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I think if I were just starting then knowing what I know now perhaps a shorter name might be preferred. But there is little liklihood of any change now. It just seems like too much effort.
Plus of course the current members managed to find the place and not be too intimidated, so perhaps it was an overstated concern?
As for work it looks like I've now switched from ruling a mixed Linux/SCO/Solaris + Windows environment to only having to deal with the Unix side of things. This makes me happy :)
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--
If you're smart enough to ask this question, you're smart enough to RTFM and find out yourself.
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Interesting to hear that. I know several people who are involved with large ISP work and many of them are strong users of Debian + Solaris.
It always makes me suprised that there is comparatively little traffic upon the debian-isp mailing list.
(Although that might just be because the people who use Debian in an ISP setting are generally skilled/clueful.)
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