Intervue Digest Directions

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Directions for April 2, 2000

Tired of tripping in the dark
by Joseph Delgado

The idea of setting goals never really set in. I always thought deadlines and other stuff as innovation stoppers, since at some point I had to stop working on the idea and start putting it into action. So with ID, I've been kind of whimsical, oh I'll do this today, that next week. When next week comes I'll forget. Lack of a plan is keeping this site from regaining its former glory and lack of a plan is keeping it unfinished as well.

I don't have the time anymore like I did back then. I was able to work on ID full-time, wake up in the morning about six or seven o'clock and spend most of the day working on ID. People expect daily updates and that's pretty much impossible without a plan.

A plan for a plan, I guess even the plan has to be planned out. I used to have the deadline of an issue once a month, so the whole month was spent working toward that goal. I knew which articles I had to write and it was a nice arrangement. Directions would be the last thing I write and then print out the envelopes and send them off. With the web, the concept of issues has faded away. The deadlines have become weekly and it's not enough time to update everything on a Saturday or a couple of half-hour blocks during the week.

Initially I want the plan to include:

Site Promotion

SiteDB Improvements

Page updates

New Site Postings

Garbage collection

Article Writing

Site Promotion
Well I need some new strategy in this department, from all the posts I read in certain newsgroups I know I'm not a lone in pushing my wares, but the web has been saturated with shareware sites and people are probably tired of or delete new site announcements. I didn't see a noticeable improvement with a newsgroup post. Even with software called Site Builder, which didn't do the job very well, the hits remained the same.

The only way to push a site is to talk to other sites and link together. Does it mean I should give them good reviews and link together? Well no, since their site will eventually drop off and then I'm keeping a link for the sake of keeping one. I want my reviews to mean something to authors and the community.

SiteDB Improvements
SiteDB is running, but it only generates shareware site listings. There are a lot of pages that follow the same format, so I'll keep working on improving the interface and the Word template. See that statement is too general to be a good plan, but I'm brainstorming ideas and won't beat myself up too bad.

Page Updates
From new icons to redesigning a page to make it HTML 4.0 complaint, there's a lot to do with these pages and it will take a long time to get the whole site up to speed. So page maintenance and redesign need to factored in.

Getting some help also falls into this category. If I can get some help, even if it's a small contribution, then this site would be better off. Some new blood pumping into ID would help get the heart pumping again instead of running on life support.

New Site Postings
There's always going to be new sites, but I can't just focus on shareware sites. There are fan sites, FAQ, news, map and mod sites, and game and software reviewers. The entire plan could just revolve around new sites, but without the other parts of the plan it doesn't matter how many new sites are posted.

Garbage collection
People don't want to see a 404 or a redirect page, so I'll set aside for weeding out the bad sites. Also checking out a site once in a while will help keep the reviews current.

Article Writing
Intervue Digest was mostly about articles; it was a lame idea to have just shareware sites. After about five minutes people would move on anyway. I'll post articles, if I can get rid of this cheesy writing style. After so many years of not writing consistently, I've lost that natural flow state that made my writing more alive.

Developing a plan is a good first step, but "Plans get you into things, but you got to work your way out." Will Rogers, The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949). So a long with a plan, I need a modest and flexible work schedule with Saturday being the longest day of the week.