Geoff, purveyor of Urban Yukon has sent out an email requesting that I pigeon hole my activities on this website into categories that he listed that would be supported on Urban Yukon.
Now, I just went and read the RSS DTD spec and there already is a tag defined for the categorization of RSS feeds (the category tag in fact). I certainly don't want to categorize myself on someone else's website and would hope they would respect whatever free form tags I slap on the end of my posts - even if they are super generic terms as is.
Feel free to sort my posts once I have tagged them but don't expect me to choose an uber category on a separate site that I don't control when the technology exists to having them sorted automatically by the machine.
I will post later about how I feel about Google Ads being posted on Urban Yukon -- essentially I am helping fund the sites development. This is the part of "Web 2.0" that I strongly disagree with: anonymous (Ok, I know Geoff) profiteering on content that you didn't create. Geoff - where does the revenue for the ads on Urban Yukon go? I know the traffic up here is light but still, a dolla is a dolla.
Comments
Evan,
My plan - no, "hope", if I can build the new version as required - is to support and utilize the tags that you are using on your blog, not at Urban Yukon. As the community grows - it's now up to 32 people - some kind of structured viewing is required, whether it's forced or by user choice is yet to be seen. I really want to enable the latter.
As for the Google ads, I'll be straight up. I've made $11 since the website went live back in March. Big dough, huh? My hosting costs per year are $500+ for this domain and others, all of which make zero money because they're just personal projects. That's what this revenue, as tiny as it is, works to "pay for".
Also, Google requires that you earn $100 before they'll cut you a cheque, so there's an incredibly slim chance I'll ever seen anything in my pocket.
I'm just a dad with 2 young kids and about 15 minutes of personal time per day. I want Urban Yukon to exist and thrive because I have an honest interest in promoting other Yukon bloggers, close friends or associates, it matters not. I built the website as a social experiment and as a gift to my fellow Yukoners, just like you, because it exposes us all to a greater range of readers.
All that members are required to do is to post articles on their own blogs - very, very little extra effort is required, except for these questions/surveys I sent out twice a year, which you're not required to respond to.
So go ahead and slap some ads on your blog. Doesn't bother me if Urban Yukon happens to send extra traffic and hence, revenue, over to justwerks.com. That'd be super cool if it did.
If somebody wants out of the network, it's an easy removal. That said, I'll be bummed to see you go, but to each his own. I hope you can see the value, and the transparency behind all of this.
$500 dollars a year in hosting? You have expensive taste sir. Might it be easier to just get a dedicated IP and host your own? I don't know.
I have had the ability to host ads for ages now (Drupal has a module for that) but really, only about 5 people come to this blog on an irregular basis, so I don't feel the need to disrupt their surfing experience - I let my colour scheme do that! Also, the amount of money gained for the selling of my words is not worth the tax declaration hassles.
Also, for the Nth time.. don't roll your own freaking community site codebase. I really hope you are using a framework that provides things like Aggregation, Identity (Federation?), Comments, Categorization (nee Taxonomy, nee Semantic Web). There are lots of bright people in the world, let them work for you for free and then mine the value layer... the info-architecture, the usability, the conceptual designs... this is where the Yukon has to move to create a ground swell of technology gurus. Coders are cheap and replaceable (there are exceptions, of course).
Move up the value chain and provide services to Yukoners not more code that needs to be maintained/debugged/documented/tested/etc. I would love to help make BikeYukon.com a community (with MAPS!!) that shows the world class biking available up here. Let's make this *service* available and leave the lifting of codebases to the people that:
a) like to do that sort of thing
b) get paid to do it
'Cuz I certainly am not an A or B person. I am a "C" person - is there an easier, less time consuming, cheaper way to do this properly.
I got off target here, but the gist of it is thanks for removing the ads (just checked!) and thanks for doing the work you are doing. And I hope you don't get slapped by the Google agreement in disclosing your "MAD CAAAAASH" income.
I've done the low-end and the high-end, this is a nice middle ground. I'm also operating 9 domains under the account. As for running my own box, been there, done that - never again. Hosting is the absolute worst business to be in.
As for code, don't worry, I barely write anything from scratch on the back-end. It's all done through ExpressionEngine where I can simply add plug-ins for all of the features you list. I wholly concentrate on the value layer, as you put it: IA and interface design. I've been doing this long enough to know there's a better - cheaper, faster, simpler - way.
You mention bikeyukon.com. There's a lot of people excited and willing to help out with that website, but I haven't had the chance to sit down and plan it out yet. When I do, you'll be getting an email :)
The next version of Urban Yukon will be very different from what you see today. Many positive changes are in the works - but I'm remaining tight-lipped at present. Needless to say, it's going to be worth the wait.
Oh and hey, congrats on getting engaged. Being married is the coolest.
thanks for the props on the marriage happenings - it's pretty exciting.
Two questions:
1 - why be tight lipped about a community based site? Time to put the Real Job™ secrecy behind you and let folks know what is coming/suggestions they can make/etc.
2 - bikes are quiet right now (minus 40 and all that) and there is an intense need for better information come riding season. I get lost constantly and the trails that are being built need more riders to keep them from becoming overgrown. Boogaloo is a classic ride but aside from some cool signs in the woods it's hard to find for the non-local.
Tight-lipped is my chosen state as I want to get it to a beta/dev state before releasing it to dudes like yourself.
Bikes are quiet, and frozen, yes. Maybe in March...