Community Chat: Time for a Blogsessive Redesign
Hello friends and readers of Blogsessive! Today I have an announcement to make and with this occasion, launch a debate with you, Blogsessive’s community.
Blogsessive has been around for a while, sometimes more active, sometimes less active, but right now it’s time for a major change. And this change will start off with a redesign of the blog.
Since I’ve always treasured the voice of my community, I’m launching an open debate (this post will remain sticky) on this step in Blogsessive’s existence with a few questions:
- What do you like and dislike most about the current design?
- What would you want to see implemented in the future design?
- Are there any elements/functionalities that you find hard to access right now?
Aside from these questions, feel free and encourage to express your opinions as feedback is always kindly appreciated. Also, another change of policy is to open up Blogsessive to more guest post articles. It is an excellent way to help Blogsessive’s readers get to know each other better and I am 100% positive that everyone has a wonderful point of view, experience and tips to share with us all. So, go ahead and write a wonderful guest post and contact me.
Lets talk
Looking forward to reading your comments and setting the base of Blogsessive’s future together!
One milestone down, one million page views!
After more than 2 years since launch day, 2 years with ups and downs, higher or lower publishing frequency, Blogsessive proudly reaches a new milestone: 1 million page views.
I don’t know if for others this is impressive or not, but I am thrilled and happy to be part of the nice community that formed around this blog and its blogsessed brand. I’m thrilled to be here and provide you folks with quality information and resources and I’m thrilled to let you know that such an event calls for a celebration.
And how better for a blogger to celebrate such a milestone than by giving back to the community for all he himself has received. Not more than a few days back I’ve released the Twitter Tweet button WordPress plugin and now it’s time for a new free WordPress release.
Introducing Typominima
Typominima is a free typography based, gorgeous, minimal WordPress theme. Head over to the Typominima release announcement post for more information, download link and let the writers in you express themselves in a beautiful environment!
Blogsessive News for this December
Hello folks, how’s everybody? The last week I’ve been working hard on a couple of projects, mostly related to Blogsessive. December is here and the New Year is just around the corner. I’m asking for your patience while I sort these “issues” out with a target in mind: The winter holidays should bring a couple of surpises on Blogsessive. I’ve been working really hard and trying to solve all things in parallel (both client work and work for Blogsessive), but it takes a little more than expected.
Fact is, I sure don’t want to get into the new year without giving you the gifts I’m preparing, so stay close cause this is what I’m getting ready to accomplish by the end of this week:
- The latest free WordPress theme (business CMS style): Corporate WP – Final stages
- Complete redesign of Blogsessive.com – In progress
- Switching servers – New server has been acquired and it is setup as we speak. I’ll move to the new server as soon as the new design is in place.
- Publishing the Corporate Blogging Guide in PDF format (Free) with an added chapter.
Thanks for your patience and I cannot wait to finish these jobs and to share views with you on them!
Hello friend!
I say FRIEND, in bold and caps, because if you’re reading this, that is what you are to me. Friends are there for you, for better or worse, and considering the events that lead to such a huge gap in article publishing in Blogsessive, you the ones that are still accessing the blog and are still subscribed to its RSS are definitely good friends.
To write about everything that happened in the past 2 to 3 months would take me at least twice the amount of time. Changes and events in every single aspect of my life, most of them for the worse. All these events kept me away from you, from the blog, from being in contact with the faithful readers.
I’ve been also struggling with the idea of selling the blog in order to allow it to survive and evolve while I took care of my personal life. I couldn’t. For the past year and a half this blog has been my home, the home where I’ve welcomed each and everyone of you. The home where all of you have been fantastic guests. I couldn’t give it up.
Instead, with the risk of falling back a few steps, I’ve decided to focus my whole energy in getting through this period only to find out that GOOD THINGS HAPPEN to those who wait, those who have faith and patience.
So, here I am, once again before you, thanking you for being here (which is one way of manifesting your support, even though none knew it was needed)!
Good things happen and will happen once more on Blogsessive. There will be a change in this blogs perspective. It will open up more to the community, and that’s why, for the “come back article” I have prepared a very useful post from the talented blogger Anand Srinivasan who will be sharing with us some of his tips on managing and prioritizing the management of a larger blog or website portfolio.
Also, among the new posts I’ve been preparing, the release of new, free WordPress theme is imminent. For now, a quick preview of this theme, called Corporate WP
See you all back tomorrow!
Alex
QBKL Media website goes live
Hello friends! This is one of those posts that keeps you updated with my activity (and prevents people to think that Blogsessive is gone). Again, it was a busy period of time, but one that has produced something that I’ve been waiting for while to happen: me and my associate, Adrian, have launched the website of our design studio: QBKL Media.
Between writing on Blogsessive and working on client projects I’ve hardly found the time to get the website together, but now it happened and I’m really happy. We went for a simple, minimal, one-page website that focuses on what we want to share with those that access it: Who we are, what we do and how to get in touch. It has already been featured on CSS Mania and Abduzeedo’s “Sites of the week #49″, and this makes me even happier.
Now, all that remains is to push hard to get the alpha version of DNPicker.com up and running. DNPicker is side project meant to take the place of the old “Domain names for bloggers” series on Blogsessive. Things have progressed well in the last week and if you wish to stay updated with what’s going on, follow DNPicker on Twitter. As soon as the alpha version will be ready, I will make available a few alpha-testing account that will be reserved only to those following DNPicker on Twitter to help the conversation, feature suggestion and bug reporting process.
This latest activity has influenced the posting flow on Blogsessive, but unfortunately, once in a while I have to make time for other projects too. Rest assured that Blogsessive lives on.
Thanks for being here!
Updates to Blogsessive’s Scripts and Design
Today I’ve done a couple of updates to the blog which include:
- Updated to WP 2.7.1 after adjusting a couple of scripts;
- Added links for “Subscribe to the comment feed” and “Jump to comment form” above the comment list;
- Separated comments from trackbacks to make it easier to follow the conversation;
- Added gravatar support and display to comments.
I would love to hear what you think about the changes and also if you have other suggestions as well.
In anticipation of a possible question, the “Respond to comment” feature has not been implemented because with the current theme, I believe that it will break the clean/clear flow of comments. Maybe at a later time.
Stepping into Blogsessive’s Second Year
With ups and downs, with periods of abundance of content and publishing breaks too, but most important, with many new friends each day, this March, Blogsessive has stepped into its second year of existence.
It so happened that March was also the busiest month we’ve had with QBKL Media‘s projects, launching two projects and getting ready for 2 more and our own website. This frenzy was reflected in the publishing rhythm on Blogsessive. But, as I’ve always said either in interviews or here, I hate sacrificing the writing quality if my time does not allow me to dedicate myself as much as I feel fit.
Still, you have remained loyal to the this blog, waiting for new content to make its way to you through your feed readers. Friends, I can assure you the time is well worth it, and to prove it I’ll take you on a quick trip thought what’s coming from Blogsessive in the next few weeks.
One Year Celebration Contest
An event like this cannot pass uncelebrated. At the beginning of April I’ll launch a new contest to reward those of you who are loyal to this blog. As you’ve seen in my previous contests, I love to reward those who contribute valuable content to the blogosphere, and so, it will again be a group writing project. With this contest, one winner will get a nice “blogging package” which will consist in:
Click here to read the full blog post!
Interviewed by Yan Susanto on ThouShallBlog.com
About a week ago I was asked by Yan Susanto of ThouShallBlog.com if I could answer to a couple of question for an interview on his blog. Needless to say that since I love the quality and enthusiasm you’ll find in Yan’s work, I immediately accepted.
Here’s a short snippet of the interview:
4. To what do you attribute your blog’s success?
As I said before, to faith and focus. Focus on the smaller – present – steps required in order to achieve the bigger goal. From point A to point B there are always smaller steps like A.1, A.2 and so on. Dealing with each one at its own time made a lot of sense and results did not fail to show.
You can read the whole interview on Yan’s blog.
Reader of the Month – Time to Give Back
Dear folks, I’ve been thinking of a way to give back some of the appreciation you’ve shown me since day one, a way to compensate for the time you spend reading these blog posts and commenting upon them.
Initially, the famous “Top Commentators” plugin crossed my mind, but since it will be hard to keep out those who (unfortunately) try to “beat the system”, I’ve decided to choose another method.
Since I already go through every comment I receive and appreciate those comments that contribute to the amount of quality information of this blog, every month, I will pick one of my commentators to be awarded as “Reader of the Month”.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Results of 9rules’ Round 8 of Submissions
Tyme White of 9rules published today the results of the 8th round of selections for new network members.
Among the newly accepted blogs you’ll also find Blogsessive and OnSimplicity.net. I personally wanted to congratulate Sara from OnSimplicity for the achievement, as I have had the pleasure of interacting with her and she is such an amazing blogger!
Congratulations to all bloggers who also got accepted this round. Blog on!
