Web Blog of Greg Mathews

Comment from Windmill
Time April 24, 2009 at 4:02 pm

Hi Greg,

Your Post caught my eye while EC dropping.

May I ask what kind of designs that you’re seeking.

Webpage, badges, headers, etc., and in what size(s) are your preference.

Cheers!

Comment from Harriet
Time April 24, 2009 at 7:26 pm

I was thinking that if you didn’t want to deal with advertisements to pay for this, I for one wouldn’t mind paying a yearly fee of $20-$35. Just a thought…..

Comment from laane
Time April 24, 2009 at 10:58 pm

Doesn’t one of the great designsites wants to offer a layout?

For instance: http://www.ourblogtemplates.com/

I would like to have a category:
special needs (kids and parenting)

Comment from Aftercancer
Time April 24, 2009 at 11:32 pm

You’re taking on quite a task and I don’t have a bit of assistance to offer but moral support. Good luck!

Comment from Jan from BetterSpines
Time April 25, 2009 at 5:31 am

I’m happy with the categories Entrecard offers. We’re pretty simple – Health!

Comment from Greg
Time April 25, 2009 at 8:40 am

Windmill

Basically I am looking for the whole design, I don’t want anything to flashy but it’s got to be good to look at. I think something similar to EC, ie two column so i can use the main column (about 70% of the width) for the main content and then the ‘sidebar’ column for putting info in. I think a fixed width design is better, one that is central on the screen for higher resolution, I think around 1000px wide. Dropaholics has a width of about 800px and I think this would need to be a bit wider.

I prefer designs that use css and divs etc rather than lots of tables.

I had fun with names for the site, registered a couple of domains and considered others but the domain I have gone for widgetdroppers.com – the design and graphics are carp and the site is not ready for use but knowing the domain may help anyone that can help with the design.

Thanks

Comment from Greg
Time April 25, 2009 at 8:47 am

Harriet

Thank you for that offer, it is good to know that some people would be willing to pay a fee.

I had thought about adding ads on the site itself, but based on the fact it obviously did not earn EC much, and from my experience of offering advertising on some of my other sites getting advertisers is not the easiest. I don’t think adsense would work either as most of the sites content would be links and images and very little text content which is really needed for adsense to work.

Charging a ‘membership’ fee is something I had thought of, however I am not sure making it compulsary would work so I would need to come up with an incentive for ‘free’ members to upgrade.

Comment from Greg
Time April 25, 2009 at 8:53 am

Laane

I have thought about getting a template from a site like that but thought it may interest a fellow blogger as we would give them credit for the design which may benefit them. If nothing comes up then I would go to a template design site.

Category Noted, I have seen a few blogs lately on the ‘Special Needs’ subject.

Comment from Greg
Time April 25, 2009 at 8:54 am

Thanks for the support, without the support I would not get anywhere with this.

Comment from hindleyite
Time April 25, 2009 at 9:51 am

Hey Greg! I have a suggestion which you may or may not look to implement. I think it would be cool to maybe have a secondary category with the option to search blogs by country.

I don’t think I can think of anything else right now other than to say happy coding.

Comment from Sharon
Time April 25, 2009 at 10:00 am

The categories seem OK except for “Women’s and men’s interest.” What does that mean?
Hey, you do know your EC drop spot is missing, right?

Comment from Greg
Time April 25, 2009 at 10:08 am

Hindleyite

I had thought of having a ‘regional’ category, so those that have blogs specific to an area rather than subject could place their blog in the ‘regional’ category.

In addition I could add a ‘country’ field to the signup form, so when searching the categories you could restrict to blogs in specific country but this could lead to blogs from smaller countries loosing out on advertising, ie if you live in Andora, there may only be a couple of other blogs based in Andora so few may want to target ads in that country.

Comment from Paul Baines
Time April 25, 2009 at 4:04 pm

I am okay with current art and fashion categories but perhaps adding an extra country category would be handy as others have pointed out? I think you could solely rely on advertising at your site if you make the widget link to it and enough users create enough traffic – there are blog ad systems that pay 100s of dollars per week or even per day for a 125 pixel slot on a very busy site.

Comment from Greg
Time April 25, 2009 at 7:19 pm

Paul

It would be great if advertising on the site can work, if advertising revenue can cover the costs then that is the way it will go.

Comment from chilly
Time April 26, 2009 at 12:50 am

Hello Greg,
I’m pretty happy with categories like Entrecard has. I use the Mixed bag because I don’t figure my blog fits any other.

Comment from George Serradinho
Time April 26, 2009 at 7:14 am

Good luck my friend, it’s not easy what you are doing.

Some might be against it and others for it. Just start off slow and have the interest of the users at mind. That way, you will be on the right path.

Comment from Mamaflo
Time April 26, 2009 at 2:24 pm

I’m with the majority here that feels Entrecard categories are fine. I like the idea that there are two levels of users based on whether their “membership” is paid or not. I’m looking forward to hearing and seeing more about your site.

Comment from RE Ausetkmt
Time April 26, 2009 at 10:05 pm

Oh Greg, face it – after this paid ad fiasco with Entrecard we’d probably all rather pay for a good system.

add me to that list, because a few ducats to grease the wheels is justifiable business expense; always.

remember a double widget up and down is preferable, and please make it rotate the ads. that’s better on the paid side; but the blog side make it static so it stays for the whole 24 hrs. that way everybody gets full exposure, fairly.

if you add categories, please include one for Caribbean Bloggers, Podcasts, Radio Bloggers, Music Video Bloggers, African Bloggers, Women Bloggers and of course the peverbial favorite – blogs about blogs;

can’t wait to see you start up.

Pingback from Thank You! My April Dynamite Droppers | Windmill on the Hill
Time April 30, 2009 at 3:18 pm

[...] application for Bloggers. Read [ HERE ]. Please join in to render your practical inputs [ HERE ]and whatever assistance possible to Greg to enable his project to be a success. I am sure that [...]

Comment from Windmill
Time May 1, 2009 at 4:16 am

Hi Greg,

I was out-of-town last weekend for a very important Birthday Celebration. My apologies for this late reply.

During the journey I gave plenty of thought to your reply. After careful consideration, I felt that it would be too much of a risk to produce a full scale webpage design with all the needed specialties that a webpage theme would demand – for the purpose you have in mind.

So, here is my contribution. I will donate USD100 for a Theme choice that you find befits all the requirements that your Project demands.

Hopefully, there is a time proven Theme out there that would fit your needs.

I could write a Theme. There is a “but”. For a public service of this magnitude, besides a shortfall of members the worst thing that could befall is a webpage that contains bugs. To debug and fix while the service is live, would be a nightmare to say the least.

Okay Greg, the ball is in your court now. Let me know.

Cheers!

Comment from Greg
Time May 1, 2009 at 8:21 am

Windmill

Thank you for the offer, at the moment I am going to leave the design for a bit. I did start looking and found that I was spending so much time looking around I lost a lot of coding time.

Once I have the basics ready, ie the ability to request advertising etc so the widgets are then fully functional and maybe can get a few people to register and ‘beta’ test, I may come back to the design.

Greg