As you could tell from my post on January 1, 2013, I am now providing yearly evaluations of my online presence. I will look at how things are going and changes that I feel should be made.
Blogging Presence
I am currently maintaining four blogs:
- Random Rants and Ramblings
- The War Between Schooling and Education
- Mental Exercises
- Pictures from a Sub-Amateur
As always, I haven’t been actively promoting my blogs due to ethical concerns (I view pretty much any form of promotion that I can think of as unethical). I’m still relying in the “whoopsie” factor of people bumping into my online presence by accident. Key indicators of legitimate activity are still non-existent. More general sign are clearly up.
For the most part, I have been using Live Writer for the development of posts. This is probably going to change. If I use Blogger’s editing tools, I can ensure I have access to drafts regardless of which computer I’m using. Also, tools specific for Blogger are more likely to properly represent proper formatting (I have found a few problems with Live Writer posts). Outside of scheduled posts, posts made in this manner would automatically post links on Google+ (something I want more of).
I also feel that I need to split more posts. So far, most of my blog posts do not have these breaks. This creates lengthy text when people want to look at what my blogs have to offer. What I want is to allow people to see what posts I have and then have them click to actually read them. This also means that when I’m looking at traffic to my blogs, I will have a better indication of what people are actually viewing.
I also think that I need to link between my posts and blogs more frequently. I have already added a few links that I hadn’t originally intended on some of my recent posts.
Most of these changes will not be seen immediately. I have a queue of posts ready to go. I’m not going to redo them to reflect changes. For example, this post was written in Live Writer.
One thing that I have been considering is the addition of ads. Without traffic, I can’t make much money this way. I still feel that something is better than nothing.
Random Rants and Ramblings
What can I say about this blog? This is meant for my posts that don’t fit any blog that is more specialized. The randomness of the content will always cause some problems since that is essentially the purpose.
I want to point out a change that was made in 2013. I added a picture blog. This separates content that was a bit more focused on pictures. It seems to me that people looking at my pictures on Flickr are more likely to enjoy a blog dedicated to pictures than landing on a page full of random posts. My picture blog is now the entry point to my blogs from people who link from Flickr.
I am looking at the possibility of updating the formulas for the Washingtonian Weather Index. Although I like having precipitation factored in, I feel that it has been weighted a little too heavily. I’m not making any guarantees, but any changes made would be revealed in early February with the January weather summary. I don’t want to change formulas mid-year, so the first update of the year would need to reflect any changes made.
The War Between Schooling and Education
At this point, I don’t intend to make any changes beyond my general updates to my blogs.
Mental Exercises
Almost a year with my poll running, and I still don’t have a single vote. That’s not good. Since the categories of mental exercises will remain the same, I will be extending the poll for another 365 days.
I have had some issues with my Rethink exercises. In an attempt to tie in my mental exercise blog to the rest of my presence, I have tried to use topics of posts from those blogs as inspiration for some of my exercises. I have found that I am frequently asking people to rethink their opinions when they are likely to differ from mine. This could be viewed as a way of pushing my personal beliefs on others. That was not my intention, and I am planning on addressing this problem.
Since I develop mental exercises a year in advance, changes will not show up until 2015. At that time, I will replace Rethink with a new category. I am not ready to explain the new mental exercises at this time. Some rethink exercises will be modified to fit elsewhere. Others will not. The opinion-related exercises might live on in the form of posts to my other blogs, but I will not ask others to participate. Although I have no intentions of bringing back Rethink, I don’t like to say, “never.” There’s always a possibility that the category will be redeveloped and reintroduced.
I also want to talk about the sharing policies. These will be changing for the new year. I have always felt that my description of sharing at the end of some exercises doesn’t always make a lot of sense and makes for a horrible read. The idea all along was that people should use common sense and not blame me if there’s a disagreement over how solutions should be shared. I think I can simplify and put it as a general guideline instead of writing guidelines for each post. The idea is that concepts should be open for others to use while specific work should require permission from the person responsible.
Adding Google+ links is tricky with the mental exercises because I have a strict personal policy of only using scheduled posts. The nature of these posts actually seem more worthy of Google+ than my more random posts that can be found elsewhere. I will try to share whenever I remember, but I can’t rule out the possibility of missing a few.
It’s time for a quick evaluation of how the categories are working:
Self-exploration
Most of my exercises in this category have been set up for quick responses that should take a little thought but don’t require it. I have already posted one exercise that is more puzzle-like. I also have a type of exercise in the works to convince people to add more depth to previous answers. Some quick responses will still be possible, but there will be a little more variety in the future.
Challenge
One of the ideas I had from the very beginning was to include some simpler Excel challenges for people who are still learning the basics. There were a couple of exercises that were meant to be the start of some of my simpler challenges, but those were never meant to be the basics. My first basics exercise is actually scheduled for August.
I need to slow down the development of new Excel projects. I will probably restrict newer Excel projects since they can be a little too close to basics. At this time, I’m thinking at least one year between as well as no consecutive Excel exercises being new projects and/or my basics series.
This is the category (other than the new category) that will be modified the most by the elimination of Rethink exercises. Some of my best ideas have not shown up yet, and I think that the Challenge category provides some interesting options. The general idea is to create broad topics for rethink and then use various programs to explore some of the details.
I also have ideas for some PowerPoint/Presentation exercises. I’m not ready to reveal details for these exercises at this time.
Random Creativity
I have set up the possibility to create exercises based off of solutions to Random Creativity exercises. Technically speaking, Send Away puzzles fit this description, but I have started putting together ideas within Random Creativity. If an exercise type is developed after the random word is established, there is a possibility to bring some of those exercises back with other words. Most likely, this will happen for Random Creativity exercises that feature two different words (although a weak spot of mine, I could revisit creating outfits).
As I said last year, I no longer use Wikipedia as a source for random words and phrases. With my year lead development time, this change will now show up in the blog.
Rethink
I pretty much explained this above. I’m not looking for changes right now within Rethink because the category will no longer exist in 2015. Offshoots will appear in my other blogs and within the Challenge category.
Puzzles
Some of my ideas for modifying Send Away puzzles have already appeared. I also have found a way to turn logic problems into Excel-based challenges. This will appear in March as a Challenge exercise.
Pictures from a Sub-Amateur
Since this blog is only six months old, it’s harder to figure out how things are going. I am now using this blog for links from Flickr. There are still some links to my personal blog. Some of this is because I didn’t want to have to repost old text. I also keep my vacation log on my personal blog (pictures are not a big part of those posts), so I will continue to link vacation pictures to my personal blog.
Flickr
This is still clearly my most active component of my online presence. Like I already stated, I have started creating links from Flickr to my picture blog. I also had a family photo challenge that had me adding different kinds of pictures. It sounds like we will have a new weekly challenge for 2014.
I still haven’t expanded my presence beyond just uploading pictures. As I stated last year, I do have ideas if I want to improve my presence. This could take years since I have other things that I’m working on that I consider to be higher priority.
Google+
It’s still difficult for me to get into social networking. Although I don’t have much, I have enough links to Google+ that it would be difficult for me to remove that component of my online presence. Right now, all I do is share some of my blog posts. More of my blog posts will get this treatment in the future.
eBird
I joined eBird in February and am for the most part caught up. I still need to add pictures to some of the checklists. I also have old checklists that I will probably try to import at some point in the future. Like a lot of future changes, I have other priorities right now.
There really is no way for me to evaluate traffic on my checklists. I might be able to keep track of eBird referrals to Flickr, but the numbers I have seen make it seem like doing so would be wasted effort. I think that most people viewing eBird checklists only look at the picture on eBird instead of clicking to visit the pages on Flickr.
On second thought, maybe I can look at referrals. Flickr recently changed how embedded pictures work. If I use their embed tag, I should be able to actually get views even if nobody clicks on the picture.
Recapping changes
For those who can’t handle reading my text, here are the changes that you can expect to see:
- More posts with links on Google+
- More split posts (have to click on post to read it entirely)
- Hopefully more links between blogs
- Ads on blogs
- Possible revision to Washingtonian Weather Index
- Rethink exercises will be replaced with another category in 2015
- Updated sharing policy for Mental Exercises
- Random Creativity mental exercises are only using Wiktionary
- Fewer easy Excel exercises starting in 2015
- More types of Challenge exercises starting in 2015
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