Neatorama Update: September 2009

Hello everybody! I'm happy to be back blogging on Neatorama after being mostly absent last month (why? Here's the very cute reason). Anyway, it's good to be back! I'd like to update you on a number of going ons at the blog:

Neatorama Update
We've done some work under the hood (so to speak). The idea is that regular readers don't see any changes, though some things may be broken. If you've subscribed to the No Upcoming Queue RSS feed, you'll know what I'm talking about (the feed is now ironically only posts from the UQ!). We'll try to get that fixed soon, I promise.

In the meantime, please give the full RSS feed a chance - there's a lot of gems coming from promoted posts from the Upcoming Queue.

If you see anything broken, please email me (alex at this here blog dot com). I appreciate the help!

New Features

If you look at the right-hand side navigation bar, you'll see a number of new neat features:

  • Browse by Date
    We've gotten a lot of requests from people who like to read all of Neatorama by going back posts after posts in the archives. This "browse by date" feature should help them keep track of where they're at.
  • Browse by Tags
    I'm kind of late to the whole tagging thing (I started tagging my posts in November 2008 but have since seen the light!) It's revealing to see that we write more about Star Wars than Star Trek, as denoted by the size of the tag (reflecting the frequency the particular tag is used).

At the very bottom of the navigation bar, you can see the 5 most recent comments made on the blog - so comment frequently, mmkay?

New Ad Units

We're still playing around adding new ad units (showing products from the Neatorama Shop) in the front page and in the single post pages and deleting some in the navigation bar.

We're trying to reach a balance between controlling the number of ad spots and types of ads (for example, the rotating product ads are static images and not Flash) while maximizing revenue to pay the blog's operational cost (dem darned bills).

Neatorama Upcoming Queue: Top Submitters of August 2009

We promised to reward the top 5 submitters to the Upcoming Queue for the month of August ... and here they are (thanks guys!)

Congratulations to coconutnut who got the grand prize (an iPod Nano) - the rest of the people listed above will win something neat from the Neatorama Shop.

We'll continue to reward the Top Submitters, so if you haven't tried the Upcoming Queue, what are you waiting for? Here's the FAQ and Formatting Tips to maximize your chances of getting your submissions promoted.


Dunno bout youse, but I haven't been able to hit the UQ for a few days. Throws this error:

Safari can’t open the page.
Too many redirects occurred trying to open “http://www.neatorama.com/upcoming/”. This might occur if you open a page that is redirected to open another page which then is redirected to open the original page.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
"We've done some work under the hood (so to speak). The idea is that regular readers don't see any changes, though some things may be broken."

- So, is this like Snow Leopard for the 'neat-o' crowd?

Aha!!
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
hey guys, i love this site, have for years, but the new adds im not liking, its good that they are only for neatorama store, but they can be distracting

but fi thats the only adds i have to deal with, then i guess im a happy camper
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Alas, the forum is no more - it's a magnet for spam. The software that powers the forum, bbPress, is a fledgling and very promising software, but it doesn't handle spam as robustly as WordPress does. So, rather than having to spend too much time patrolling the forum, we opted to discontinue it.

Re: ads on the blog. As you guys probably know, Neatorama didn't use to have ads way back when - but as the blog grew, so did its hosting bills. Right now, we our hosting bill is in the five figures so ads (banner ads for third parties and internal ads for the shop) are the only way we can pay our bills.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Well i guess we could all work to make the hosting fees less by not coming here anymore. Just kidding, how would I spend my work down time if it wasn't for neat-o-rama.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Login to comment.
Click here to access all of this post's 13 comments




Email This Post to a Friend
"Neatorama Update: September 2009"

Separate multiple emails with a comma. Limit 5.

 

Success! Your email has been sent!

close window
X

This website uses cookies.

This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using this website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

I agree
 
Learn More