Ask The Readers: Moving Articles To New Blog
Ghacks has seen some changes in the last two months with the addition of Jack and his Linux articles and Daniel's web development series. A question that came up was if those two (or one of them) should be moved to a separate blog.
I still have not come to a decision and I thought it would probably be best to ask the ones that are affected by the decision (that would be you). Two blogs would make it easier to concentrate topics for a certain user base with the option to visit both if both types of content would be interesting to you.
The main question is whether the content should be separated and if that is the opinion of the majority which content should be moved to another blog.
My initial thoughts were to move the web development topics to a new blog and also some of the advanced Linux topics. The new blog would be some sort of uberGhacks for advanced users.
Please vote and let us know which content should be moved to a separate blog if you select Yes.
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No, less RSS feeds I need to shift through the better. Unless there’d be one feed for both blogs it’d hamper both of them.
I would agree that the magazine style seems to be the way forward :) Maybe colour coded for each section… can one be pink please? :p
Voted for “I don’t care”.
In fact I’m interested in all three GHacks “streams”. If you will split the content – I just will subscribe to all the new blogs/feeds.
If there is some topic I don’t like to read (Vista or Windows 7 for now), I can create filter automatically marking such tags or topics as read in my RSS client (Feedreader), or, in the case I fear to miss something, create the “smartfeed”, gathering all such RSS articles to quick check and marking as read.
Thank you very much for asking our opinion – I like such attitude and value it. :)
I voted for no as i want all the ghacks articles under one site! Martin your idea of redesigning the site is nice, and having different rss feeds is great too.
To me it doesn’t matter as I’m interested in all three categories but I would suggest a single blog with three different diversions (primary categories) and RSS subscription available for all three plus one for all of them.
Perhaps the best solution is the magazine way Martin. It would be the logical compromise that’d keep everyone happy.
Thanks for all the great comments, it is still difficulty as there is no clear majority.
The tendency goes to keeping everything on one site offering multiple feeds that cover both all articles and only selected ones. (That’s actually already possible)
I’m thinking of redesigning the homepage and site to reflect the change. It would look more “magazine style” of the frontpage with the latest articles on 3-5 selected tags or categories (it would display all articles but also selected categories like Linux or Web Development).
I have been reading ghacks mainly through Google Reader… so while i am in favor of a second site (and your suggestion of what to separate is good), i am just as fine with having separate RSS feeds.
I do visit the site itself sometimes, and i don’t think it needs a format change (to accompany splitting up the RSS feeds, that is). It’s fine if all the articles still appear on this page, same as now. I realize that means non-RSS readers will be completely unaffected by the change. Perhaps tagged sections would be the best approach for them? Just my two cents.
I voted no, only because I do like coming to one central place to find really informative articles, although I can appreciate that it can be a nightmare trying to organise so many different articles!
It’s the same for me. You are the best so one or two blog i will allways follow you.
Good job boys.
Edit time is over, but I wanted something to add.
Previous time when you changed the design it did hurt the conversions so you was forced to go back to the old design. But by not changing the header, but only the structure of the homepage this would probably not be a problem in this case. Because although the change, it would still be recognisable as gHacks and it’s only the homepage.
And to be sure it works well you should use Google website optimizer to do an a/b split test with the old and new homepage. Then redirect a part of the overall traffic to the test (or all the traffic for a faster result) to see how it affects the behaviour of your visitors.
I just came up with a good middle way.
I think it is possible to post the Linux and webdev articles here without negative consequences.
What about restructuring the homepage in a more magazine like style where you have different sections on the homepage. A grid with the main section for the “standard” articles and two smaller sections with the specialized articles.
Then people will not be so distracted by different topics they might not be interested in but you still have everything on one place.
Using a new layout for the homepage together with separated RSS would be the perfect solution I think :-P .
Then you have the best of both, but probably none of the negative side effects!
And admit, the homepage really need a makeover.
I voted no, because I’m interested in all the topics. For those who aren’t interested in them, they should have a way to filter topics though.
I like seeing the daily summary posting of all the articles, just as you do now.
I also like your navigation button for Linux. It acts as an automatic search filter for me whenever I want to find Jack’s Linux articles.
Another button for WebDev would make navigation handy, too, although WebDev is a subject I’m not personally interested in.
Thanks for asking!
I waited a bit before voting and commenting to see what others are thinking.
At the time I write this there are 39% voting for separating the articles to a second blog. Although this is not the majority it really is a lot, even though many more should have the change to vote. (Sticky this.)
About the coding part of this discussion I already gave my opinion, but about linux articles not.
So although there might be a compromise between standard ghacks posts and coding posts, I think linux really should be on a subdomain or separate domain.
The reason is that or you use Linux either Windows (or something else). The mass who is using Windows is not interested in Linux software since they cannot use it and the mass of the Linux crowd is not interested in Windows because they cannot/have chosen not to use it.
So I vote now on creating a separate domain. Probably sub domains I guess, but splitting up the RSS is also a good idea I haven’t thought of yet.
Anyway, having alternative articles on this website might result in more visits on the short run, but on the long run I expect less people subscribing because then it’s not a speciality store any more but a supermarket.
Ghacks does not equal coding/Linux. Making people aware that it does equal coding and linux now, will very likely hurt the long term rss subscribers.
I already have a tons of blog, and I like to read gHacks in one shot, three blog would only scatters the posts.
What happened to Take 9 ? It was a nice idea, but it was missing regular post, so you should maybe post about game in gHacks too.
You’ll only split the reader that way. And you’ll have to maintain 2-3 websites instead of just one.
I voted yes – keep the focus specific. You could always provide a joint feed for those that want all in one place.
Voted no. One busy, fun, helpful and diverse blog is nice and not too difficult to follow either. The idea of separate RSS feeds mentioned above is excellent in my opinion. gHacks is a a name now, keep it and strengthen it.
IMHO there should be something like ‘cookie based customization’, where we could choose which categories we want (or not)to see.
I voted no this because i like it just the way it is. Maybay in the future with even more subjects
Voted “I don’t care”. As long as ghacks keeps all articles interesting, it’s all the same to me, if there is mixed content.
So if you feel so, do the move, I can live with both cases…
Let the best option win! (what ever it is…)
At first, I thought of voting No but then I asked myself if you’re sending me useless posts (RSS) and the answer was No, so I prefer to stay the same. Lifehacker speaks about many different things in a single blog (from cooking to OSs), by instance.
I think you should keep one blog but have multiple RSS feeds. For example, one for all posts, one for only Martin’s posts, one for Daniel posts, one for Jack posts, one for Daniel/Jack posts.
While I really don’t care too much, if the move does happen gHacks should still regularly receive updates for newer user on the subjects in question. This would allow people that don’t have the time to learn, say Linux, now but would like to at some point in the future. The same could be said for new visitors to this site. While I think Jack has been doing a great job with his articles, much of the stuff he does now is a bit more advanced and if you haven’t been visiting since he start with his first post, someone might be confused or overwhelmed.
I vote move.
Articles are considerably different from usual ghacks content. I was going to mail you something like “mark damn Linux articles in RSS” but it seems some were faster. :)
I voted No. I already have to browse through at least 20 websites a day for information. Any more clicking onto separate websites may drive me even more insane than I already am.
Surely the best option would be to keep them together and have 4 RSS feeds.
One feed for linux, one for web development, one for programs and one combined.
I’ve voted no.
I don’t use linux but am interested in reading about linux in a non-dedicated linux environment. Sometimes I’ll see a linux app & find something similar (or even the same app) for windows.
Web-development definitely has it’s place here.
Diversity with relevancy is the key.
i dont have a strong opinion except to say that i know how hard it can be to create new content day after day, month after month.
i think you should only split it up if you think you can consistently keep both blogs updating frequently. if not, im happy to see the posts stay as part of ghacks.
I’d love to see the addition of a web-dev/*nix ghacks subsection. I full agree that you should be able to keep them separate, but on fridays perhaps, do a full round up of the main posts.
Although, Dotan is right in saying that each website would need to keep the same frequency.
If you’re interested in some guest posts now and then on the webdev site, feel free to send me an email xangelo[at]gmail[dot]com. I used to write over at Extendably for a while, but it’s gone into hiatus for past couple months.
It depends on the focus of this website. Is this a ‘tech blog’, a ‘Windows blog’, or something else? First decide on a mission/goal, then see if these new categories fit inside or outside that goal.
Note that if you do make new websites, I would expect posting frequency to increase as well. I am certain that both the Linux and the Web Development categories could sustain another paid poster, making for a two-man blog for either / both.
Voted yes. I personally subscribe to a lot of other web/dev blogs, and most of the information that’s been posted here so far has been pretty redundant (and therefore somewhat annoying) for me. It’s not what I come to ghacks for.
That said, a recap of recent posts on the other blogs, as recommended by Steve, would be welcome.
Thanks!
I voted that I didnt care since these extra posts, while not exactly within what I consider the scope of ghacks, have such a high SNR that it really doesn’t bother me.
If you do move em, make sure you let me knowknow so I can subscribe to the feed.
Voted Yes.
Having had to deal with this before with other Web projects, I would suggest a new blog with sub domains.
dev.* for the web items and related materials
nix.* for the Linux
Then once a week, recap the posts here. Same TLD for members and readers, more direct access for those who want it.
Just my 0.02
Steve
Voted yes.
I think Ghacks should keep its “general/discovery” focus. An “advanced Ghacks” should be okay to host the Linux and web dev articles.