In an attempt to, well, lets just be honest here, to remain relevant, there will be a new parent category added to Diysearch. The category, ‘Blogosphere’ will encapsulate all of the various bloggers out there who are actively involved in the DIY ethic/culture/whatever.
Its important to included blogging in Diysearch because there is simply a lot of collaboration, communication and just general knowledge sharing happening through this medium, and if Diysearch wants to remain relevant, then it has to accommodate this trend.
I say “trend” because right now, I still think its too early to declare blogging as “here to stay.” But that doesn’t minimize its importance and usefulness as a tool, not in the slightest.
I’ve finally started my book project. I’ve been thinking about this for over a year now, and finally have managed to start writing it. So, what is this? I’m writing a book on straight edge, as a philosophy, but from a very personal and reflective perspective. I think “thoughtfullness” is a word that is lacking and just darn right nont included in any definition of straight edge. I want to attempt to correct that. Straight edge is either derided as an all-male tough-guy gang or a fashion trend. Frankly, something I have lived my life by, for nearly 20 years, doesn’t feel like a trend, and I sure as hell don’t condone or support some of the stupidity purpetrated in the name of straight edge.
The book called, No Anesthetic, is being written here and there and will most likely come out next year, self published of course. I’m self publishing it for a variety of reasons. One, I honestly don’t think any self-respecting publishing house would touch a book with such a limited scope on a non-mass-marketable topic, two, hey, this is what I do. I would rather do it myself and three, this makes it simple and easy.
I give you How Not To Steal a Sidekick (a type of mobile phone).
Really, this is amusing and while sickeningly appauling (the story that is) this is the shotgun approach to justice in our modern world. I can appreciate it and think, good for him! Get the word out. In the face of uncontrovertable evidence (such as the thieves taking pictures of themselves), they should have to live with the outcome of their actions.
So, if you steel or “find” a mobile phone, use it, then threaten its owner with physical violence, then be prepared to suffer any and all consiquences.
The site is working perfectly, everything is stable and is operating as it should (knock on wood) and with that I figure its time to start letting folks know what’s in the hopper for the future, with regards to functionality and well, everything else. Yes, this is the future vision as it stands now, which basically means that as soon as I publish this it’ll be immediately irrelevant… that’s the nature of the future.
Anyway, here’s a run down on the future functionality for the site:
- Self-service banner insertion program (add your banner automatically for a small fee)
- Spider service (basically this feature will spider your site so you can bulk-add other URLs in your site, filed under a pre-determined category you select)
- Extended link details page (this will include a thumbnail image of your site when a user clicks on your site’s link details link — located on the category browse pages)
- Subscription packages (to include various banner/sponsor link packages as well as priority link approvals and a few other benefits we haven’t thought of yet)
- DsWiki (we are going to be working on launching the Wiki — there will be more on this. Still working what exactly the Wiki will be, how it will work, what I do know is that I want something to enable users to post content)
- more to come
In addition to this technical feature bells and whistles stuff I am currently working on a PR and Marketing “plan” with a friend of mine which will spell out how we plan to get this site more on its own feet and start raising more awareness for not just the site, but the entire concept of this thing. I’ve written this 12-page thing which my friend (an expert in this field) completely tore it apart (which is a good thing). I suppose when its finished I’ll be posting it, because I like this open source transparency idea.
So, there you have it in a nutshell. Over the coming weeks as I work more on these items I’ll be posting more details. I know this is very light on details, I’ll be working to change that.
