There are going to be some changes around here. Here’s why (comment from yesterday):

Okay first I’m gonna tell you what I told Jennifer Hast this morning, too: get off Blogspot, get your own domain, and use Wordpress. Because I hate these Blogspot comment thingies. If I make it an official decree will you do it?

Second I’m gonna tell you that you’re exactly right about RSS feeds and bloggers who are stingy with them are making a big mistake.

Before I put my RSS feed up, which I did because I got emails requesting it CONSTANTLY, I did a bunch of research. Because I knew that if people were only reading through their reader, I wouldn’t get the traffic to my actual blog and thus my ad revenue would decrease.

So I read a bunch of articles all over the web about this issue and the consensus was TOUGH SHIT.

Because refusing to offer RSS, or even refusing to feed the whole post (by using teaser snippets) pisses people off. And, RSS users tend to spread links around, emailing their friends and such. Also, it is said that a high RSS reader number in a little graphic prominently displayed on your blog can be a form of promotion itself. “Wow, this blog has 500 RSS readers, it must be pretty good, I will read more of it.”

I was convinced and decided to try it, and sure enough, within a few weeks I had several hundred people signed on and my traffic went UP, as did my ad revenue (which wasn’t much to start with but it did go up a few bucks a week).

Anyway. Seriously, get off of Blogspot; it is making me angry that I can’t scroll from my comment up to your post to see what else you said. DO IT. I will help you because I truly do like your blog. Email me if you’re thinking about it and need help.

That’s right - THE Rachel Lucas has spoken. She has given me the Golden Path which, if I dare, will lead me to blogging greatness. We’re talking groupies, women, the works. Oh yeah. Consequently, I have already begun the first phase. If you’ll notice, there is a change in your friendly address bar. That’s right - this blog is now at www.colborne2016.com. For now, Blogger is set to automatically redirect the old Blogspot address to the new domain. If I ever step away from Blogspot, that will go away, so update your bookmarks now.

This brings up a point…

I’m now starting to get to the point where I need to decide whether I wish to piss or get off the pot, as the expression goes. Basically, I need to decide precisely how seriously I’m going to take this blog. It was all fun and games when it was free, taking only a little bit of my time, and when only 30 people a month were wandering in here aimlessly. Now, it looks like March is going to be strong enough to nearly double my total traffic ever, which is definitely encouraging - people are finally seeing what I write, and, more importantly, are coming back for more. That thrills me to no end. However, if I start to take this seriously, some things are going to have to change… and a lot of them aren’t going to be free for me. It’s one thing when I can stop this at any time since I have no financial stake in its success. It’s quite another to take a bunch of time off when I’m paying $7/month (or more) for hosting, along with the usual domain registration fee. It doesn’t raise the stakes a lot, but it raises them enough to be important.

If I turn that corner and go down that road, here’s what you need to know:

1. It’s not happening right away. It’s going to be at least a month for me to either find a decent hosting provider or decide if I want to just host it myself, try out Wordpress, and figure out what’s going on with it. Since there’s actually a manual for it, among other things, that indicates it’s a little more flexible than Blogspot. This also means it’s probably a little more complicated, so I’d like to play with it on my own for a bit before I start posting on it “live”, as it were. This will work out well since it means that you’ll have plenty of time to update your links, bookmarks, and so on. However, at some point, this blog will probably move, and, when it does, that’ll be the end of colborne2016.blogspot.com. You’ve been warned.

2. I’m going to re-do my categories so they actually make sense. I’ve been playing fast and loose with my categories because, frankly, I didn’t care what they were. If I start taking this mildly seriously, though, I’m going to be cleaning those up.

3. I need to come up with a way to grab all of my posts from the existing blog and put them on the new blog. Copy and paste will work if they have to, but, if there’s an easier way, I’m all over that. Bonus points to anyone who can tell me how to back the existing blog up before I can figure it out on my own.

That’s it for now… more on this later.

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