Some housekeeping – We are in the middle of some HUGE upgrades behind the scenes at MAKE. The MAKE site isn’t something we “own” – it’s your site just as much as it’s ours. Everyone who participates in the MAKE community has made it the great resource it is today. We listened to all the feedback in 2008 and we’re doing a lot to make the site even better in 2009. Here’s an overview of what we’re up to now, ahead and some of the changes on the site.
- Upgrading to the latest version of MoveableType (our online publishing system) – this should help our performance, add new features and make it easier to do new things. Hackszine is becoming part of MAKE while we do our site updates.
- Fixing comments – the comments work “most” of the time but during high load some users need to enter in the CAPTCHA twice in some cases, we’re working on fixing that. We’re also going to have OpenID 2.0 and things like Facebook connect as MoveableType adds support for it. We’ll also add threaded comments.
- Projects section – we’re re-doing the projects section on MAKE soon, we’ll have 10 times the projects and new things to do!
- “Suggest a site” – we’ve updated to form so you can put where you’re from and if you’re a MAKE subscriber, we read those first.
- Number of posts – The feedback from all the makers out there is that there are too many posts to keep up with on MAKE – we’re going to do lots of posts, just not as many, but the posts we do have will be longer and filled with more content. We’ll have quick items, but we’re working towards longer articles and more how-tos.
- More weekly features – we’re going to have more regular weekly features – Right now we have “How-to tuesday” and “Weekend projects” – soon we’ll have many more. Some of the daily authors on the site will do features and articles, we’ll try this out and see how it goes.
- More of MAKE making MAKE – You’ll see some new faces here on the site, but they’re not new at all – many of our print editors are writing on the site now too – when you see them here, say hello!
- Guest authors – we’ll have more guest authors this year, makers and we’ll try and do a monthly “ask a maker” online chat starting in the spring.
- Design updates, ads and changes – we’re polishing up the site, we’re removing old stuff and working with our advertising partners to get more relevant ads on the site with sponsors who value the MAKE community. As the economy sinks more, we’ll have less ads but hope you consider subscribing to MAKE and checking out our Maker Shed store.
- Stats on our site & videos – I’m going to publish how the site is doing each month. In January we had 4,665,156 page views +7.09% over December (4,356,165) and 2,669,305 unique visitors +11.64% over December (2,390,949) . In January we had about 2 million video views across YouTube, iTunes, blip.tv, vimeo and direct downloads. If you want to advertise on MAKE click here via the self-serve system, if you want to talk to us about advertising or video sponsorships email us!
And that’s just a start, we’ll keep you all updated as things change and get updated.
14 thoughts on “New stuff happening on the MAKE site…”
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My favorite part of the MAKE:Blog is the smörgÃ¥sbord of posts. It’s what distinguishes it from other project blogs. It would be a bad idea to try to only post longer articles, ’cause that would create a bias against cool tidbits like Bespoke, the cross country ski stroller, Building papercrete domes, and many, many other posts.
i totally second Nick’s post. some projects/hacks/tricks don’t warrant or provide a ton of on-blog exposition but -DO- warrant a mention. please don’t lose these.
Make should continue to have short posts highlighting really cool hacks and tricks and projects. What Make should do is be more selective about what they post. Not every project warrants a post. Pick things that are cool, easy to make, or have good instructions…etc…
All in all, don’t cut back on the number of posts, become more SELECTIVE.
hey folks – ok, loud and clear… we’ll make sure there are plenty of posts!
Maybe heres something that can keep everyone happy;
Create a scraps section of the home page for each day. Instead of a full post just have a small box on the right side of the page with a title and link for each of your smaller stuff. You could also put in a comments section for all of that day’s scraps too if that’s something people want to keep for the small posts.
Just an idea…
@PT, re:NickAmes and Boltball comments-
Ditto.
And in the past, I and others have expressed the same: Lots of little posts, with in-depth links for those interested. That is the joy of the MAKEblog to me, maybe others too. Brought new things into my life, and is the reason I check the blog whenever I am online.
The comments RULE!! and sometimes on the mega-posts with many items they get lost and/or meaningless.
Is issue 16(?) still available to re-start my subscription with? (That is the spy-vs-spy one,right?) If putting my money where my mouth is carries weight, I will do so again. Somebody has to pay for the free stuff here, right?!?
(Hm…looking below, I see it still advertised for the subscribe today..answered that question!)
Just to prove I’m not just blowing smoke…
“You have successfully upgraded to Premier Maker statusâ€
From: MAKE (cs@readerservices.makezine.com)
Sent: Sun 2/01/09 11:20 PM”
is the header on my most recent email from MAKE.
I am on the east coast, so thats the 3hr time difference.
Doing my part to MAKE this a great site. I encourage others to do the same.