inspiredbywordpress

Six months in, and a plan for 2010

Image by Optical illusion

A year, well 6 months, since this website was launched on the 23rd of August 2009, and it is time to review the progress so far. As we all make out new years resolutions I will declare my plans for the next year here on Inspired By Wordpress.

The last 6 months

The last 6 months hasn’t been great by any means, but it’s been good.  This isn’t to say it has been awful either.  Lets take a look at the god and the bad from the last year.

Good

The first thing to happen with Inspired By Wordpress, was by far the best thing this year.  It was launched on the 23rd of August 2009, roughly 6 months ago.

Over the last 6 months a good base of posts has developed, filling a number of different categories.  The result?  This is post 30.  That may not sound like much, but lets face it.  It’s not bad for a first attempt by an amateur blogger.  Lets try for another 50 in the next six months.  Thats two posts a week for the next six months.

I launched the first dedicated theme for Inspired By Wordpress on the 3rd of November 2009.  This was aimed to give the website a much more personal feel, something which I feel is starting to come-on well.  It needs a few tweaks, for example I feel like the comments could be improved, but it will get there.

The first SceenCast was launched on the 5th November 2009.  This is only 6 minutes long, and shows the complete process for installing WordPress from scratch onto your own server.  Although there are many improvements that could be made, these will be worked on in the new year.

On November the 12th 2009 I hosted the very first Inspired By Wordpress contest, giving away a Code Collector Pro licence.  I do hope to be able to do more of these over the next year of so.

Bad

There are a few things over the last year that have let Inspired By Wordpress down.  For example, the lack of a posting schedule.  This means that posting has been a little too all over the place.  Over the next few weeks I will look at where I have the most time and proceed to create a posting schedule to bring a constant stream of posts.

Quality, this is the key to every website.  Quality, is also something that I feel could be improved here on Inspired By Wordpress.  From here forward I will develop a new style for posting.  I will write a post and then wait an minimum of 24 hours before publishing it, giving myself more time to go back and rewrite sections of it.  The result?  I hope this will bring Higher quality content to you over the next year.

I have made quite a big deal over the ScreenCasts on this site, only to get one published.  In six months.  Thats not too good going really, is it?  Thats why I need to get more rolling of the production line.  The problem has not been lack of ideas though, but more issues with my broadband.  It takes around four hours to upload a one hour PodCast.  That is why I have have been playing with various pieces of software over the last few months meaning that I now have a working solution to this problem.

2010

So, what does the next year hold for Inspired By Wordpress?  Well, I have already said that my posting schedule doesn’t exactly exist as it is now.  So, that first thing I shall do is trial a few solutions over the next two months and then post an official schedule in late february.

More ScreenCasts are on the way, currently I am planning time in the next few days to record and publish a few more.  These will cover various WordPress related topics.

The quality of the posts shall hopefully improve over the next six months as well, as I am putting new measures in place to help increase productivity and improve the work I do for Inspired By WordPress.

The final thing I plan to do in 2010 is to unveil my project.  This, will be kept behind closed doors, but if you follow me on twitter I will probably let something slip.  ;)

This should be  good year.  What are you new year resolutions and plans?  I look foreword to hearing your views on Inspired By Wordpress.  If there is anything you think I ought to do or would be good to see changed I will listen, so please leave me a comment below.

Happy new year!