first things first: creating content!
Good content is something others (people who do not personally know you!) will be motivated to read/see, to benefit from to the extent where they will wish to pass on your URL to others. Certainly, good design helps, and that is what this place is all about in the end. However, not even the best design, with perfect visuals, great typography, fabulous coding, and so forth is going to make up for the absence of really good content.
And this does not have to be highfalutin, serious, earthshakinlgy important stuff either. One of the greatest sites that I know of, that I always go back to check on, is Monty Chan, which tells the story of Monty the cat through snapshots, often festooned with doodles and hand written notes by his owner. No fanfare, no major statements, no 'agenda' and yet a delight of a site which, just like me, many many people have bookmarked and keep checking on every so often.
So, you all have hobbies, right? Take a close look at them, see if they may not be really good material for a website that will interest others as well. Some of us love soccer, others love cats. Some of us collect stuff, while some are computer game freaks. Some of us are geeks, some are fashionistas. (And hey - some of us are both: Again an amazing site (contentwise) is Geekthreads. And a perfect example of what I mean by the fact that 'content' always overrides 'design' when it comes to really good websites. Geekthreads has its share of design problems (which I think I will actually discuss later, in a separate post). But, who really cares? Not even me - and I am a designer! ;-). The content is so captivating, there is so much humor in there, that I am more than willing to overlook a few alignment and hierarchy issues. Geekthreads makes me have a great time every time I go there - and at the end of the day, that is the only thing that really counts.
The thing to bear in mind is that you are creating content for people who do not know you. Which means that you have to be able to hold their attention through your content alone.Which means that you should be warm, sincere, open, funny and daring.Charismatic! Cheeky even! Or that you have content which is really useful to people (such as a specialized subject site, say in some research domain or a particular hobby or craft). Or... Or... In any case, in order to be able to pull this off you need to feel strongly and warmly about what it is that you want the site to be about. Which is why I am suggesting that you start out by looking at your own hobbies and little obsessions - be they your shoe collection or sharing your favorite junk food recipes...
A few ideas that I heard of in class are great by the way: As an example, Melis told me that she wants to create a "Usage Instruction Manual" on herself. Great! Now, the trick there of course is to make this thing so funny that someone coming by from Kenya or Indonesia or Canada - and who does not know Melis at all obviously - would still be ROTFL. Another really good one was the idea about putting together a food guide for Istanbul. In this case - why not with a twist? There are already quite a few "serious ones" out there, so how about a junk food guide for Istanbul? Then another good one that I heard is the frogman site. Well, if you have a hobby like that to talk about- you're half way there already, I would say...
So, really folks - this is the most important part of the job: Find some good content!
Go go go! ;-)
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And this does not have to be highfalutin, serious, earthshakinlgy important stuff either. One of the greatest sites that I know of, that I always go back to check on, is Monty Chan, which tells the story of Monty the cat through snapshots, often festooned with doodles and hand written notes by his owner. No fanfare, no major statements, no 'agenda' and yet a delight of a site which, just like me, many many people have bookmarked and keep checking on every so often.
So, you all have hobbies, right? Take a close look at them, see if they may not be really good material for a website that will interest others as well. Some of us love soccer, others love cats. Some of us collect stuff, while some are computer game freaks. Some of us are geeks, some are fashionistas. (And hey - some of us are both: Again an amazing site (contentwise) is Geekthreads. And a perfect example of what I mean by the fact that 'content' always overrides 'design' when it comes to really good websites. Geekthreads has its share of design problems (which I think I will actually discuss later, in a separate post). But, who really cares? Not even me - and I am a designer! ;-). The content is so captivating, there is so much humor in there, that I am more than willing to overlook a few alignment and hierarchy issues. Geekthreads makes me have a great time every time I go there - and at the end of the day, that is the only thing that really counts.
The thing to bear in mind is that you are creating content for people who do not know you. Which means that you have to be able to hold their attention through your content alone.Which means that you should be warm, sincere, open, funny and daring.Charismatic! Cheeky even! Or that you have content which is really useful to people (such as a specialized subject site, say in some research domain or a particular hobby or craft). Or... Or... In any case, in order to be able to pull this off you need to feel strongly and warmly about what it is that you want the site to be about. Which is why I am suggesting that you start out by looking at your own hobbies and little obsessions - be they your shoe collection or sharing your favorite junk food recipes...
A few ideas that I heard of in class are great by the way: As an example, Melis told me that she wants to create a "Usage Instruction Manual" on herself. Great! Now, the trick there of course is to make this thing so funny that someone coming by from Kenya or Indonesia or Canada - and who does not know Melis at all obviously - would still be ROTFL. Another really good one was the idea about putting together a food guide for Istanbul. In this case - why not with a twist? There are already quite a few "serious ones" out there, so how about a junk food guide for Istanbul? Then another good one that I heard is the frogman site. Well, if you have a hobby like that to talk about- you're half way there already, I would say...
So, really folks - this is the most important part of the job: Find some good content!
Go go go! ;-)
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