I was hoping to announce a project today, but I’ll have to push that forward a bit, waiting to get the definite word from my favorite illustrator. Would be nice to launch it with a piece of his work, but I hadn’t planned it so if he’s swamped I’ll just go ahead. It’s worth the extra days of waiting though.

Meanwhile, I’ve returned to The Blog Herald with a post connecting to my tooting your own horn post. If you want to know how to get me to read your blog, this is the post for you. Long time TDH readers (hah!) might remember that I started my international blogging career at that fine site, before moving on to 901am. Full circle, eh? More

So I did the new design for new media news site 901am, a gig ordered by Splashpress Media. The current editor, Minic Rivera, implemented the new theme yesterday and everything seems to be running smoothly over there.

I’m pretty happy with how the design turned out. It’s got a nice air to it, feels modern and a lot more new media-ish than the previous one, as well as offer a lot of advertising opportunities for the editor.

Speaking of 901am, there are a few of my readers wondering why I don’t blog there anymore. The reason for this is that I just don’t have the time - there’s so many things going on at the moment that freelance news blogging, while being pretty entertaining, just don’t make the todo list. I enjoy it though and hope to return to blogging for 901am in the future, I’ve got a history with the site as you all probably know, being on it more or less since the beginning and helping former owner David Krug make it great.

Anyway, back to work for me. Stay tuned for more frequent updates here while I:

1. Kill off my wicked cold
2. Catch up on work
3. Take a week off (late August)
4. Finalize my blogging plans

Now check out 901am, and read the redesign announcement if you please.

Yep. First post in almost a month. I plan to do a couple each weekday, we’ll see how it turns out. Regular readers saw this coming of coure.

I never really left, it just got sold, redesigned and then redesigned again. My first posts will appear tomorrow if all goes well.

In other news, I’m going to try and relaunch this blog next week. It might not be possible, work comes first, but I’ll try to get it out in 2.0 beta. It will look like this, sort of.

Web 2.0 startup news blog TechCrunch, headed by bigshot Michael Arrington, have launched discussion forums. Last year girly gadget blog Shiny Shiny did the same and they were not alone.

Forums are great, but I don’t want to see them as a necessary feature on blogs; the communication possibility is already there, in the comments. Sure, they’re tied to one particular subject – the blog post of course – but still. If you add a forum and encourage your readers to participate in discussions in it, you’ll soon see that the amount of comments on your posts will decline. The same discussion that normally would occur in your post comments, with the possible benefit of actually making the content better, now resides on your forum.

That’s not so bad? Well, it is, because you’ve probably written your blog posts for a reason, and your view on the topic in question can evolve when your readers weigh in. Compare that to the forum, where of course the same thing can come up, but it’s more likely to be less focused and therefore perhaps not going the full length.

Now, if I were in Arrington’s place I would’ve done the same thing. It would have been a cleaner solution perhaps, but too would launch forums. He’s got the massive amount of readers that is needed to support both forums and comments. But more importantly, he’s got the spin-off in the fact that he now won’t need to cope with as many e-mails about start-ups that wants him to give them coverage: they’re directed to the forum! A smart move.

You should only start a forum for your blog if you:

1. Have lots of readers who comment all the time.
2. Can integrate it smoothly in your blog design.
3. Can offer the same login for both your blog and forum (dual memberships for one site are not OK).
4. Have the time to moderate the forum.
5. Have extra content and/or value to entice readers to be active in your forum.

TechCrunch fails 3, I’m sure they’ll manage 4 although that’ll be one to watch. One could argue that they haven’t integrated the forum well enough, but I’ll let ‘em pass there, although the solutions clashes a bit it still shares most of the TechCrunch elements. Check them out.

Do consider these points before adding a forum, and also do take a moment to think about what forum software to use. And most importantly, think long and hard what you’ll gain from launching a forum, and what you’ll lose. As always you need a plan to succeed.

I still believe that the absolute majority of blogs are better off without forums.

Right. 2006 is wrapped up and the new year is a couple of days fresh. Did I achieve what I set out to do and did I learn anything? That last part is the easiest one to answer; of course I did. It’s all about learning, isn’t it?

2006 was the year when I decided that the Swedish market was too small, that I wanted to find a new audience and try my wings, so to speak. Actually, I think I dove into that route the year before really, when I decided to monitor the blogosphere, Web 2.0 and new media in general on the international side of things. As opposed to the national (Swedish that is) which is restricted, stale and boring.

I started writing in English on a professional level, freelance here and there, and then joined PDF gaming magazine PTD. It worked. I didn’t expect that, people who know me well thought it nice that I for once was uncertain and modest about a new venture. Not that I’m the bragging type, I just tend to have a set mind to what I can achieve, and if I don’t for any reason then I won’t move in that direction. Going international, as in writing in English, was something I truly didn’t know if I could manage. As in manage well enough, not actually manage: I want to be good at what I do, I want to learn and I want to evolve.

It worked out nicely, and left me with a throbbing thought of why I hadn’t done this before. Modesty might be a virtue, but it’s a bloody shackle as well. Add uncertainty and you have a mountain of negative karma to overcome. I doubt I’ll make the same mistake again, but who knows.

The Blog Herald took me on, via Matt Craven. That was an experience, a learning one. When I moved to 901am it was as a much more experienced blogger, but still a learning one.

I launched Bloggertalks, and will take it a step further this year. I got design gigs, with more lined up, and I got to see a blog launching schedule fall to pieces. Will have to make up for that in the coming weeks, which is less of a problem than one could imagine since most of it is out of my hands by now. Or rather, not relying on me, this for once feels kind of nice. Nevertheless, it’ll certainly feel good when the last blog in the first sub-network goes live in April or so.

2006 has been a chaotic and at times hard year. The last three months have been tough, to say the least. I’m working way too much, balancing old projects with new ones, freelancing, doing design gigs and letting off products to make room in my crowded schedule. A web worker isn’t supposed to have normal working hours, but these last few months have been ridiculous. January will be no better, but I’ll cope for a while.

I have no resolutions, only lots to achieve. A personal time frame is being made, and goals are being set. I’ll share, to be sure, during the year. And most likely look back at 2007 when the year ends, with fog clouding the events as they always tend to do in my world. Create, and move on. React, and move on. Exist, and continue.

I never was the sentimental one.

Today marks my first day over at David Krug’s new media news blog 901am. I’ll be blogging frequently there, more or less daily actually, starting next week.

This weekend is all about the Wii for mii. (Sorry.)

I’ve had quite some thoughts on advertising online and the methods that are used. CPM is a true menace in my book, especially if you’re active in the blogosphere. Blogs are just not made to maximize the number of page views per visit, nor should they be. It’s an old and deprecated way of selling ad space. I don’t use it.

For more on this, check out my post Where is online advertising heading? over at The Blog Herald.

Oh, and check out David Krug’s latest venture, 901am. It’s a news site for new media, worthy of your bookmark and RSS subscription I can assure you.