The new Devlounge design went online yesterday. I hope you like it!

I wrote a bunch of posts for The Blog Herald this week, which is fun of course, but not really a fair representation of my work as the editor of the site. There’s a ton of things behind the scenes, and honestly, I don’t think that the public will see the fruit of my editorship until after the redesign. That is, unless you counting me killing the Kontera ads, of course…

These are my top 3 posts by yours truly this week:

1. ProBlogger The Book with quotes from co-author Chris Garrett
2. Flickr Gets Video, But Just For 90 Seconds feature post, and the corresponding news post on pimped photo sizes
3. The April Fools Gag That Backfired

Number 2 is a good example of how to chop up a story, and by doing that giving it more focus.

My first week as the editor of The Blog Herald has been fun. A bunch of posts, lots of networking, and even more in the pipeline. Among this is a redesign, which I sincerely hope will be well underway this month, although I doubt a release in April is possible, and some tactical recruitment to fill some holes in the staff.

Speaking of which, the writers over at The Blog Herald have been great in welcoming me. Granted, I know a few of them since before, but still. Being brought on as someone who’ll fill the big shoes of the very talented Tony Hung, as well as tackle the problems that the site have. It could’ve been a problem, but it isn’t, always a nice thing.

I’m not working weekends, so now I’ll have some time to sit down and relax, and reflect on the situation. I do indeed have lots of ideas, and then there’s the design decisions to take into account, all with the goal of making The Blog Herald a natural place for bloggers (and wannabes) to visit. The goals are ambitious, to say the least. The only way to have goals in my opinion.

Have a great weekend, I sure intend to.

I’m the new editor over at The Blog Herald, as of yesterday actually. It was officially announced today though, so pop over for that. Among the things on my plate for this gig is of course a redesign, you can follow that on the site of course, and via Twitter, both mine and the one created for The Blog Herald.

I’m leaving Wisdump, which I have been running for quite some time, in favor of, well, what? I’m not supposed to tell until tomorrow, but maybe I let it slip in my bye bye Wisdump post…?!

OK, so I did.

It was a fun gig, running Wisdump, although I could’ve gotten off to a better start, with it being pretty much run down and all. It’s a tough crowd, I guess, but I think they treated me nicely.

Anyway, thanks for all the fish and all that. I already did a goodbye post so go read that one instead. I’m off to celebrate!

SeaWaves Technology have announced the beta launch of celebrity social news site Glamorati, with the corresponding celeb news blog. This is from the launch post:

Our concept with Glamorati was to develop a brand that simultaneously represented the average person’s A) love of celebrity culture and B) hatred of celebrity culture. In other words, “the Glamorati” stands for “common people who enjoy track ing the lives of celebrities, but enjoy mocking them too.”

I worked with SeaWaves in this venture, just like I did with the EatonWeb Blog Directory. The idea was to make a site that appealed to the celebrity loving mainstream crowd, with social features, sort of, with lots of color. I’ll be watching this one evolve, after all, it’s just in beta right now.

I realize that this post is a little late, but I figured I’d try a new way to put some healthy (as opposed to evil) pressure on myself, with public goals. So here they are, my goals for March 2008!

• Finish and deliver four (4) client designs!
• Reach beta for version 2.0 of my Swedish blog network template.
• Closed beta for the Notes Blog theme. I’ll be offering it to a select few bloggers, to see how it fares.
• Get BloggerTalks up to speed after my moving the office this weekend.
• Publish part 1 in The Green Knight short story over at OrnTales.com.
• Move the office!
• Move my home! Oh, I already did that…
• Get the last photos from Japan up on my Flickr account.
• Deliver the last freelance articles from my trip to Japan.

As you can see, I have a few things to do this week. It’s not as bad as it looks though, since I’ve planned ahead and everything.

Oh, and I have to plan April as well. That’s going to be an interesting month…

It’s not just Wisdump I’m redesigning, and are involved with on Splashpress Media’s behalf. Devlounge and Wisdump are supposed to work in harmony, and the two sites’ redesigns are of course a necessary step for this.

The first mockup of the new Devlounge design is up, and anyone who thinks stuff can speak their mind in the mockup post.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. You should always make serious decisions in conjuncture with your readership. The final call is yours, and you can’t please them all, but be sure to use their opinions to build a better product.

I’ve been blogging over at Wisdump, Paul “Scrivs” Scrivens old playground, for quite some time now. One thing that the site needs is a redesign, figuring out its own identity so to speak. The legacy of Scrivs isn’t a small one, so it’s important for the blog to find its own voice. Observant readers know that others have tried before me…

Anyway, check out the mockup of the proposed, and later selected, redesign. It’s not final, not at all, but it gives a taste of what’s to come.

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.