TDH: Portfolio » Pale Publishing

Launching Slevel, more poison for WoW junkies, and more

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 15:58:13 +0000

I’m happy to announce the launch of Slevel, a blog about massive online games. Yes, that includes the one commonly labeled with MMORPG, also known as massive multiplayer online role-playing games. And yes, that does indeed include a certain game called World of Warcraft, as well as others.

We’re starting out softly with coverage limited to a few online games, but will definitely expand when the time feels right. That could be whenever a dedicated blogger comes along, or someone in the Slevel staff gets hooked on a new game.

This is the second blog in the sub-network about computer and videogames. The first one was Live Arcade Review (launch post), and I’m expecting to announce the third one in the not so distant future. Number four is still due sometime after March.

Oh, and just so you know: Live Arcade Review is doing great so far. That’s nice. It even got dugg, at least a bit. For more on that, check out the launch post.

Visit Slevel and have a looksie, why don’t ya?

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First blog launch in 2007: Live Arcade Review

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:30:39 +0000

Say hello to Live Arcade Review, the first blog in the sub-network of blogs about computer and videogames mentioned earlier!

Basically it’s all about Xbox Live Arcade, with news, reviews and information. If you’re an Xbox 360 gamer you’ll want to check it out I’m sure. There’s a number of back-catalog reviews in the works, with five more already finished and geared up for publishing in the coming week. Expect on-going Live Arcade coverage.

Three more blogs are planned for this sub-network at the moment. The second launch is due very soon, with the third one not so far behind. Launch number four will have to wait until after March most likely.

Enough about that. Check out Live Arcade Review and let me know what you think!

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Blog launch #2 closing in

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 23:01:49 +0000

It really is, and that feels great. I’m doing two at the same time, and one of them is 99% complete. That feels nice.

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The trouble of finding a good dotcom name

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 12:28:36 +0000

Sometimes it’s really hard to find a good domain name for your projects. I limit myself to dotcom domains since I don’t want to make regular readers of various Pale Publishing blogs too confused.

One of the blogs planned for release in the network this year evolved before even being developed. To the better I’m sure. Anyway, this presented the not so easy task of finding a more, well, general domain for the project. We had a great one for the smaller niche, but this changed everything so we’ll have to use it for something else (it can be read in various ways so that might work). This has been quite a nuisance the past two weeks, and has pushed the release forward by this time as well. Actually, it has pushed everything, very annoying.

But now, finally, a domain we can live with! Short, easy to remember, pretty close to the topic. Nice.

Hopefully I’ll do the launch post for the blog next week. If my bloggers can find some time in the middle of the Christmas chaos that is.

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The state of my own blog network

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:50:23 +0000

You thought I had forgotten all about that now, did you?

True, the Syntagma Media design gig, which involves launched Allusionz and 21st-century Phi, as well as LifeTimes network magazines, have put stuff on hold for a while. Or, not on hold, rather pushed the next launch forward a week or two.

It was the original plan all along to get Bloggertalks, first site in the network, on its feet first. Which is well on the way, I must say. Me and Tony are aiming to increase the staff by one, and when that’s done I can focus a bit more on the next launch. I have no plans to stop doing interviews though; I enjoy it immensely, and learn a lot by doing them. Something I think goes for the Bloggertalks readerships as well, the stats sure speaks in favor of that. We have a good shot on passing a total of 50,000 visitors (not hits, mind you) before November is over, which I think is pretty good for such a young venture. My first personal goal for the site isn’t due until February 1st 2007, and we’re well on our way reaching it premature, which is nice.

Anyway, I’m still pretty much on track with the blog network. The next launch will be late November or early December, with the one after that not lagging behind more than a week or two. If all goes well, you’ll even see a third launch this year, but I’m focusing on the portal page so I might not make that.

No promises though, who knows what’ll land in my inbox tomorrow morning?

Oh. And I’d love to cram in a re-design for myself as well, now that I’m officially for hire and all. Sleep, what’s it good for anyway?

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Tired but happy, with a purpose

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:28:05 +0000

You know it’s time to shut down Photoshop when you’ve started to fill stuff with the same color thrice. I don’t really want to; I’ve had a great time today with drafting up my cluttered paper sketches (I always sketch first, almost always at least) for this new design gig that’ll be official soon enough. These thing flows nicely at the moment, I think I’m getting what I want to out of my design work. Bloggertalks turned out fine, the gig comes along nicely, and Pale Portal blog #2 (or #3, we’ll see) has that clean look I just love.

I’m tired; it’s been a hectic week to say the least. It was certainly a lot more taxing to launch internationally – yeah, I mean Bloggertalks – than I had anticipated. Most things worked from the start, there are some Safari issues left that I’ll address when I can test the site live on a Mac (soon), and I have some features that will be added as soon as I’m done with the testing, including a subscribe function for comments. I’ll add that here as well, just for HART…

Mentally tired, but satisfied. Now, if someone could lift those damn Indesign things off my back so I could focus a bit more and I would be a lot happier. That’s life I guess.

45 minutes left of my workday (which should have ended a couple of hours ago), better get some things tied up. This week I’ll keep to my schedule, so that I can blow my fuses to Slayer (not safe for work, if you have speakers that is) on Friday without any regrets.

Ah, and I have plans for this blog as well. The guitar is screaming for attention (my fingertips are turning soft), I’ve got a dozen CD’s I want to listen to, a handful of games to play (some actually for my sake, not just work), and…

No. Stop. Schedule. Good boy.

One more thing. I’ve nailed a slogan for this site. That feels nice, it kind of helps me move forward and focus tdhedengren.com. I launched it to get out in the blogosphere, which worked out over all expectations. Now it’s time to make it what it should be.

Now of course being later sometime.

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Bloggertalks is online!

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 18:10:59 +0000

Yeah baby, it’s here! Check it out!

So I guess I should write some stuff about this project now, thoughts behind the design and such. Unfortunately I neither have the time, nor the energy for that at the moment. There are a hundreds (well) e-mails to send, people to contact for interviews – something I’ve been trying to keep to a minimum before the actual site launch – and a dozen or so things I want to add.

The upcoming weeks will be full of Bloggertalks brushing up, as well as getting network blog #2 and 3 ready for launch. Oh, and the actual network will have to have a site as well. As you can see all networky things are missing at Bloggertalks at the moment. It felt kind of ridiculous to have network stuff in a one site network, so you’ll just have to wait a bit longer if you’re curious about those parts.

I’d like to holler out to John Evans and Liz Strauss for being good sports and doing interviews with a site not yet launched, as well as giving Tony Hung a big pat on the back for his excellent work so far.

Now check it out, and tell me what you think!

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What is Bloggertalks and why should I care?

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 17:27:38 +0000

That’s you asking the question, in case you didn’t get that…

Seriously, it’s time to spill the beans on Bloggertalks (yeah, I lost the dot com there), with the upcoming launch and all.

So what is it? Well, I usually describe it as an interview blog about the blogosphere and its bloggers. The idea is to interview interesting bloggers on various topics, so that they can share their ideas and experiences with Bloggertalks’ readers.

I am, however, stepping back a bit from the traditional blog updating flow. There won’t be daily interviews or anything like that, instead we’re doing two each week and we’re doing them a bit deeper than you would see on other sites, perhaps. It’s more of a print-style, err, style that I’m looking for, although I won’t force it for every interview. Sometimes question-answer, question-answer, as is standard online, is the best way to go. I think it’ll be a nice mix.

These interviews will be the major part of Bloggertalks, but we’ll also have a quicklinks section with interesting tidbits, as well as an upcoming weekly feature that I don’t feel like talking about at the moment.

So there you have it, the basics of Bloggertalks. I hope it’s obvious why you should care, but if not I’ll just spell it out for you. You need to learn, and we’re talking to people who you can learn from. It’s as simple as that.

The launch is imminent. Stay tuned.

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Bloggertalks is done

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 13:48:28 +0000

Just a quickie. I’m officially done with coding and design for Bloggertalks 1.0 (no, I won’t strap a beta on there), so now it’s just the content stock that needs to be made ready for launch.

I’ll sit on the launch date for another day or so, but it sure feels nice almost being there.

Oh, and you won’t see anything blog networky on the first version av Bloggertalks. One site isn’t a network you know, it’ll be added when #2 and 3 join in. I’ll be getting started with the layout for those two next week, with launch in November for both of them. So far I’m only planning one blog for launch in December, although I’ll probably want to crank out the network portal page then so it’ll be almost two anyway.

Stay tuned.

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Your new bookmark just happens to be my first international project

Thord Daniel Hedengren — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 07:00:10 +0000

Go figure huh? Want to know what it is and why I’ve chosen it? Do you really?

Of course you do.

The new feature blog having just one specific kind of features will be found at *drumroll*

bloggertalks.com

What does the name tell you? It certainly makes you aware that the site residing on that particular URL has something to do with blogs, and apparently it’s up for discussion in one way or the other.

No, it’s not a forum, nor an event. Sorry.

Picking the name for an international project is hard. You need a .com and you don’t want it to be either too long or too hard to spell. I personally think that finding such a talkative (pun intended) name as bloggertalks.com was a gift from The IntarWeb Gods mentioned by Jeffrey Rowland.

I went with the name for two reasons. The first being that it’s easy to remember and spell, and I think it flows easily off your tongue. The second being that it tells you that it’s about blogs and it’s about communication of some sort.

I’m happy with it; bloggertalks.com wasn’t my primary choice but on my initial list at least. Not having to dig deeper than this was either a pure stroke a genius, or just plain dumb luck. I’ll go with the sooner, although it’s probably the latter.

Coming up next: So what is it already?!