p2pnet.net News:- p2pnet’s problems have been resolved, I’m please to say : ) I’ll be moving to a new host, I’ll have technical back-up, and over the next few weeks the site will be re-jigged to look like something close to the rough below. As you can see, I’m keeping it near to the original design. It isn’t pretty, but it’s easy to navigate.

The three profiles at the top will feature women and men (and kids : ) who’ve made, or are making, an impact. They’ll stay up for two or three days, or longer, and be replaced by new ones, as and when.

Under the three profile pix there’s a bar. Readers will be able to click on individual category headings placed inside it to go to the individual sections.

And half the spaces in the columns on the left and right will be devoted to free public service advertisements.

No, there will not be ads which totally obscure what you’re trying to read when you accidentally pass the mouse pointer over them, ads that float around on the page, or any other kinds of pain-in-the-ass ads, such as those ‘welcome’ pages you have to click to get past so you can get to where you want to go.

As things stand, all of the stories go into one large archive. But under the new layout, there’ll be separate sections, each one of which will open up separate advertising possibilities. Main story headlines and teasers will first show up on the index page, but the actual posts will go into sections of their own with Open Source, Hardware, Software, Indie p2p, Paid p2p archives, and so on. The headlines will be pushed off the main page as new ones are added.

I’m still trying to decide whether or not to have forums, but even if I do, there’ll still be comment posts with people adding signed or anonymous comments under individual posts. But maybe I can come up with a better way to display them.

The ‘most important’ story at the top will change whenever it needs to, and there’ll be around 20 (10 left, 10 right) current story links under it.

Also, the newsletter comprising headlines and links, and nothing else, will re-appear.

Up until now, I’ve been devoting all my time to the site. But starting next month I’ll also be writing news stories for payment. If things work the way I expect them to, there’ll be very little, if any, reduction in the number of p2pnet posts.

Also, I plan to introduce micro-payments under which you’ll be able to click an icon under each story and contribute 5 or 10 cents to the author. BUT this’ll be purely voluntary. If you don’t want to, you won’t have to. This way, contributors will be paid for their work. I have no way of knowing how effective it’ll be, but I’m convinced micro-payments will be a way for creators, including musicians, to earn money.

The idea is to attract new writers as well as to support p2pnet. But it’s an experiment and we’ll have to see if it works.

I also have a few other plans such as classified ads, product reviews, and a p2pnet Speakers’ Corner where readers will be able to post videos of themselves commenting on whatever they want to comment on : )

These changes, and others, I’ve had in mind for at least two years but haven’t been able to implement.

Should be interesting. heh

For sale

On the ‘for sale’ effort, it pulled some weird and wonderful ideas and I was amazed I was expected to take some of them seriously : ) But of the practicable ones, and there were quite a few, I was offered straight buy-outs with no further input from me, buys where I’d work under someone’s supervision, and deals where p2pnet and I would be rolled into another site with no $ involved.

Under the arrangement I decided on, I’ll be working with a guy who has sites of his own and the technical know-how and people to back them up. This means I’ll be able to concentrate on content, and that’s fine with me. My new partner is presently up to his eye-balls in work of his own and doesn’t want to be named just yet. But there’s good reason and I’ll let you know who he is in the fairly near future. For now, it’s enough to say he’s also a musician.

So thanks to everyone for their good wishes, support under comments and by email, and suggestions. It was pretty humbling, although it’s not an experience I’d care to go through again : )

Cheers! And thanks. And all the best ….
Jon

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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