A Profitable Web 2.0 Project Developed In 24 Hours?
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Paul Fisher November 17, 2006
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It took seven months to get the One Million Masterpiece charity project
online. The site is complex and needed the development time, but in the
last few days I’ve had a yearning to see if I can still turn around a
project in 24 hours. Back in the early days of the Internet boom I’d
sit in my bedroom and knock out html websites all night long, but
almost ten years on, can it still be done in a time where profitability
and interactivity are the key measures?
So, it’s 7am and I’ve got a plan. The new pressures I face in life
(work responsibilities, family etc) have been dealt with and I have a
clear 24 hours ahead of me. An idea for a site has been kicking round
in my head ever since I sold a site last year. This site was a very
specialist software comparison site that generated referral commissions
and Adsense income. It was an excellent earner and I’ve wanted to
recreate that success, but on a larger scale.
So last year I bought the domain http://www.shoutdown.net
with the intention of building a software comparison style project. I
want the site to be in the informal blog style, where the posts are
product summaries (written by me), and the comments would be reviews
submitted by other people. I’d also throw in a rating system, and way
of attaching news releases or other relevant pages to each product
post, plus link related posts (for example different versions of the
same software).
So the idea is there, it’s 7:30am and my first job is to select some mp3’s to get me through to lunch. Here goes…
08.00
By the time I’ve chosen my music, switched off my Google desktop
bar and responded to essential email it’s already 8am – crap. So, first
job is drawing out a schematic of the database that will power my site.
What information do I want to keep and how will I organise it? I’m
having five database tables. For ease I’m calling them level1, level2,
level3 etc because I see them as levels of information about each
software product – the top being category information and the bottom
being the reviews and ratings.
09:15
Took me quite a while to get the structure clear, but now I’m
sketching out the homepage on paper. I’ve looked at a few blogs that I
like and have basically copied their layout for ease. I’ve also worked
out the sizing of my main columns and rows and know the positions of
the adverts, main blog posts and navigation. I still like to work on
paper at this stage – I’m an artist at heart!
09:55
OK let’s get on the computer. I’ve fired up Paint Shop Pro and my
first job is to work out a colour pallet. I want three colours, so I
blob different combinations on a blank white image until I get the
right combination – orange, purple and grey. I then make a note of the
hex codes for each colour on a post-it – this will save LOADS of time
later. While I’m in PSP I’m going to mock up a logo as I already know
the size of image I need from my plan. Actually I really like the logo
so it will probably be permanent.
10:21
Time to start on the site. I’m using a single html page at the
moment with a linked css file. Using some basic tables and css I’ve
laid out the top bar, the post area and two columns (one for ads and
one for navigation). I’m sticking to a tried and tested blog layout.
I always use Dreamweaver, but always hand code. Why use Dreamweaver
then? Well, I find the preview quite accurate, but other than that I
have no idea – just habit.
11:38
I’ve just finished the main site layout, including place holding
text that will eventually be dynamic. I’ve left space for some ads on
the site, so I’ve justed logged in to Adsense to generate the code. All
I need to do is use the colours on my post-it to get them fitting in
nicely. I’ll also take a look round for some other nice banners in my
affiliate accounts.
12:43
That took longer than planned, time for lunch
13:17
OK time to fill up my database with some data, then I can start
writing the php that will populate the pages. I’m going to sign up for
a few software affiliate accounts and write some sample reviews on the
software. At the moment I haven’t got time to write really good
reviews, but in time I intend to fully try each title and write some
good stuff (positive and negative). For now I’ll be brief.
15:20
Right, let’s get back to the site. I’m going to sort out the navigation side bars first, and then I’ll split my single page up.
16:45
This isn’t working. I’ve got a very limited knowledge of php so I’m
having trouble dynamically generating category headings and software
lists dynamically. It’s taking too long to sort out so for now I’m
going to simply print a list of all software titles in the database.
I’ll make up for it by also providing a list of software categories,
plus a list of the most reviewed software.
16:58
I’m going to split up my single html page now into a header, body,
nav and footer, and use a php include to pull the pages together. In
total I will only need three main template pages for the content of
this site – the homepage, a category page and a product page.
18:24
I’ve finished the layout of the three pages, including all the code
that pulls info from the database. Everything’s working pretty well and
I’m please with the simplicity. My next job is to create an rss feed of
the posts and reviews, but first I need some DINNER!
20:04
After some pasta and tv I’m ready for this rss feed. It’s pretty
easy to create a php page that will pull the necessary code and place
it in the rss 2.0 layout. Once I’m done I’ll just save the php file as
xml and ensure that my .htaccess file remembers to parse xml files for
php code.
21:36
I checked that the rss feed was valid using a standard validator.
It took a little time to sort out the date formatting to be honest.
21:57
I’ve been developing using Firefox to test the layout, but I just
checked the site in IE and noticed the background colour was dodgy. It
was a css error – fixed.
22:15
OK back to content. The reviews at the moment are boring so I’m
going to add some images and expand them a little. I’m also going to
add some reviews that I’ve been collecting over the last few months.
The good thing about buying the domain and posting up a test website
for six months is that the search engines have already crawled the
site, and hopefully will help me avoid the Google sandbox.
02:30
I’m absolutely knackered. I’ve just spent the last few hours trying
to get the navigation system working but with no luck. The problem is
that I’m trying to dynamically generate an information tree (apparently
that’s what it’s called after much research) but I just can’t get it
working. I’m giving up.
04:49
OK, I’ve just created a rating system which will only accept one
software vote per IP address. Seems a bit buggy but I really really
tired and can’t be bothered to go through it again now.
So what’s left to do? I need to create forms to input reviews, news
and bookmarks but I’m just too tired to continue. So much for 24 hours,
but actually I’m really pleased with the result. On the surface the
site looks like any other blog, and you might question why I decided to
hand code the entire thing. Well, I have some ideas for some advanced
functions, but I’ll only be able to implement them if I know the site
inside out. Plus I just like the challenge.
I wont have time to work on the site all week, but I’m already
planning my next 24 hour session – marketing. I’ll be sure to keep you
updated on that, and how the site is doing generally!
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