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It’s finally here! After a couple of months of promising you all that this was coming soon, I’ve finally managed to get it done. That said, sticking to the old 37Signals philosophy of “Release early and often” – there’s still a lot to do. I’ll be polishing lots of bits of the site over the coming weeks, so if you see any bits that don’t look quite finished – then that’s why!
So What’s New In John.ONolan.Org V2.0?
Well other than the pretty new colours, I’ve also added a few new features! The homepage is now much more of a blog rather than the “about me” style page that it was previously. From the homepage you can now navigate to the 4 main categories, business, finance, marketing, and resources. However you can also reach a full list of all the categories and subcategories using the new dropdown menu in the top right corner of the page.
I’ve also added a new publication page, available in the top menu above the site logo, where I’ll be keeping (and updating) a list of all my guest articles and features on other sites. This section was inspired by Elliot Jay Stocks’ site, and should turn into a great collection of stuff as time goes on.
There is now a contact page! Previously I just listed my email address on my about page, but I really love getting emails from all of you so I wanted to make it as easy as possible for everyone to get in touch. Just fill in the form, hit submit, and I’ll try and reply to you as soon as possible (usually within 24 hours).
Archives have also been added to the top navigation section so that you can still see a list of the 30 most recent posts without having to go into each category individually. But don’t worry, you can still search from the search bar which is now located in the footer of every page.
Advertising has finally been added to the site, which is powered by BuySellAds, and is currently priced at the very reasonably mark of $15 per month. It’ll take a little while for BSA to build up some stats on my page impressions, but I can tell you that this site got 40,000 page views in August
Finally, threaded comments have finally arrived! So you can now reply to all comments individually – and I’ve set up a much more prominent area for people to subscribe / follow news and updates! :)
What Do You Think?
I’d love to hear what you think of the new site, and any further suggestions that you might have for improvement!
Love it john! Keep it up boss!
Great work. Definitely agree it’s better to push it out early otherwise you’ll drive yourself nuts tweaking it to perfection!
looks nice mate, good work.
Nice work John! heaps of interesting reading and a sweet clean design….keep it up…
Not really sure of it to be honest, it looks like one of thoe magazine websites that are so popular these days – perhaps it’s meant to be that way though. F
or a personal website it doesn’t really tell me about you. I think this should perhaps be the LyricalMedia blog as opposed to your own personal space on the web, or perhaps a generic blog with a web/business theme.
Your old site just felt much more personal (to me anyway). Good luck though, obviously a lot of work gone into it and as always I look forward to your blog entries :)
Thanks for the comment Steve – this was really just meant as an upgrade to the old site. The other one had quite literally just become too small for the amount of stuff that I wanted to do with it – so just think of this as a stepping stone! When I’m not up to my eyeballs in client work I’ll definitely put out something that’s totally fresh and custom :)
Looks good; I look forward to reading what you have to say.
BTW just a small note…. “Release early, release often” is actually the Linux mantra… I believe it was originally authored by Eric Raymond in his essay ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’.
Thanks Mark! That’s awesome :) I’ll definitely remember that one
About bloody time mate! It looks good and a vast improvement on the last one.
R
Hey John,
At last!
I like it mate. Looks fresh and clean.
Always enjoy your posts so make sure they keep coming!
Garry
The new design looks good John, very fresh and vibrant.
Looking forward to content of the same calibre.
Congrats on getting the new site live John.
Completely agree with the “release early and often” theory. I had the same realisation with my own site a few months ago. With a full time job, I just didn’t have the time to deveote to my personal site.
Then one weekend, I had the sudden realisation that I could quickly create a new site with the help of pre-built HTML templates. It wasn’t the fresh, original design I’d hope to do, but the point is that I got the site live. And now I can take my time coming up with my original ideas.
Anyway, looking forward to your future posts.
Cheers
Dennis
That’s exactly it Dennis! It’s too easy to get bogged down and just never do something, rather than develop it over time :) Thanks for commenting!
I preferred the old theme, but I think I prefer personal-style blogs. It’s up to you what you think looks best though :D