SadGeezer.Com long term goals & objectives - green paperI'm starting to put together a green paper on the long terms goals & objectives of the site and community for your consideration. As you guys know, we've had a helluva year so far in downtime, poor access for users (and moderators) and the realisation that sadgeezer.com is rapidly turning into a 'legacy' website that is difficult to update and almost impossible to develop. I've been conducting some research for the last few months on options for development and methods of increasing the number of members and contributions from the sci fi community. SadCAST is one of these and a move to a new server with new software is another. I'm still reading up on these, but my conclusions are almost ready to publish. I'm conscious that I haven't included you very much in my deliberations - frankly, this has been because you have all had real life stuff to do like, have babies, move house, get your PhD etc. but I'm keen to let you all have an opportunity to comment and even change the conclusions. To this end, I'll be emailing you all with the green paper in the next few days and we will have a week to deliberate. This document will be pretty high level (and short) and your comments will be taken into consideration for the publication of a white paper in June. The white paper will elaborate on the strategy for the site and (if you express and interest) your involvement in it. The green paper will be sent to you in 26th May 2006.
|
Re:SadGeezer.Com long term goals & objectives - green paper
Sorry guys, I wrote this ages ahgo and forgot to post it :/ (SadCAST woes and setting up diverted me) :)
Work has actually started on this (sadgeezer.net) and I'm trying to pluck up the courage to do a full schedule of development and design. I'll keep you posted. Or, if you want to help, leave a message in this thread.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Medium & Long Term Goals for SadGeezer.Com
Introduction
A strategy is needed to develop sadgeezer.com (the site) in order to bring it up to the standards that visitors now expect from a Portal site. We cannot simply rely on long standing relationships with members for continued success. Currently the site is experiencing problems due to poor connectivity, service from the provider (BGFWeb) and outdated software (Postnuke 7.23 (current version is PostNuke 8.00)). The site also suffers from stagnation in that there has been no major changes in functionality in the last three years.
For the site to continue to grow and provide opportunity for members to contribute, it needs:
a radical overhaul of services and modules (forums, events, news etc.)
more reliable web server
ISP connectivity capable of reaching the intended audience
innovative content that encourages participation from members and encourages new membership
Research
In February this year, a research project was undertaken to identify possible service providers capable of supplying services that will match our current and future requirements and software that is capable of improving the functionality of sadgeezer.com and improve performance. It is also important that the software is capable of easy upgrade and able to functionality for innovative distribution (e.g. Podcasts etc.).
Conclusions
The Internet Service Provider research concluded that the best provider (for the funding available) would be iPowerWeb (closely followed by Godaddy.com). iPowerWeb has the bandwidth for future growth, the storage for increased database records and other media and the reputation for high performance servers that have very low downtime figures. Godaddy too have these features, but it lacks in others (e.g. we are not able to park domains like sadgeezer.tv or sadgeezer.net without incurring extra costs).
After considering these and other hosting companies, I have decided (with you approval) to chose iPoweweb as the next hosting ISP.
Chosing the right software was considerably more difficult. Sadgeezer.com is now considered a legacy system in that it is out of date and almost impossible to upgrade because of the number of minor (and major) system and software modifications that have been implemented in the last three years. As the server operating systems, database handlers and programming languages are updates, the less stable sadgeezer.com becomes. The recent downtime was caused when the ISP (BGFWeb tried to upgrade their version of PHP to version 5 - incompatible with PostNuke 7.23).
We therefore need to look at upgrading the existing software to the latest version ad re-adapt it to suit current functionality or look at a completely different system with improved functionality. I decided to chose the latter in the hope that a new system would give us more flexibility and opportunities to improve the site.
The new site would still need to retain the character of the old one (ie. same colour scheme etc.) but be more secure, handle database records more effectively (load faster) and have an improved search facility so that people could find information more easily. It would also give us the opportunity to better organise existing information for ease of maintenance (ie. images used on the site can be found in many different directories).
It should be noted that ALL data stored on the current site will be transferred across to the new one (whatever software is used) – there will be few exceptions. News, reviews, books, forum posts and comments will all be transferred.
There are a great many content management systems available that will allow me to do this but the clear leader for me was the system called Drupal. At first glance it is a simple Portal, but after digging a little deeper (and reading the book ‘Building better online communities using Drupal, phpBB and WordPress’, I have decided that this would be the most suitable (though not less time-consuming) system to go for.
Method.
I am in the process of purchasing an ISP account with iPowerWeb. I’m using this for testing purposes, but if you decide to endorse the proposed re-development of the site, I’ll setup sadgeezer.net as a development site which will be used to install the new software and transfer the data gradually from the other databases. Eventually both sites will mirror each other and after we have been given an opportunity to test the site, I will transfer the domain of sadgeezer.com to the new server. This process should take between three and six months.
Data added to sadgeezer.com during this process will be transferred one day before so as to minimise disruption.
SadCAST
The sci fi video podcast will continue to be produced and develop as the production team and moderators see fit. It is currently distributed via a libsyn account and there are no plans to change this. There will however be an increase in promotion activity (iNewswire) and promotion features from iTunes (provided the show is good enough). We are already in all the major podcast directories and our reputation will grow as we produce more shows. There are still considerable problems with the technology (some of which is home made) but these will be ironed out in the next few weeks. There is no opportunity to purchase professional equipment in the near future without sponsorship.
Sponsorship is being sought for a cartoon feature to SadCAST that will be produces by Mike Bedd and Sam Shearon (the partners in a company called Media Superstars). This is a strategic partnership that will aid them in promoting their show while at the same time providing valuable graphic design and post production resources to SadCAST. SadGeezer.Com and SadCAST however, will remain legally independent of all existing and future strategic partnerships).
SadGeezer.com Domain.
There are no plans to sell sadgeezer.com. Although the costs of keeping the site have increased, they are still well within my budget and I do not need to seek sponsorship. However, once the new server is up and running again, I would like to setup the PayPal donate system again and use the funds generated to provide quiz and competition prizes etc.
Conclusion
With your approval, I am keen to re-invigorate sadgeezer.com and develop its functionality and ease of use. I have no plans for the site other than that. I will soon begin work on the White paper which will be a project plan and development schedule. I would appreciate you keeping this and the white paper confidential.