The future of friendlybit.com

• • Other

It's vacation time and you're allowed to lean back and just relax. A blog it's always there though, you post to it on your spare time, and as soon as you have some a little glitch in your schedule you need to consider blogging. It's a full time job.

Current situation#

I use Friendly Bit as a way to express my thoughts and ideas about web development. Why? Partly because I'm passionate about the web, passionate to make it a better place. I want people to see the possibilities it holds, and make use of it in the best way possible. I want people to see the web from different angles, sometimes from an accessibility standpoint and sometimes from the eyes of a designer. I want people to think about what they are doing, every line of code they are putting down, instead of typing with auto-pilot turned on.

That's me, trying to get my point out to you. What's equally important is your feedback. If I make a mistake, I instantly get it pointed out by people like you, that know what they are doing. If I write something outstanding I get told that aswell, but not by simple "well done" one-liners, but by thought-out reflections, again, by people like you.

The future#

Since it's vacation, I get the time to sit down and think about how I want things to develop here. And what I've come to realize is that I've underestimated the value of you and your feedback. What do I mean by that? Well, every damn comment (not spam, mind you), gives something back to me, something that I can use to write an even better article next time. I have not acknowledged that enough, that every comment is valuable to me.

Where Joel on Software thinks comments infringe his freedom of expression, I of course disagree. I find it utterly silly that they would.

Anyway. What it all boils down to, is that I need to make this site mirror my feelings about my readers… I'd like to move from a blog where I talk and you listen, to a platform where we talk. Of course that isn't an easy task. I can't force you to just "be more active". I can't force you to help each other and post your "lessons learned" here. That's not how a community works, and it shouldn't be.

Moving to a community#

What I want to do is make it easy and convenient to interact with the site. To lift everything you do and write and show it to everyone. I know there's about 1000 people subscribing to my feed (about 300 daily visitors). Let's say one tenth of those, 100 loyal subscribers, are people really read what is posted and are willing to give feedback on some of it. Wouldn't that be a good crowd to show your ideas to?

I'm not saying I would post less, and expect you to fill the blanks. No, I would still post as much as I do right now, one article every other week. I would still read every comment. But I think there should be a way for you to start topics/articles and ask questions. And not only talk to boring me, to the other loyal 100.

The important question here is: Is this something you want? Would Friendly Bit still be as exciting if it was a community instead of a blog? Would you stay?

Mind you, I will read every single reply to this post carefully, and decide where to go from here. Thanks!