Political threads? Take it to JoeUser.com

Tuesday, September 9, 2003 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk

Okay gang, we've started opening up JoeUser.com so people who want to write articles on politics or whatever else can now do so there.

 https://www.joeuser.com

Just sign on using your WinCustomize account, then click on "account" at the very top of the page (in the tab) and you can create your blog there. Then if you want to write about politics or anything you can do it there and people can then comment to your article back and forth.

We'll be adding a zillion features to blogs in the coming weeks. Today was the first day we had it so that you oculd actually create a blog on the fly including having your own sub-domain (i.e. like draginol.joeuser.com).

Here are some blogs already on Joeuser.com FYI:

That should help get you started on seeing what people do with their blogs. I personally recommend using an HTML editor like Front pgae and then paste the HTML into the built in editor but you can also type directly into it.

We will shortly be offering blog groups. That's where people of like minded interests can join a metablog where your blogs are combined on a second blog.  So people interested in politics could create a politicaltalk.joeuser.com and everyone in that could combine together.

15 Reply 3 Referrals
goodmorphing
Reply #1 Tuesday, September 9, 2003 11:36 PM
WOW.... this is exciting! Only I don't really want a political (well, maybe a little) blog. I always wanted one though. I'll be checking in with interest. Will you be having a link somewhere here for it?

Old_Crab
Reply #2 Tuesday, September 9, 2003 11:47 PM
Does this mean that we'll not be allowed to use the message board for political tirades? >

Frogboy
Reply #3 Wednesday, September 10, 2003 8:09 AM

Oh you can still talk about politics here. Just like on Joeuser you can talk about whatever.

Many of my blogs on JoeUser.com deal with skinning for instance.


KarmaGirl
Reply #4 Wednesday, September 10, 2003 10:24 AM
GM, you can blog about anything at joeuser.com.  I put an article on mine about Photoshop, as an example: http://karmagirl.joeuser.com

craeonics
Reply #5 Wednesday, September 10, 2003 11:06 AM
So, JoeUser is turning into a tiny version of Kuro5hin then? Quite a lot of activity has taken place at you site, frogman. Is this a shift from a purely personal site to a, shall we say, debating arena?

KarmaGirl
Reply #6 Wednesday, September 10, 2003 11:36 AM
Crae, JoeUser is a blog site that we have been working on, which has many topics
(when you create a bog, you choose what subject it goes under).  Brad was
trying out blogging for awhile, then got hooked, then decided that there must be
more like him, so we opened it up.  Please keep in mind that it is
currently free and just the start of it.  Of course, most of Brad's blogs
are political because that's his "hobby"

Frogboy
Reply #7 Wednesday, September 10, 2003 11:49 AM

Crae, it's a blog site.


kona0197
Reply #8 Wednesday, September 10, 2003 6:43 PM
what exactly is a blog anyways?

Doomgaze
Reply #9 Wednesday, September 10, 2003 7:07 PM
just because im curious...

what features do YOU have that other blog systems don't?

eieio
Reply #10 Wednesday, September 10, 2003 7:12 PM
Kona, a blog is a small web page made up of short, regularly updated messages that are arranged in chronological order — like a “what’s new” page, or a journal. Short for weblog.

IPlural
Reply #11 Wednesday, September 10, 2003 10:39 PM
it is like the essage board ti some extent, or the older bbs



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craeonics
Reply #12 Thursday, September 11, 2003 12:27 AM
Aha, I always thought it was froggies homepage.

"Please keep in mind that it is currently free"

Interesting remark. craeonics wonders what the future will bring

Frogboy
Reply #13 Thursday, September 11, 2003 9:02 AM

There are no plans to charge for any basic blogging just like we don't charge skin authors to have skins here.

Here's what I wrote on the subject of what does JoeUser offer:

For the past year I have been blogging about the various things that interest me. If you click on the JoeUser classic link near the top you can see the kinds of things I've talked about over the past year. It's been really fun.

But I was distressed by a few things during my blogging:

  1. It sometimes felt like blogging is already a clique. A handful of blog sites got all the "glory". Part of my job at Stardock is to analyze the popularity of various websites. So when I applied my techniques to blog sites I found popularity was essentially a mixture of how long these sites had been around, how active they were, and to a less extent, the quality of the blog. This is fair -- on the surface. Afterall, those blogs had put in the time and effort. But at the same time, the level of popularity wasn't just a slight difference, it was a massive difference. A handful of blogs get 90% of the total traffic according to Alexa. There were tons of really good blogs out there that I had a hard time finding that were constantly putting out great stuff that few people would ever find.
  2. The blog sites where you could create an account and have your own blog on there seemed primitive. For one thing, little recognition was given out to people for their efforts. The tools and features seemed lacking.
  3. On top of the blog sites not having the features I was looking for, they charge money. A lot of money. I couldn't believe it. It shouldn't cost money to have a blog. I help run WinCustomize.com. That's a site that has real expenses. What makes it successful are the skinners who submit their themes, skins, icons, etc. to the site. The idea of even charging them for that would be absurd. They are the ones creating the content.  I can see charging for special features beyond blogging. But it should be free to have a blog with unlimited bandwidth and articles on it.
  4. Many of the sites looked ugly. Even JoeUser classic looked pretty awful. When my friends and family looks at what I write, I want it to look nice. So we put together a new look for JoeUser.com that looks nicer.  We'll be coming up with ways for other blogs on JoeUser.com to customize their setup quite a bit but we want to make sure that all the blogs look visually appealing.

And so we've started opening up JoeUser.com. My handle here is Draginol. My real name is Brad Wardell. If you contact someone (see bottom of the page) it still goes directly to me as it always has. But starting now you'll occasionally see articles written by other people on the home page. Maybe they'll be articles I disagree with a great deal. Heck, someone wrote a pro Michael Moore article already! Brrrr. But people who write things that interest other people will percolate to the top. A points system is in place that will help ensure the most popular, best articles come up.

And we'll be having Stardock and its sites link to JoeUser so that blogs written here can be seen. And yet at the same time we'll be putting in features so that you can control who sees your blog (everyone, just you, just a select group of users, etc.). 

It's going to be fun. As for the original Joe User (Draginol), I'll still be blogging. My specific page here is draginol.joeuser.com. So you can still see my specific stuff.


yrag
Reply #14 Thursday, September 11, 2003 9:44 AM
Nothing like something new to totally confuse me...againnnnnnnn



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Iben
Reply #15 Thursday, September 11, 2003 11:42 PM
Cool!!
http://iben.joeuser.com



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