Author Topic: Newsletter for January 7th, 2007 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?" (Read 20,073 times)

mouser · « **on:** January 08, 2007, 08:39 AM »

Newsletter for January 7th, 2007

"Who's Your NANY?"

"If you read nothing else on our site, read our BLOG"

1. N.A.N.Y. Challenge Programs Released For Download!
N.A.N.Y. stands for "New Apps for the New Year", and it was our challenge to all DC coders to release a brand new app on Jan 1st 2007. And wow did they ever respond!

Download over 24 brand new freeware utilities from the N.A.N.Y. challenge.

2. BEST OF THE WEB 2006 - A Massive Round-up from DonationCoder.com
We've scavenged through 28,000 posts made on our forum over the last year to bring you the very best discoveries and controversies we could find. Organized into 9 different sections, with over 200 of our favorite links with accompanying screenshots. We hope you enjoy our massive 2006 year-end wrap up..

Explore DonationCoder.com's "Best of the Web 2006"

3. Cody's Internet Citizen's Club is Revealed!
Cody, our rambunctious little bird mascot, has decided to form his own club and he wants you to join it! What's it all about? Mainly it's about being good internet citizens and active DC participants, and working as a team.

In each newsletter you'll have a small assignment or two - like finding a freeware author you like and emailing them a thank you, or participating in a forum poll. As a Cody Club member, we ask that you perform the Cody Club newsletter task (or else invent one of your own if you object to the one we've chosen). Occasionally you'll get a little treat, like a postcard in the mail, or a Cody Club iron-on. Only Cody knows for sure.

Read more about Cody's Club..
Cody's Club Task #1 - Configure a picture (avatar) for your forum identity.
Cody's Club Task #2 - Post a little something about yourself on the "Getting To Know Each Other" thread.
Cody's Club Task #3 - Fill in a little biography blub in your forum profile.
Note: You don't have to be a donating member to participate!

So.. have you completed this month's Cody Club tasks yet?

4. January Giveaway and Discounts (Deadline Jan 14th)
Supporting Members, you've only got until January 14th to enter this month's Free Shareware Giveaway (discounts run until January 31st). Only two programs available this month, but both are very highly thought of by our members.

Fineprint (35% discount) - read fineprint minireview.
Net Transport (30% discount) - read my comments.

5. Other Official Announcements

The results of our Accessibility Game Contest are about to be published, but you can get a sneak peek and try out some of the entries right now
Feel like doing some semi-regular original blogging at donationcoder?
Jay is Games Flash Competition 2: Help with a DC Entry!

6. Mini-Reviews and Coding Snacks Releases
Software releases and reviews by our members:

7. Software Discussion
What's new in the world of software? Are you good at finding new software discoveries? Stop by the forum and help us find stuff! And don't miss our Found Deals and Discounts section where people post great software discounts they find on the web.

8. Fun Games, Gadgets, and Diversions
Everyone needs a break from work every now and then..

9. Website Discoveries, Debates, and Discussions
There are always new website services popping up every day, and lots of debate about the future direction of the web.

10. Developer's Corner
The Developer's Corner section of our website isn't just for programmers, it's for people interested in starting their own business, website developers, etc.

11. The Great GOE (Getting Organized Experiment) of 2006 (GTD)
Well it's almost over and we've taken a bit of a breather - but we're not done yet! If you haven't participated yet, it's still not too late!

12. Website of the Month
Did you know that DonationCoder.com has a list of all of our past best-of-the-web recommendations and a list of recommended websites arranged by category?

Our website of the month in January is Cybernet News - a software/technology news site.

mouser · « **Reply #1 on:** January 08, 2007, 09:18 AM »

You might notice (or you might not) that I have re-enabled the google ads on the site today.

We're going to do this as an experiment or a week or two, and see what kind of income they bring in.

For those who don't know or don't remember, we tried the google ads for several months in the first half of 2006, because it is a potential way for non-donators to still bring us some income even if they don't donate.

In the end, however, decided that it wasn't bringing in enough to offset the annoyance. I am curious to see if anything has changed since then.

ps. Supporting members may not see the ads at all (you can go to your forum profile to change the chance of seeing an ad from 0 to 100).

mouser · « **Reply #2 on:** January 11, 2007, 10:37 PM »

Google Ads Update:

For those who are interested, i'm not seeing much improvement over the google ad revenue compared to last year, even though traffic on the site has increased a lot since then. Part of it may simply be google taking time to properly index the pages for adsense.

Regardless, I think we will most likely go back to removing them from the website for another year - though let's keep them running for at least a week or 10 days to get a reasonable estimate. It looks like the ads also may be discouraging people from donating, since they think we are making enough money on these ads that we don't need donations.

Instead of hawking other people's stuff and paying middlemen advertisers i think maybe we should instead expand the idea of the "Cody Quotes" thing we were using before, to include random screenshot thumbnails of programs on the site, and maybe even site members website thumbnails etc. It seems to me we might all be happier by spreading the word about members projects rather than some strangers pay per click stuff.

nudone · « **Reply #3 on:** January 12, 2007, 08:07 AM »

extending the cody quotes is a much better idea - especially if promoting things related to members of the forum.

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** January 19, 2007, 05:05 AM »

Just a confirmation: By monday all google ads will be removed from the site, and like the ground hog will not be showing their face again for at least another year. Good riddance.

We are going to try to do something where supporting members can make a little banner or link to their own projects which will get shown occasionally - i think it might be something fun and different.

CodeTRUCKER · « **Reply #5 on:** January 19, 2007, 05:58 AM »

It will be a nice experiment.

mouser · « **Reply #6 on:** January 19, 2007, 06:50 AM »

Yep - we love doing experiments here and trying different things so it will be fun if we can figure out alternatives.

For sure we will be bringing back my "Cody Quotes" thing which displays a random comment about DonationCoder (some of which can be funny and even a couple angry ones).

But I definitely want to mix those up in the future with similarly sized little thumbnail images /blurbs/ links to different sections and software on the site - so that these things can act to bring people to various other pages on the site, and also mix in items that might give a little blurb and link to member sites, and some fun "Join DonationCoder" items. Hopefully we can mix it up and keep it fun so that our visitors get a taste of the spirit of our site. And i just love the idea that we will be doing our own thing rather than "promoting" ads for things we have no knowledge of. I think it will also be beneficial for the site in being able to highlight different areas of the site that people often overlook.

CodeTRUCKER · « **Reply #7 on:** January 19, 2007, 07:04 AM »

I'll be on the lookout!

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** January 19, 2007, 11:12 AM »

All hardcore dc users need to know about Mobysaurus's Pop-up Cody Notifier, but it's really not something that casual forum readers are going to want to leave running on their pc. So we need to make a nice page for it and make sure all regular forum readers find out about it. Maybe a link on the forum somewhere. And put it on the RSS info page.

sharkkongg · « **Reply #9 on:** June 01, 2007, 02:38 PM »

put it on the RSS info page.

Author Topic: Newsletter for January 7th, 2007 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?" (Read 20,073 times)

mouser

Newsletter for January 7th, 2007 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"

mouser

Re: --> Newsletter for January 7th, 2006 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"

mouser

Re: --> Newsletter for January 7th, 2006 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"

nudone

Re: --> Newsletter for January 7th, 2006 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"

mouser

Re: --> Newsletter for January 7th, 2006 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"

CodeTRUCKER

Re: --> Newsletter for January 7th, 2006 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"

mouser

Re: --> Newsletter for January 7th, 2006 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"

CodeTRUCKER

Re: --> Newsletter for January 7th, 2006 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"

mouser

Re: --> Newsletter for January 7th, 2006 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"

sharkkongg

Re: Newsletter for January 7th, 2007 - Codename "Who's Your NANY?"