Not exactly stellar views, but at least the exit rate is encouraging.
Well that's the benefit of it not being time sensitive content. It can continue at this rate indefinitely, which really goes a long way overall.
How have the other online publications you write for been faring lately? I suspect everyone got hit hard by the changes in the ad industry these past few years.
How have the other online publications you write for been faring lately?
Niche is doing OK, or at least better than the norm. Most of the information security publications I contribute to have seen an upswing (in some case really quite considerable) in traffic over the last 12-18 months. General IT publications are finding it much harder.
What are some of the niche publications that are doing better than average? I'd love to take a look and see what types of ad campaigns they're running and see if I can get some tips.
Well I can't give figures, but I know that SC Media UK which is owned by Haymarket Publishing has been doing well. I was hired as part of the new editorial team there a couple of years back now.
Not asking for numbers. Just want to investigate the site and see what types of ad campaigns they're running to figure out how they're making money.
I'm currently working on my next in-depth 'long-form' posting, an article exploring Android security.
The post below is meant as feedback, not critique. I know DaniWeb always had more than just questions and answers, but I've always believed it's been an underexposed element. So as an experiment I tried finding snippets and what I would have to do to write one.
... perhaps a different type of curated content. Our code snippet library. Tutorials. Articles ...
I might be looking in the wrong places, but I can't find a list of code snippets, tutorials or articles that aren't questions. I know they exist, and I know a lot of them have a high quality. If people are meant to come to DaniWeb for that kind of quality content, that will keep them coming back on their own, I think there should be some form of finding that type of content, regardless of its subject. I like to think I have a broad interest, but (as a user) I won't type in random words in search in hopes of finding a code snippet that might show me something new or interesting. Perhaps these lists do exist, but if so, I'm having a hard time finding them and perhaps others would too.
I remembered that code-snippet was an option when creating a new article. I never really started a lot of discussion threads so I think I qualify as a newbie in that regard. I clicked Ask which I think is a good term of phrase, if it had suggested I was writing an article I'd have shied away from it, it sounds serious. I then clicked on Need to do something else instead? because I remember the code snippet being a separate choice. Sure enough, it gave me a type of article dropdown.. except it had only one option, discussion thread. Because I was in the community forum when I clicked Ask it wouldn't give me the option until I had selected Software Development under the forum dropdown. All in all it took a few minutes, and only because I knew it had to be there somewhere. I understand that you can't have snippets on a community center topic but that also wasn't what I had in mind. It just defaulted there because I clicked Ask, which makes perfect sense if I had wanted to ask a question.
I like the idea of DaniWeb taking a more article/tutorial/snippet form with a discussion option. In my experience tutorials are often a "take it or leave it" article written on a rather closed off website. The option of discussing that tutorial, as well as having it peer-reviewed in a way by all the other members would benefit the quality, I believe. But it would also make it harder to write them. If I were to write a tutorial I'd be worried something in it is incorrect. In my experience people on the internet can be ruthless towards mistakes made in something you claim you're good at (good enough to write a tutorial about it anyway). However, I think on DaniWeb that could be different. More or less the same way as its different in treating newbie questions.
I read something you posted about letting people collaborate on code. Perhaps this could be expanded to make people collaborate on tutorials/snippets.
SHowing noobs how to install XAMPP would be great, he he. Installing Laravel and other frameworks. They've been done and done again, but they still pull the crowds.
I think this is true. But I don't think it would just be for noobs. Sure, installing XAMPP would be written in a way accessible for noobs. But it could be used to "flesh out" other tutorials. Let's say I'd want to write a tutorial about ElasticSearch. I'd probably start by telling to download the latest Docker release so users can code along with the tutorial. I think it would be great if I could then link to the Docker tutorial on DaniWeb for any readers who have no idea what that is. The experienced user can continue with the Elastic tutorial and the noob user (or simply one who has never used Docker) can read about that in the Docker tutorial. I think that would be preferable compared to writing about Docker in the Elastic tutorial and then, for instance, on a Spark tutorial where you'd use Docker again you'd be forced to link to the Elastic tutorial's Docker bit, or copy the part and include it again.
To illustrate, I know some PHP but I've never used Laravel. I wouldn't mind reading a newbish tutorial on it and skipping the (probably few) parts that I already know. I'd rather do that than having to read through a tutorial like "Creating a webshop in PHP with Laravel" and having to filter out the Laravel basics there. The focus there will obviously lie with creating the webshop and not so much with the configuration options in Laravel.
Anyway, this post became so much longer than I had planned so I'll just stop it here. Sorry about that.
I figured I'd put my money where my mouth is (I think that's the expression anyway). So I wrote a tutorial that I'll post in a second as an article. I'd classify it as a code snippet but that requires one block of code for the library and that's not entirely the case. Feel free to re-categorize it, or make adjustments/improvements for that matter.
PS I did eventually manage to find a list of code-snippets using the json API.
So I wrote a tutorial that I'll post in a second as an article.
Yay!
PS I did eventually manage to find a list of code-snippets using the json API.
Incidentally, the timeline when you go into a forum is a single timeline for everythng: questions, code snippets, etc. I'll be working shortly on a new way of posting quick snippets (similar to Github's gists). We'll see what direction that ends up going in.
Perhaps these lists do exist, but if so, I'm having a hard time finding them and perhaps others would too.
The reason the lists are somewhat hidden is because I actually feel the opposite is true. I might be looking for something specific, and I search for it, and an existing code snippet pops up. But I'm not quite sure of the advantage of browsing a long list of code snippets for one of them to be miraculously just what I'm looking for. Can you please explain to me what I'm missing?
I was just checking out a code snippet I posted a while back and I noticed that in the About the author I was listed as Jim Jim. Bug?
Can you please explain to me what I'm missing?
I was thinking along the lines of what you mentioned earlier, a shift to a different type of more curated content. I now know that if I want code snippets about programming (in general, or more specific) I can get a list by clicking on more. From what I read your goal is to make DaniWeb a place where people go to thinking "I'll find what I'm looking for here" instead of relying on Google traffic. I've been here quite a while, so I know that content and those people exist, but if I were a new visitor I would only see questions being asked.
I guess what I meant is that if there's a more prominent place to put snippets/tutorials etc. it will show that DaniWeb is more than a Q&A website. That the reason to stay here is not dependent on whether or not you have a question that needs answering. But also because a lot of cool new things are being discussed.
As for the long list of snippets/tutorials, I'm always being told that the customer doesn't know what he/she wants. Of course there's a limited subset of things I'd be interested in. However, that would not be limited to a specific programming language. Though I agree with you that snippets might be less "browse worthy" than tutorials or articles would be.
How about adding a "Suggest a code snippet" or "Suggest a tutorial" button?
Hiding tutes and snips under "more" is not giving them pride of place. Some of us put in a lot of work on these, put you have to go to a certain view before they're tabbed?
I don't think the tutes and snips get that many views. Why? If not, then they're not providing bangs for bucks and we should stop making them.
Perhaps the More menu item could be unrolled on large displays that support the width and collapsed (as it is now) into the More expandable item.
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