February 2012 Archives

DIY links

I have a thousand links to link. Here are four, with a theme. (And a theme song: Peter Gabriel, "DIY")


A presentation from Maciej Ceglowski about his Pinboard experience: The Business of Bookmarking (warning: PDF).

The most popular business model has been to offer a free service and then shut down.

(Ha.)

...while the [Pinboard] business is healthy and profitable, no angel investor or venture capitalist would touch it with a long stick, as it sits on the wrong side of the risk/reward curve. The combination of low startup costs and investor aversion means there are all kinds of opportunities lying around for a developer to run a profitable small business, provided he or she remembers to charge money.

...An archive needs to have a credible plan for offering the same basic feature set over a time scale of decades. Any major redesign risks spooking users who will perceive it as a sign of instability. And the last thing people want to hear is that you're swinging for the fences - real archivists bunt.

A good role model here is craigslist, which has endured sustained derision for its 'ancient' UI for years from a succession of more modern websites, nearly all of which are now out of business.


Related: A fellow named Tom Armitage created a workflow which automatically turns his Pinboard stream into books, by year.


Comic writer/artist Kate Beaton (of Hark! A Vagrant) dispenses a bunch of good advice for aspiring comic writers/artists in: A lil' Q and A, part one [tumblr]

My first comics were awful. Everyone's are. Some people are awful for a long time then stick with it and get good. But you have to know you can.

(You can.)

... The real wonder of the New Yorker is that anyone can submit cartoons, so technically, anyone has a chance of getting in. Can you say that about many other 'prestigious' publications? Not really.


Last Thanksgiving I found this carving video more valuable than all carving instructions and videos before it: Wegmans Turkey Carving Time Savers.

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