Blogging Is Like a Video Game

Or, in other words, blogging demysitified. Hang on , the comparison holds water.

I've read that the important indication of success on a blog is the "unique visitor." This is basically a count of how many people visit a blog each day. A game needs points, and in the blogging game every unique visitor counts as one point. Points are earned with good marketing and great content. Score enough points and you get coins. Coins are redeemable for power-ups like software, hardware upgrades, cool business cards, advertising space on other blogs, or (and this is like unlocking a new level) a great blog-about-it vacation or a year abroad.

The video game aspect is intensified by the fact that a blogger can (obsessively) check his or her "uniques" every hour, every minute...as quick as the stats page can refresh...it is fun, if not particularly productive, I admit.

In the spirit of the game, a couple of weeks ago, I rearranged my blog. I changed my all-free, all-the-time set up to a daily freebie section in hope that this would encourge visitors to check back each day. Good idea, but I think the blog was a better resource, was more useful, if you will, when all the papers were presented, and for free, every day on the home page of the blog.

So, I'll be reverting to that improvement, but I'm going to organize them by color palette rather than by date. This will help me create sets of papers, which are even more (cute and) useful than a scattered assortment.  I'll also winnow the collection, in the sidebar at least, to the designs I'm most happy with. I'll keep the aesthetic changes I made in my last redesign -- new color palette, rather minimal logo, et al.

The new changes will come next week, I imagine, as I have time to implement them.  In the meantime...have a brownie sundae.

[PHOTO] by Blake Patterson at the Art of Video Games exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Musuem. I've heard a lot of good and interesting things about this show, it goes thru September 30, 2012.