As one might expect, things were pretty slow for several months after our January launch. With the low activity on the site, there wasn't a lot to do aside from tinker with features as suggestions filtered in. The more I customized, the more I realized how woefully unequal TorrentTrader was to the task. Unfortunately, I was committed and to change at that point would mean more work still. Instead, I quickly developed a policy of rewriting entire pages as a whole rather than tweaking what was already there.
One of the suggestions was that I add a favicon to the site. The existing logo didn't fit the small size very well, so I set out to make a new one. The product ended up looking pretty good, so I redid the entire site design based on the icon. What I wouldn't give to have that kind of time at my disposal nowadays...
Aside from the constant refinement of features, there's not a lot involved in running a small tracker, no more than what's involved in tweaking any other pet website. Since someone else may be taking care of your server for you, you may not even need to worry about that. The whole experience feels a little like running a lemonade stand on a deserted street, sitting in the sun while the ice in your mother's lemonade pitcher melts. It's just that exciting.
Despite the last few paragraphs of doom and gloom, we did grow slowly thanks to some of the methods I detailed yesterday. In March, a member asked how to donate to the site. Bemused, I opened a PayPal account. The $5 donation felt like a fortune. Since the site was sharing a hosting account with my personal stuff, we were essentially being hosted for free at the time.
Don't worry, all that changes soon enough. More on that tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment