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A profitable web 2.0 project developed in 24 hours
It took seven months to get the One Million Masterpiece charity
project online. The site is complex and needed the development time, but
in the last few days I've had a yearning to see if I can still turn
around a project in 24 hours. Back in the early days of the Internet
boom I'd sit in my bedroom and knock out html websites all night long,
but almost ten years on, can it still be done in a time where
profitability and interactivity are the key measures?
So, it's 7am and I've got a plan. The new pressures I face in life (work
responsibilities, family etc) have been dealt with and I have a clear 24
hours ahead of me. An idea for a site has been kicking round in my head
ever since I sold a site last year. This site was a very specialist
software comparison site that generated referral commissions and Adsense
income. It was an excellent earner and I've wanted to recreate that
success, but on a larger scale.
So last year I bought the domain http://www.shoutdown.net with the
intention of building a software comparison style project. I want the
site to be in the informal blog style, where the posts are product
summaries (written by me), and the comments would be reviews submitted
by other people. I'd also throw in a rating system, and way of attaching
news releases or other relevant pages to each product post, plus link
related posts (for example different versions of the same software).
So the idea is there, it's 7:30am and my first job is to select some
mp3's to get me through to lunch. Here goes...
08.00
By the time I've chosen my music, switched off my Google desktop bar and
responded to essential email it's already 8am - crap. So, first job is
drawing out a schematic of the database that will power my site. What
information do I want to keep and how will I organise it? I'm having
five database tables. For ease I'm calling them level1, level2, level3
etc because I see them as levels of information about each software
product - the top being category information and the bottom being the
reviews and ratings.
09:15
Took me quite a while to get the structure clear, but now I'm sketching
out the homepage on paper. I've looked at a few blogs that I like and
have basically copied their layout for ease. I've also worked out the
sizing of my main columns and rows and know the positions of the
adverts, main blog posts and navigation. I still like to work on paper
at this stage - I'm an artist at heart!
09:55
OK let's get on the computer. I've fired up Paint Shop Pro and my first
job is to work out a colour pallet. I want three colours, so I blob
different combinations on a blank white image until I get the right
combination - orange, purple and grey. I then make a note of the hex
codes for each colour on a post-it - this will save LOADS of time later.
While I'm in PSP I'm going to mock up a logo as I already know the size
of image I need from my plan. Actually I really like the logo so it will
probably be permanent.
10:21
Time to start on the site. I'm using a single html page at the moment
with a linked css file. Using some basic tables and css I've laid out
the top bar, the post area and two columns (one for ads and one for
navigation). I'm sticking to a tried and tested blog layout.
I always use Dreamweaver, but always hand code. Why use Dreamweaver
then? Well, I find the preview quite accurate, but other than that I
have no idea - just habit.
11:38
I've just finished the main site layout, including place holding text
that will eventually be dynamic. I've left space for some ads on the
site, so I've justed logged in to Adsense to generate the code. All I
need to do is use the colours on my post-it to get them fitting in
nicely. I'll also take a look round for some other nice banners in my
affiliate accounts.
12:43
That took longer than planned, time for lunch
13:17
OK time to fill up my database with some data, then I can start writing
the php that will populate the pages. I'm going to sign up for a few
software affiliate accounts and write some sample reviews on the
software. At the moment I haven't got time to write really good reviews,
but in time I intend to fully try each title and write some good stuff
(positive and negative). For now I'll be brief.
15:20
Right, let's get back to the site. I'm going to sort out the navigation
side bars first, and then I'll split my single page up.
16:45
This isn't working. I've got a very limited knowledge of php so I'm
having trouble dynamically generating category headings and software
lists dynamically. It's taking too long to sort out so for now I'm going
to simply print a list of all software titles in the database. I'll make
up for it by also providing a list of software categories, plus a list
of the most reviewed software.
16:58
I'm going to split up my single html page now into a header, body, nav
and footer, and use a php include to pull the pages together. In total I
will only need three main template pages for the content of this site -
the homepage, a category page and a product page.
18:24
I've finished the layout of the three pages, including all the code that
pulls info from the database. Everything's working pretty well and I'm
please with the simplicity. My next job is to create an rss feed of the
posts and reviews, but first I need some DINNER!
20:04
After some pasta and tv I'm ready for this rss feed. It's pretty easy to
create a php page that will pull the necessary code and place it in the
rss 2.0 layout. Once I'm done I'll just save the php file as xml and
ensure that my .htaccess file remembers to parse xml files for php code.
21:36
I checked that the rss feed was valid using a standard validator. It
took a little time to sort out the date formatting to be honest.
21:57
I've been developing using Firefox to test the layout, but I just
checked the site in IE and noticed the background colour was dodgy. It
was a css error - fixed.
22:15
OK back to content. The reviews at the moment are boring so I'm going to
add some images and expand them a little. I'm also going to add some
reviews that I've been collecting over the last few months. The good
thing about buying the domain and posting up a test website for six
months is that the search engines have already crawled the site, and
hopefully will help me avoid the Google sandbox.
02:30
I'm absolutely knackered. I've just spent the last few hours trying to
get the navigation system working but with no luck. The problem is that
I'm trying to dynamically generate an information tree (apparently
that's what it's called after much research) but I just can't get it
working. I'm giving up.
04:49
OK, I've just created a rating system which will only accept one
software vote per IP address. Seems a bit buggy but I really really
tired and can't be bothered to go through it again now.
So what's left to do? I need to create forms to input reviews, news and
bookmarks but I'm just too tired to continue. So much for 24 hours, but
actually I'm really pleased with the result. On the surface the site
looks like any other blog, and you might question why I decided to hand
code the entire thing. Well, I have some ideas for some advanced
functions, but I'll only be able to implement them if I know the site
inside out. Plus I just like the challenge.
I wont have time to work on the site all week, but I'm already planning
my next 24 hour session - marketing. I'll be sure to keep you updated on
that, and how the site is doing generally!
About the Author
Paul Fisher is an entrepreneur whose ventures include
theonemillionmasterpiece.com arts project, a restaurant chain and
several successful websites. View his personal blog at http://www.thepaulfisherblog.blogspot.com