The future of NPP
Well today has been a busy day. I went to bed at 10pm last night, and woke up at 6am, which is my ideal schedule. We had some guys coming to put in some new windows(which cost $4500 and no fucking cash discount – WTF?) so I had to move a bunch of shit that would block their way, then do some serious fucking shovelling around the side of the house and in the backyard. Thankfully it’s all done now, and hopefully the last big project to be done on this house until I move.
At around 10am I went up for a massage, then walked around downtown for a bit and grabbed a pork schnitzel sandwich, which was quite tasty. Then home to watch some Corner Gas with the wife. In the afternoon I just hung out with the kids, as I didn’t have the time to commit to work. Then I took Mason to karate and out to dinner after, and now I am here writing and trying to stay awake again, before heading the fuck to bed so I can wake up for a 9am dentist appointment, yay!
I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of NPP lately. There’s been a bit of a staleness lately – this usually happens with any forum, but it’s been happening more often at NPP. I’m looking forward to the forum upgrade, where I’m going to make a lot of changes. One thing I am focusing on is the front page, and I’m seriously considering the future of it. Unfortunately things like this require strong community participation, and we’re just not getting that. We could continue to bug people to send in articles etc, but really – what’s the point? I’d much rather have people voluntarily wanting to write for the front page, but that isn’t really working out at all. I’m not sure yet about it though – I still like the idea of a “feature” section that focuses on a lot of the great content NPP can provide, like top lists etc.
The forum upgrade I expect will be at the end of February. This will allow for a day or two of testing, and then a “fresh start” so to speak in March, specifically in regard to new threads etc. I’m going to be more active in regard to encouraging members to start new threads – whenever you see someone bump the “Boring” thread for example – they could’ve used that time to start a new thread that garners interesting discussion etc. I think I understand the root of the problem in regard to the lack of new threads, and so hope to fix that or at least work at fixing that in March.
The forum upgrade will also see an overhaul of the arcade, the debut of Zany Bucks or whatever the fuck we’re going to call them, and a bunch of other things. Most importantly I will be working on a new design – I’ve been in this web business long enough to know that as crazy as it seems, a new site design can really make things seem fresh. It won’t be anything huge, but there’ll be enough notable changes that the site will seem slicker, and will, and this sounds totally gay, will be a whole new NPP experience.
My main goal is to start looking at NPP as one of my (many) online business ventures. I never ever want to make money from the site, and don’t plan on it, but if I look at it from a business perspective, I should be able to get my head wrapped around the whole building a community thing better. For example – the whole front page/forum crossover – I can think of many ways that I could do a better job on that if I really tried, and if I look at it as business, I see a lot more ideas.
Anyhoo just a heads up – I’m really looking forward to NPP v2.0. Ooooh I like that – NPP v2.0.