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Blog Goals for 2009

By David Walsh on December 31, 2008

My blog grew substantially during 2008. I gained thousands more RSS subscribers, my MooTools skills took a giant leap, and I even branched out in jQuery a little bit. That said, I feel like the blog just beginning. I've outlined some goals for 2009 -- any feedback or requests would be appreciated.

1. New Redesign

I'm not happy with the current "design". It's too plain and even though I'm not a designer, I think I could do a lot better. I have a new redesign that's about 25% done that I really love so far and hope to get out by February 1st. I will be giving peeks via Twitter very soon.

2. Walk the Walk

I write a lot of useful MooTools scripts. The problem is that I don't actually use many of them on my site. My goal is to avoid overdoing my the MooTools "flash bang" effects but tastefully add enhancements here and there. I think people will like the new effects a lot.

3. More Interaction

I've recently implemented polls and I'm going to strive to get more of a "community" feel for the site. I may also add a very basic chat feature in the sidebar. I'd also like to schedule a monthly chat session where I'm available for questions about both web and non-web topics. Not sure how many people would be interested in that though. I've decided not to implement forums.

4. Continue the Moo-foolery

I want to continue to write interesting and thought-provoking Moo scripts. This includes original works and ports of existing jQuery / Prototype scripts. MooTools has made writing JavaScript (and subsequent MooTools posts) fun and I hope my enthusiasm for it becomes infectious.

5. Create a Facebook App or WordPress Plugin

I've been putting off doing either of these because of the amount of maintenance that goes into them. I don't want to release a plugin and then let it go to crap. Hopefully I find the inspiration to follow through on creating a great plugin or app.

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Discussion

Paul Davis
I’m defiantly looking forward to the redesign. =D

Also, I think a WordPress Plug-in would be better received. I think Facebook has to many applications. And a wordpress plug-in would be a better use of your skill. IMO
=]
Luke
I’ll be keeping an eye on your twitter mate, gotta say I have already spend a fair few hours trawling through the useful posts you’ve managed to write here, looking forward to more :)

And yes, definitely go down the WordPress Plugin route, its pretty simple to do and with your PHP and JS knowledge your likely to get a nice traffic spike like what happened to me when I did the first version of mine!
david
Thank you for the suggestions. I was leaning more toward a WP plugin. I have no idea what I’d do for Facebook, but it probably wouldn’t have been very useful. I would’ve just done it to do it. I’m sure I could think of something fun for WordPress.
cssProdigy
Great David. Looking forward to the new MooTools scripts and the Redesign. A facebook App? hmm….
Ryan Rampersad
I’m looking forward to the moo-foolery!
dave
Just one of your silent readers but I will say you and your site have taught me a great deal this year. Looking at your approaches and the slight incorporation of humor as made this one of the best sites for learning, inspiration and entertainment.

I thank you and look forward to your posts and advice in 2009.
Ryan
looking forward to more mootools related posts.
Keith Wolf
I look forward to seeing what you’ll add. I just really hope you maintain the already very clean look and feel that seems to be escaping even the simplest sites these days. Peace,

Keith
hanoi
You should care of your website’s usability.

It is hard to find and read old articles. Is there an easy way to have a list of old articles which are displayed in categories?
So many ads on your blog (I can see why…)

:)
Geoff
Just like many other fans here I’m also looking forward to more mootools scripts, you are an asset to the mootools community!
I also hope that more people will get infected by the mootools bug just by reading your articles from past year. They where very usefull to me and I’ve learned a lot by it.

Btw, your webdesign is good enough to me, it’s easy readable but if you do a redesign, just make sure you keep the old posts for new fans that will come ;-)