What To Do #3

Moving on (part one and part two):

• Low Bandwidth, a site dedicated to the listing and cataloging of email zines, arrived at a time when there were only two other such listings (Todd Kuiper's E-zine Listings and the E-mail Ezine Emporium, circa 1998). In time, Low Bandwidth initiated "friendly takeovers" of both and its popularity grew, both for its quirkiness and "non-database" look. It was maintained entirely by hand, including the text archives, and that largely explains why I have a mailbox of 3000 "new zine" requests, with two new additions a week (every marketing wonk and their mother refers to Low Bandwidth as a good place to publicize). Roughly half are marketing related, a topic that Low Bandwidth denied blatantly and outright. I've attempted various dynamic designs, with two half-started iterations and one heavily tweaked appearance still sitting "In Progress".

  Sadly, I feel Low Bandwidth should be pruned. I have grandiose visions of XML backends, master subscription services ("why should I remember how to unsubscribe? I'll just uncheck this box at Low Bandwidth and it'll handle the rest!"), and a nice web-service with distributed ratings, automated archiving, etc. Unfortunately, it just doesn't excite me anymore - today, most email ezines don't give you the choice of HTML or text, and HTML versions are anything but low bandwidth (or reliably readable or archivable). Similarly, with the increasing encroachment of idiotic and overzealous spam filters, "the sky is falling!" cries of "email is dead!" (pffft), and the inescapable creep of email overload, I'm not sure how helpful a revised site would be. Definitely convince me if I'm wrong - I don't think it will take much, I just need to believe it'd be useful to people.

  Prune the life outta it, then close, medium priority.

• Gamegrene.com, like The Horror Section, arose out of the desire to make my hobbies my work. Or, more exactly, to give me time to hobby whilst working. I wasn't playing enough games, and it made perfect sense that if I ran a site about gaming, then, well, hey, I'd have to play games, right? It appeared the same day as Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition which, in hindsight, proved quite ominous and foreboding. Thankfully, Gamegrene is now the most popular Disobey property. There are zillions of things I want to do with the site, including fixing the most craptacular URLs I've ever seen, building a better archive and author display, integrating Amazon and context-sensitive extras, adding relevant images, creating a better "Related Articles" system, and exploring the six new "users decide" features that could be next (a survey has already been created to see which should be focused on, but it has yet to be deployed). There's much to be done here, including some healthy creative outlets. Growth, high priority.
• AmphetaDesk, ah, AmphetaDesk. My first "meant for others" software and downloaded nearly 100,000 times, it's the scheming flatmate that introduced me intimately to the wiles and willies of Dave Winer. It holsd a special place in my heart and, as is typical of a large userbase, there's plenty more to do. Growth, high priority. (Note to self: if I say anything BUT high priority, I'll get a deluge of disgruntled email. Be sure to remove this sentence before publishing.)

Next week: Anti-Press Ezine, Chico's Groove, and Devil Shat.