Last week I was really contemplating about what is it we are doing with this blog and I wanted to take a moment to step back and ensure that we’re doing as good a job as you guys would want us to do.
Tom and I have talked at length about why we do this, and our number one reason is to share with, and be a part of the Android Community — something we’ve mentioned time and time again as being an awesome community of great people – always willing and eager to share their opinions and help each other out. I’ve heard anecdotally how many times about a user of one of the other OS’s transfer over to Android because of the accolades and support that the existing user base offers.
We certainly don’t do it for the money!
I hope that this next paragraph doesn’t come off as preachy, or as an excusatorial but I think it’s worth taking a moment and helping with perspective. Tom and I (and our newest writer Robert) are real people. We have a job, a wife (Rob, you married?), and I have a kid and Tom’s got one on the way. We work 40 hours a week, and put in family time as well as our normal social time. What time remains within that framework we plop ourselves down in front of the computer and bang out what we think is worth sharing with all of you.
I wish I had the time to devote fully to this, as it’s truly a passion, and I hope that comes across in what we write to you. And I know both Tom and I just love writing and interacting with the community. I believe we’ve done a bang-up job, and I appreciate our readers… every last one of you 4 people! Hah… j/k. But seriously, I want to ensure that the time you take to read our little corner of the web-o-sphere is well worth it.
But enough of me blathering on… let’s get to the results of the feedback that I asked you for. I must say, I didn’t mean for this to be a ‘tell us how awesome we are’ moment, but it sure came across as one. Some of your comments made me snort… some quirked an eyebrow, and others well… I smiled.
[I hope you don’ t mind me using a tag cloud to summarize some of your points… there was just too much to try to intelligibly interpret]
Question #1 – How did you find us
Obviously a lot of you found us either by “good ol’ googlin’” or by the “recommended feed”. This is good. I was debating about having the talk with Gary (the owner of the site) about starting some ‘ads’ etc… to try to draw people in, but it looks like it’s doing a great job already on its own. Can’t hurt tho’ if you want to try to recommend us to some friends or throw some of those +1s on the posts!
Question #2 – What was it about that initial contact…
Obviously it’s the Can-con that you all loved. Good to know. We try to ensure that we keep the name of the blog site front in our minds as we write… however we tend to write about Android in General first, then with the ‘implications of it being in Canada’ second.
What I found most interesting is that there’s not much of a ‘home town crowd’ with the responses. There wasn’t a real “Oh, well, Tom is my sister’s husband’s ex-boss and I try to support the small town boy”. There was one, but … it’s nice to see that we’re not just writing for our close friends and family (although I have a few relatives now all with Androids… they should be reading).
Question #3 – How do you stay in touch
Yeah, an info-graph! Most of you keep up with us via RSS… god bless RSS. I find pretty much all my stories by reading RSS of about a hundred other blogs. But a good portion of you still go to our actual site. Good to know to make sure we stay on our toes for what it looks like (rather than just worrying about posts alone).
Question #4 – What can we do better
Oh boy did you have suggestions!
Again, the majority of you have said you want CANADIAN CONTENT. And we’ll strive for that. Again, I don’t want to sound like I’m calling up my excuse book, but we’re still busy people with regular lives and this is still ‘small potatoes’ in comparison to other blogs, so it’s been a bit of a struggle to get companies to take notice of us. But we try like heck!
Also, there was about half of you that wanted MOAR UPDATEZ, versus the other half that wanted less updates as you had seen some of the content elsewhere. I get that. I do. We tend to reblog a story, because, well, we think it’s interesting, and we hope you hear it first from us. If you haven’t, we hope that the approach we took was unique and left you with a different perspective. As for being ‘late’ or the feel of rehashing old stories, remember … we have lives, and until we go BIG (I liked the comment about corporate whoring ourselves out wouldn’t being a bad thing), we won’t have the time to really be ‘journalists’ in that sense. We poke and prod what we can, where we can.
I have to say, the overwhelming number of you that said “you guys are awesome as is…” thanks. Truly… thanks. I don’t know Tom’s academic history, but I specifically chose a path that would require the least amount of writing (Chemistry major), and yet I still love to write, despite how horrible I am at it.
Your other comments? Some good ones in there, I’ll try to tackle a few.
Hangouts
definitely something Tom and I have talked about at length. I wasn’t quite sure how big an audience we would have, plus with the whole “Canada’s Really Big” thing going, it’d be tricky to find out when people would be available (often I set my articles to go at 8am, which means 11am where I am, and there are some people East of us who’re already into the afternoon before Tom gets to work).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_RPp4dbam8
Reviews
Obviously we need to do more, but a cool suggestion to do old ones. Neat… not everybody buys phones the first day out… I’m putting the feelers out to all our manufacturers to ask for ANY units for review.
Canadian Carrier Comparisons
Intriguing… unfortunately my area I have no ‘competition’ (… well one other) so it would be interesting, and informative to those of you who can take advantage
Free stuff!
I’m trying… I keep asking as many as I can. Did you know that the stuff Tom gave away at Christmas was all out of his own pocket? Including shipping! He really loves you guys!
Forums
Great idea, just need some more of you… I want to see more interaction on the daily posts so we know that a forum would be worth it (I’ve got a friend who can help me design one if we think we’ll be using it)
There’s plenty of other topics… maybe I’ll post later with all the comments and let you read through them… some are giggly-able. Definitely LMBO (that’s for the #sivattack) how many of you asked for the free muffins (note, I don’t make muffins… ever… well, ever make GOOD muffins… so trust me, you don’t want them).
We want to do more. We want you to count on us, and make us THE resource for ANDROID IN CANADA
[ooh, can somebody make me an ani-gif of the nyandroid with a maple leaf!?!?!?]
Maybe this is where you come in. Letting other Android users know about our site, letting our advertisers know that you are patronizing them because you saw them on our site, or talk to your carrier and outlet stores about an article you saw on our site. That helps people realize we exist and then they start to take notice… that’s when we start getting the networking going to get you some of the good scoops.
Okay, enough soap-boxing for me.
I can’t thank you all enough for your responses to the feedback survey. According to the WordPress stats, about half of you answered; which is not bad. The time you took will be put to good use. I look forward to many many more posts from me to you.
Thanks everybody!