You cannot change what you don't acknowledge.

01 January 2008

Extraordinary.

The dawn brings with it a whole new year of promise... and, if I want to grow, change. First up, though, one needs to think very deeply about the title. Get real with yourself about your life: nothing will change until you accept total responsibility for where you are at right now.

On that note... where am I?

In an earlier blog I mentioned that December was to serve to iron out any bugs, and in January my goal was to double my visitors each day, for the month.

Extraordinary how what you ask for, you get. Although, in keeping with what I am here professing are my beliefs, what then is so extraordinary about it happening just as I manifested it?

I have received an astonishing amount of help from a few people, much of it directed to improving the site itself. Joe in California sent me a much better design for my Home Page, which I will get up this weekend. It is more functional, more attractive and easy to navigate.

Nate in London sent me a bunch of studies showing where to put ads to the best advantage; how few people actually look at fotos on a home page but go directly to text; where readers begin on a page and so on. Wonderful stuff, and Joe, it fits your template!!

Greg in Sydney alerted me to the fact that I ain't functioning too good in Mozilla - another challenge for the weekend.

Mike in Canada has put me back on the path where I should be - and the new template includes Daniel's Adventour Rio Tours. How ever did I get so lost as to leave that out?

Finally, in a Herculean deluge of emails, Joe also sent some interesting facts on Blog Writing. Now, in a perfect world, I would have done all this research BEFORE I started, right?.

Except that doesn't fit my belief that to START is more important than to GET READY TO START - because after the dreaded first step, things start to fall into place by themselves.

And see?... they did, and are.

One point Joe makes is that a Blog is best written three times a week, maybe Monday, Wednesday and Friday - the model I will use. Thus I don't drown the poor reader in logs, especially if he/she/it has had a few days off. [I live in Copacabana, hence the "it". Well, come visit and you will understand...]

Further to this, I need to arrange the blogs in some way that will allow cross-referencing and backtracking and so on. Will do on the weekend. [Note: did this 10 January. But I still haven't tamed the google ads...] Also, slowly oh so slowly I will build a useful reference on personal development - which was never the purpose of the blog at all! But the thing has taken on a mind of its own. Probably a good thing, with the state my mind usually resides in. I know I only scratch the surface of each topic as it pops up, but then over the year I will return again and again to such topics as I grow and the site grows, and show in more depth how the philosophies behind these concepts actually mutate in the real world. Thus, the intrinsic value lies in SEEING it put into practice, not just in a list of things you could do to improve your own life, as in so many personal development sites.

Also, I need to capture more the day-to-day life in the community. Not so much in my blogs, but in my foto logs [gallery?]

Thus I need to take fotos of the kids playing, at school, lugging buckets of water uphill, sleeping on their sheet of cardboard on the floor, bathing in a bucket and so on. And as the community grows, I can catch this, and have a visual record of its development.

Some interesting statistics:

To launch on December 01 I emailed all my friends [both of you] plus anyone else I could dredge up. December 01 and 02 received 100 unique visitors.

This stayed steady throughout the month, but didn't grow. But after a month, you guys still here, showed me some valuable things - and this I write to help anyone aspiring to launch their own blog.

Whatever your blog topic, you will gather a group who are not only interested in your topic, but want to be involved in some way. Many blogs allow this by having a forum or comment area. For some reason, this just doesn't grab me. Maybe I will grow in that direction, but I feel something calling me on a different plane. Actually, my research shows me [yeah, I actually finally did some] that only a tiny percentage of visitors ever add a comment, and to put these up, respond, delete, scream, agree etc takes a disproportinate amount of time, so my instinct was correct. Hence, no comments, but feel free to email me, and if you send permission I will put excerpts up as I have done so already on a few pages.

I intend to offer a unique club: The Clown Club. [Remember 'Palhaco' = 'Clown' but clown is a bit easier to get your tongue around].

For those who are interested enough to join, there will be a special monthly newsletter, a locked page with exclusive fotos and videos not available through the blogs - such as Monstrinho performing in a school concert, or Joao Gringo scoring a goal in the mudpatch soccer game, or Lucas showing off his English by singing some trite song...] Just cute stuff, but fun and informative... and bonding.

Membership will be something trivial, say ten bucks a month, but will include a T-shirt mailed to you, regular cute souvenirs e.g. a 2008 calendar depicting a different kid each month, and so on...

Finally, I want to get my regular visitors from 100 to 5,000. When I reach this point I will be able to complete the whole project in 2008 - bathrooms for everyone!

Currently, from my 100 regulars, 4 people have donated. 4%! My goal is to get 1% of the 5,000 to help in some way... but imagine if I can maintain that 4%. Watch us fly then!

Feel free to drown me with ideas, suggestions, criticisms - I won't grow in a vacuum. My email is on the FAQ page.

Join the Clown Club and receive daily fotos and weekly videos not available on the site. Only $10 a month, help Daniel launch more Projects.

Sign up for a year and gain a $20 discount.

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