Big News for Bloggers

If you’ve been following me on Twitter then you may have seen me drop a few hints about a ‘massive secret project’ that I’ve been working on.

Well today you guys are the first to get a sneak preview of what it’s all about. I’m afraid I still can’t give too much away about the project, aside from the domain name, and vague concept. However, I’ll be posting more details here soon, as the private beta test date approaches.

So without further ado here’s a first look at CommentBoost.com.

Yes… I know it’s just a subscription form right now, but some of you may be able to guess certain things about the service from the page.

I’ve noticed in the blogging, and more specifically design communities that many comments are left, but that most of these go to a few large blogs. However, those leaving the comments often run awesome blogs that are simply neglected by commenters due to their size. These are the people driving these communities, the ones who are spending their time and effort giving feedback on other’s posts. Despite this, their own blogs will often show the depressing count of ‘(0 Comments)’, or at best a couple.

CommentBoost aims to tear down these imbalances, and give the average blogger the quality comments that they deserve. Again, I can’t go into the specifics of the service just yet, but it should work out that for each comment left by a member they receive approximately one comment back on their own blog. This is big news for those active commenters leaving 10-20+ comments each day.

I’ll post more information and screenshots of the service soon, but for now why not go:

Subscribe to be Notified of our Official Launch!

I’m going to write an ebook on this one day, because it’s really my entire philosophy when it comes to business, design, or work of any kind.

This will seem really broad and general to you I’m sure, but it’s late and I felt like sharing the secret to my modest successes.

It’s not about having the next greatest idea in the world.

It’s not even about being unique, if you wait around for a completely unique idea you won’t get anywhere.

It’s about 3 things:

Being good at something

Putting time/effort into that thing.

Keep putting time/effort into that thing.

This may sound very simple, but I’m shocked every day at how many people break these rules. Your average ‘make money fast’ blogger knows jack all about what they’re writing about. They just aren’t good enough to make a success of their blog.

I’m going to use my new website PSDFAN.com as an example here. There are thousands of tutorial sites out there, but most don’t get anywhere. The main reason for this is because people aren’t good enough at Photoshop to write good quality tutorials. I’m doing PSDFAN because I am good enough. That isn’t to say I’m amazing, or even great, but I’m good enough… There are tonnes of people better than me at Photoshop, and a lot more that are worse I’m sure. So there we have it, point number 1 - I AM good enough at Photoshop to write tutorials that have the potential to make a successful tutorial site. And I know that without a doubt, I’m being realistic. Most people just don’t think realistically, they start an idea because everyone else is doing it, or because it’s the in thing, or because they want to try something knew. YOU HAVE TO KNOW WITHOUT A DOUBT THAT YOU HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE SUCCESSFUL!

So point number 2… I have the time to put into writing tutorials and promoting the site. I also have the effort, and I’m willing to work hard doing these two things. So great! I’m writing good tutorials and people are reading them.

Step 3 - keep doing it. This is the hardest point for me. It’s not hard yet, but what about when I’m back at university? what if I get bored? and so on… This is what will put me either in with the big boys or with everyone else.

My points here are… to be realistic with yourselves, and do what you’re good at. To work hard, and not expect an easy ride. To keep at it, and not give up too soon. Remember, don’t do what you think you should be doing, do what you are good at doing.

I don’t want to jump ahead of myself here, but I thought that I would just quickly update you all with how my new project PSDFAN.com is progressing.

To give you a brief summary:

Traffic is consistently reaching 1000+ unique visitors per day. (with 100+ return visits!)
RSS subscriber levels are creeping up.
I can feel the beginnings of a community

All very exciting news, and of course more motivation for me to keep writing the best tutorials that I possibly can. I’ve got some great tutorial ideas lined up, as well as cool stuff like a Flickr group, some opening competitions and much more!

I’ll keep you guys posted on the site’s progress, but so far, so good!

Following the launch of PSDFAN, my most ambitious project to date, things are looking good! My first two tutorials have been very well received, and whilst it’s really too early to provide accurate traffic details I will say that the site looks set to easily break 1000 visitors again today!

I have to say that I love this post-launch madness. It’s SO much work - promoting/writing content pretty much non-stop. However, if you look at how much the average person is willing to work, then by working as hard as you possibly can you really stand out from 99% of people out there. I just wish there were more hours in my day.

If you would like to check out the first two PSDFAN tutorials (and let me know what you think), then please click the thumbnails below: