What's next for Tame Geek

The more I publish on this site and build the social media following of Tame Geek, the more I’m thinking how best to provide the site’s content.

After numerous redesigns, I’m happy to say that the layout of articles on this site is the clearest to read of many I find and visitors seem to like them more (year on year, average time on pages is up by 153%). All of that content though is in a written format.

We live in a digital age, where there are a number of tried and tested digital delivery methods of publishing content. That’s why I’m going to break a few of them down in this article and then conduct an experiment. The content delivery methods beyond web pages we’re going to look at are:

  • Digital Magazines
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Shorter Posts

 

Digital Magazines

Starting with the item that’s most closely linked to ‘regular’ text based content, the digital magazine has come on in leaps and bounds. There’s two main tracks people tend to follow when it comes to digital magazines. They either design and publish something specifically for a digital medium, or they publish their print version using a plugin.

The plugin based version are the last gasp of the dying conventional print medium. Remember when the internet was a wash with people talking about skeuomorphism? Many of them considered that it was simply leather textures and stitching in screen design. The truth is that skeuomorphism is the replication of something physical, in a digital medium. So having page turns and a glossy effect in these page flipping plugins is simply another form of skeuomorphism. This gets us no where in our digital world and isn’t an option.

Digital magazines that are ‘digital first’ on the other hand, are a more tempting proposition. Like the great website, The Loop and other tech sites, such as The Verge and Engadget, a digitally published magazine that is optimised for tablets has become a stalwart of their offerings. A lot of work goes in to these and making them fiscally viable can be tough. The Loop charge and The Verge and Engadget have adverts. In doing so, it makes it justifiable.

So, can the Tame Geek publish such a thing? Yes. Using the posts from the site and some exclusive content, the case could be made for a quarterly Tame Geek digital magazine.

Podcasts

The Poscast has been around now for over a decade and has a loyal following. I used to regularly listen to a few podcasts, but as time has gone on, I find I don’t listen to them any more. That does them a disservice, as there’s a lot that can be said, that can take a lot longer to read. With that in mind, a short ’round up’ podcast could be a good idea for the Tame Geek content. When I think on it further though, a podcast could ad cohesion to a published article. Perhaps, a tutorial or a discussion point could be better done in the podcast, with the published article as a follow up.

Video

I am a big fan of video, when done properly. For instance, the /Drive network on YouTube are some of my most viewed videos as I like the way they do things and they have great content. When it comes to tech blogging, The Verge have their 90 second show and I’m sure there’s an Engadget equivalent. Some sites use video and then spin out the audio to make a Podcast. That’s a great way of not wasting resources and helps reach a larger audience.

Shorter Posts

Ok, so this one falls back in to social media some what. Podcasts, videos and magazines all have a level of ‘shareabilty’ to them, where as shorter posts may be better at generating conversations and would also aid to a more news like feeling to the site’s content. In doing so, posts could easily go from being weekly events, to daily ones. The shorter posts would be complimented by the longer posts that would then be come more like long form articles, reviews and tutorials.

 

With these ideas about content, there’s only one thing to do; EXPERIMENT! This is my laboratory after all. So over the next few months, there will be some examples of all of the above finding there way on to this site and on the internets. I look forward to your feedback and we shall see where this experiment takes us.