It’s another new year.
When i started iSlaytheDragon over 4 years ago, I had always hoped it would grow, but I really had no idea what it would look like many years later. And now, here we are, and what a ride it’s been.
As always, at the beginning of a new year I like to take a look at where we’ve come from and where we’re going, and lets do just that.
Looking back is fairly easy. Conveniently, I can reference my post from last year and see what we’ve accomplished from our previous goals, and then start from there in looking forward.
More followers: Last year I wanted to triple the number of followers we had, which seemed a lofty goal at the time. I’m not sure of exact numbers, but last year we had between 300 and 400 followers on Twitter around this time, which is generally how we measure our follow-ship. Now we have over 1200 followers. Tripled? The numbers add up. Nice. The great thing is that means more people not just reading, but commenting and sharing, which is my favorite.
More Reviews: I wanted to double the number of reviews we had on the site from last year, which was around 100. I thought this one would be the toughest of all goals but thanks in no small part to our new writers, we blew that goal out of the water, now with over 240 reviews under our belt. Even better, with 4 writers that have 4 different tastes in gaming, we have a lot of different perspectives and we can review a greater variety of games than I could by myself. Speaking of which, adding another writer was a goal at which we succeeded. So I’d call that a win.
Guide to Gaming: I announced our Guides last year and we put out a ton of them, with a great response from you guys. Our guides have been some of our most popular articles this year, so, success.
Site Upgrades: I stated last year I wanted to make iSlaytheDragon easier to navigate, easier to find articles, more organized. We didn’t get as much OUT in 2013 as planned, but you may have noticed how different our site looks today. We’ve spent the last few months revamping everything and porting everything over to our new site, which has a lot more functionality and flexibility. Our homepage is definitely worth bookmarking now, and it will be easier to find things you missed! We’re still working on some bits – for example, our Review listing will include a sortable list that includes many details about each game. Our game stats box has been upgraded, our rating system has been upgraded. Everything has been upgraded! Special mention to Derek Weller of iheartprintandplay who helped us out in creating our new background and header art. You’ll see our new characters around the site more and more, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
So, wow, it seems iSlaytheDragon has had a great year. That is exciting, and now we look to the future. Lets set some goals and see what we can do in 2014!
More followers: I like to start with this one because it’s important but I don’t want to spend a lot of time focusing on the numbers. I love the people we have following us already and we get some great interactions and great feedback. But there’s always room for more, and more followers helps support our site in a lot of different ways. With just over 1200 followers now, can we triple that by 2015 again? I hope so. That’s my goal.
More posts: I certainly want to keep up with our regular and frequent reviewing schedule, but I also want to write more articles for discussion, for provoking thought, and some articles just for fun. We’ve started doing some top ten lists which have been entertaining to write at least and we’ve had some great discussion. We’re working on some article series that should ignite some discussion, and we’re always working on new ideas. Hopefully we can also continue writing more guides to gaming, and keep our exisitng guides updated and accessible.
More Writers: Something I’ve found is that I really enjoy bouncing ideas off the guys here, and seeing their different thoughts and perspectives. I’ve read some really interesting posts on my own blog, from the other writers. But, lets be honest; we’re all just dudes over here, and it would be great to add more voices to our team that have an even more different perspective than just taste in gaming. I’d love to add a couple of women to the team to share their voice in reviews, discussions, and whatever else we come up with. If you or someone you know is interested, please let me know.
More Contributers: I’ve mentioned this in passing here and there, but I’d like to open up the site to article submissions from anyone. I’m not talking about creating a web forum where anyone can just post whatever they want, but people will be able to submit articles or article ideas, and if we like them, we’ll post them. That could be a lot of fun and add even more variety to our voices over here.
Fundraising: Near the end of the year, we participated in a small way in a charity auction, thanks to the generous donation of time and cool gaming product from Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier games. Doing stuff like that has been on my mind for a long time, and I’d love to try and do some more of that this year. How exactly? We’ll just have to figure it out, but I want to do it.
More Partners: Last year, we partnered with iheartprintandplay, which has turned into a lot of good stuff for us, especially behind the scenes. We’re collaborating on another site or two which will get added to the “network” of sites, but we’d love to find more sites to partner with to provide more services that are useful to the gaming community, without trying to turn iSlaytheDragon into something it’s not meant to be. We’d love to hear from you if you run a site or blog, or if you know someone who does, who might be interested in teaming up.
Well, that’s a lot of stuff but I think we can do it. I hope you enjoy our new site, and hopefully it makes it easier to find our articles, to explore, to share, and whatever else have you. Please be patient as we work out all the bugs in the transition, there is bound to be a thing or two that doesn’t work right. Please contact us if you discover a bug or broken link or something, so we can fix it.
Questions, comments, bugs to report? Use the contact form. It’s somewhere around here… under the “About” section of the navigation menu. or just leave a comment below. Booyah!
