After nearly two years, I think we can declare the bulk of our garden renovation complete. I’ve spent the last few hours poring over photos to try to wrangle it into a narrative, and it’s been really fun to relive the process! Without further ado – our garden renovation.
As most old school bloggers can attest, traffic has really dropped off now that a lot of folks have moved to social media. One thing I’ve been trying lately is being more proactive with tweeting links to new posts. It seems to be having quite an effect so far. In the week since I started, sessions and users are both up around 50% and page views are up 30%.
When you dig into the referrers, the major culprit is clear. Clicks from t.co (Twitter’s URL shortener) are up 1800%. My guess is that while a lot of folks don’t regularly scan their blogs anymore, they’ll click through to one if reminded that something new is available.
With that in mind, I’ve also added some additional social media sharing links to each post. You can now share directly to Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. I’ll use them now to share this particular post, so if you see a link to it on one of those services, you know it’s working!
The Forgotten Shores of App Store pricing – Interesting discussion over Monument Valley and appropriate App Store pricing. I think there’s one point that Six Colors misses: a lot of users (including me) now have a negative association with in-app purchases. I associate it with Zynga and Farmville and all those scammy “Freemium” games that really were about tricking kids into buying lots of add-ons. Every time I play an iPad game with my nieces and nephews, they’re constantly clicking on the big attractive ads to “unlock” additional paid content. I stopped playing Words with Friends once I discovered people could buy hints (aka cheat). So for better or worse, I think of in-app purchase as a bit of a scam. I have a negative reaction when I see the option. I know that’s silly and by no means universal, and I’m definitely not someone that would leave a one-star review over it. But I do think it’s a factor that game developers need to consider going forward.
And don’t get me started about idiots who give one-star reviews for spiteful, whinging reasons. Ugh. Once this guy gave a one-star review to an app I’d help build thanking us for finally adding a feature that he really wanted and saying it worked great, but that he was giving a one-star review “because it took so long”.
Karl Stefanovic’s sexism experiment: Today presenter wears same suit for a year – How very timely to be reading this at the salon, where I’m going to spend more in one visit than the Snook does on grooming all year. I wish I didn’t have to. But I rationalise it as an investment, knowing that perceptions of my competence are tied up in my appearance in a way his is not. It’s a very real possibility that my career depends to some degree on putting in the effort (and spending the cash).
We’ve been getting veggie boxes from Ooooby for a while now, and they’re fantastic. Good range, good quality, and good value. If you’re in Sydney and you’d like to get fresh, local, organic produce delivered straight to your door, I highly recommend you sign up. And if you use my promo code – 9NW6ZE – you’ll get $20 off your first order!
This Feminist Twist On “The Princess Bride” is Inconceivably Perfect – I started favouriting and retweeting stuff from the #feministprincessbride hashtag but realised that ALL OF IT is so good. This one was my favourite though:
Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You denied my mother equal pay. Prepare to be on the wrong side of history. #feministprincessbride
— Sam Ladner (@sladner) November 13, 2014
Space Age is finally upon us – Just bought it. But it’s only an iPhone game, so I’m not a REAL GAMER, right dudes?
30 Bags of Chips Means No One is a Winner – Medium – I know it’s not what the author was trying to do, but dammit, I kind of want to host my own Chip Party now. Australia’s got some WEIRD flavours. (This link and the previous courtesy of not martha.)
David Chang’s Kitchen: My Name Is David Chang, and I Hate Fancy Beer – I read the neckbeard line out to the Snook, who chuckled and admitted there was quite a bit of neckbeard grooming and hop variety discussion at the last Brewshare. (He won 1st prize, BTW.)
