A New Look after 1 year of Blogging
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My blog is one year old today- you can see my first (rather unexciting) post here. I can’t quite believe I’ve managed to keep going, but a lot of it is to do with overcoming procrastination and perfectionism.
I’ve leant so much over the past year and come to meet some great people online through writing.
When I first set up the blog, I decided to use an off-the-shelf WordPress theme which has served me well. However, I’ve always wanted to design my own theme and that is exactly what I have done. The logo was designed by a good friend of mine, Sam Lucas. He also helped me with a video intro for YouTube videos as well as style guidelines and mockups for this website. Thanks, Sam!
I built this theme using the Roots Theme. The Roots Theme is a starter theme for WordPress built on the HTML5 Boilerplate and the Twitter Bootstrap. It’s enabled me to have full control over everything and build a fully responsive website. I’d love to know what you think. It’s still in “beta” as there are a few more bugs to iron out, but I hope you will forgive me for wanting to launch it on the 1st anniversary of this blog.
So what’s next? Well, I have a few ideas which I will be telling you about over the coming weeks and months- but probably the thing I am most excited about is a podcast called Simply Social News. It will be a short weekly round up of all that is new in the world of social media, the internet and technology.
Here’s to the next year!
About Ian Anderson Gray
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Congratulations on getting to the years anniversary, and well done on building your own blog too!
Ive just passed the years mark, though I’m sticking to the wordpress hosted format. I did however relent, and bought my own domain.
Interestingly, Ive just started messing around with podcasting, and found a couple of really good apps that let me do it right off my phone. I think Irig is the best, its £2.99 but does everything!
Good luck with it, and I look forward to listening as well as reading!
Thanks for your kind comments and congratulations on your first year of blogging. What’s your blog? Be good to have a look. I think wordpress.com is great for a lot of people- particularly if you have your own domain (it means switching platforms later is easier)
I’ve not heard of Irig before- is it an iPhone app? I’m a big fan of SoundCloud but there are many other apps out there. For my podcast I invested in a USB microphone and am recording it directly on to my laptop.
Let me know how you get on!
Yes an iPhone app. I’ve used isaidwhat too, which is good. iRig uploads directly to soundcloud (or email or whatever. I got an iRig mic to plug into the iPhone as well. Very portable and really good quality, at least for my podcasts.
My blog is at http://www.completelyfreemarketingadvice.com and is in its third iteration in that first year 🙂
Great- love your blog. Will be subscribing. I’ve heard of the iRig before- shame they don’t have something for Android. I went for the Blue Yet USB Microphone- http://bluemic.com/yeti/ which I am over the moon about. It’s not that cheap, but has a great quality. I’m just using it with my laptop, but apparently it works with an iPad which could be useful!
Congrats Ian!
Keep doing what you do – your serious, inquisitive attitude to blogging is really refreshing and stands out in a crowd of social marketing blogs that lack it.
Thanks, Mike- very encouraging words indeed!
Brilliant job, IAG. Kinda fusion of engadget and theverge – but with genuinely useful content, and (at first glance) intelligent commenters.
Love it!
Thanks, Dave! It’s been mad trying to get this ready, but I think it is worth it. Next job…podcast!
The redesign looks great, well done!
Thanks for taking the time to comment and for your encouragement. I am quite excited, just need to get this podcast recorded now!