24/06/09 - So how’s that project going? What was it called again…
Oh yeah, Coded Preview.
Coded Preview never fails to surprise me. I originally started it back January 2008, as a small project thrown together and recently relaunched it. When I initially launched it, I was surprised at the response I got and how popular it was. It actually ended up going from a small side project of mine to one of my biggest projects. Like this blog, it was down for quite a few months. I received many emails telling me to get it back up, offers to purchase it and after lots of emails, I finally did. Why it surprised me again, is because despite the downtime and some data loss, people have still rushed back to use it again. It only gets around 2,000 uniques a month, which is nothing special, but lots of Coded Previews are created every day and it still seems to get quite a lot of publicity.
Nonetheless, I have been listening to the users as always and have some new features being launched over the next few days, based on what I’ve been told. I won’t write about it on here till it’s done, to avoid it being leaked to the users (I like to keep things a surprise).
What’s the future for Coded Preview? Well, some of you may have realised Coded Preview has no revenue model (other than the Google Ads, which earn a pitiful amount). I’ve toyed with all kinds of ideas over the years and to be honest, I still haven’t really come to a conclusion. There are some really obvious ways to monetize it, but a great deal of the time when assessing these ideas, there’s often a problem with how to do this.
I’m not going to worry too much about monetization yet, but I will tell you the direction that i’m taking, which will allow better monetization options over the foreseeable future.
Firstly, I’m going to rebrand the entire thing. Yep, you heard here first. New name, new logo, new design - the full works. “Coded Preview” sounds too ‘techy’ now - I want to open the service up. Initially, this name was fine, given I thought it would be a small project, but now I think it’s a bit lame. So I’m on the hunt for new names, more importantly, domains (which will ultimately decide the end name). The design could also be more simple I think and I believe that’s what users love about the service. With this, it looks like I’m going to partner with someone on the project, and we’ve decided to start moving to something more portfolio-based. Importantly though, the whole main concept and form will remain in place, because I think that’s important and I don’t want it to get lost all the sites that offer portfolio systems.
I’ll keep you updated on CP and the plans above. New features look like they will be here very soon, so watch this space.
