News
January 20, 2010
Please allow me to take this opportunity to say a very Happy New Year to all Urban Ghost Media fans and first time visitors alike! It’s more than long enough since I last updated the news section so I’d like to say a few brief words about the progress of UG Media so far, and exciting plans for the coming year.
First of all, this magazine started out as a fun little experiment to see if anyone would be interested in reading it. Suffice to say, after five months, UG Media has developed a loyal following, founds its way around Twitter, been mentioned positively within the blogosphere and gained a nice fan base on Facebook. And all this without even being ranked on Google – that’s right ladies and gents… It wasn’t until late 2009 that I realised a box was checked deep within the wordpress dashboard that blocked all search engines, including Google and Technorati!
Needless to say I was somewhat shocked but also relieved too in a way, as it explained why I couldn’t easily find my own blog when I looked for it! Needless to say, this whole experience has been a colossal learning curve that has offered me a crash course in online marketing, blog development, some minor techy stuff, social media and of course, blogging. So from that perspective it’s certainly all been worth it.
But most importantly, it’s taught me how to write for Urban Ghosts Media’s audience, what people like and dislike, which posts are most successful, which format people tend to go for and how to reach an appropriate balance between pictures and words. This has made planning and plotting a more strategic direction for the coming year possible.
Put simply, posts will be published at a more consistent rate and, without giving too much away here, the structure of each post will take the form of a more logical timeline. So, for example, rather than just showing a few pictures of an abandoned missile silo (as I did a couple of days ago) that mean little in isolation, and a brief description, pictures will appear in more of a series with a narrative that better explains the story behind the images in a more logical format. That could mean, again for example, the timeline of a missile silo – from its secretive and very frightening use during the Cold War to its final dereliction and decay somewhere beneath the fields of Colorado – all laid out in a logical fashion.
Of course, the photos will still be there if that’s your thing, and several times a week I will continue to publish “In Pictures” photo essays where appropriate. I hope this sounds appealing to readers (as ever, your feedback would be very much appreciated!) and I truly hope this will launch UG Media to the next level over the course of the coming months.
Thanks again for reading and sharing your thoughts and knowledge – this blog would be nothing with you, the reader – and please stop by again soon. Most importantly, I wish you all the very best for 2010!
November 2, 2009
Well, it’s been another eventful week and I trust everyone survived Halloween intact with more treats than tricks. If you’re an avid Facebook user I how have just the thing for you! Check out the new Urban Ghosts Media Facebook Page and become a fan – it’s the best way for all you Facebook afficionados to keep up with all the updates and works hand in hand with Twitter.
One of the things I’ve been toying over – more like agonising over – is the frequency of posts, and how best to differentiate UG Media from similar blogs, in order to provide unique content and inspiration to fans and other bloggers. So far I’ve tried to write at least five articles per week, Monday to Friday.
It’s been great but not always easy to deliver a quality article each day alongside other projects, so I’m going to experiment with four posts per week, rather than five. These will be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with a weekend post also. I feel this will enable me to craft well-researched, informative and unique articles that give UG Media an increased value added and ultimately make it more competitive.
Eventually, I’d love to be able to elevate the number of posts to at least one per day. Until then, I hope this tactic will generate higher quality posts in the longterm. Stand by and stay tuned!
October 26, 2009
After the success of yesterday’s post, the Top 10 Articles So Far, it seemed like a good idea in the interests of balance, learning-curve-acknowledgement and transparency, to write a Bottom 10 Articles So Far! While this may sound counter productive (and may even be a bad idea – time will tell), I’m hoping it’ll be a good way of pointing readers to articles they may have missed while offering up a better understanding of the site to visitors – the good and the bad, so to speak.
By doing so, I’m hopefully also helping myself figure out what readers like by highlighting the less popular posts. That way, I’ll avoid posting similar material or building on these articles in the future, no matter how much the subject matter may be of interest to me personally!
Thanks in advance for checking out the worst as well as the best. If you have any feedback whatsoever, I’d love to hear from you.
October 20, 2009
One of the other helpful aspects of this learning curve has been trying to get to grips with Twitter. Pretty much all the promotion to date has been done via the Urban Ghosts Media Twitter account, and judging by the level of “retweets” so far, some posts are far more popular than others.
This has been immensely helpful in trying to define what readers enjoy, and also for following some great groups/people via Twitter also. Ultimately, I hope the posts will be specifically tailored to your interests. And remember, if the featured article of the day is not your specific cup of tea, just search by category and see what you stumble across!
October 20, 2009
Things have continued to move along relatively smoothly over the past few weeks here at UG Media! I say “relatively” because there are always some minor technical issues (from trying to customise the look to removing pieces of renegade html that have managed to sneak into my posts, putting in extra spaces, no spaces at all and the like!). Since my technical department currently consists of one person – me – and my technical skills are currently hovering just above zero, it can take a bit of time to get to grips with things, but I’m definitely getting there.
The look has been amended slightly to incorporate the green font and remove the bullet points in the sidebars, not that I have anything against bullet points but my coding capabilities certainly do. At this point, I’m pretty satisfied with the look and feel of things and have built up a decent amount of content which I hope you have found entertaining and informative.
I’ve also put together an editorial calendar to plan out the month ahead. I’m aiming to have one weeks worth of articles ready to go at all times (I’m not there yet but am building it up) and outline articles planned for at least two weeks beyond that. By doing so, I hope to be able to concentrate more on the quality of each post both in terms of good writing and intriguing content.
Ultimately I hope each post will demonstrate an even balance between written and photographic content, with one medium being more heavily weighted dependant on the style of the post and the message to impart. With at least one post per day Monday to Friday, I also aim to include analysis posts of my own content and great content from other sites, which will most likely be delivered at weekends.
I may also include a (predominantly) picture post, taking the number to two posts per day, when time allows. Picture posts, such as the ones about the ghost town of Bodie and abandoned air base of Binbrook (maybe with even more pictures and slightly less text) seem to be popular with certain readers.
Everything mentioned thus far will be implemented in due course. In the meantime, please do remember to send any feedback you may have, including likes, dislikes, ideas for future posts and so on, to me via the Contact form.
October 5, 2009
Over the last week or so, Urban Ghosts Media has undergone a transition from traditional blog to a more magazine-styled website, thanks to a great theme provided by Darren Hoyt. I’m excited about the new look which, although not yet finished (there are some minor visual issues to iron out which, for a non-techy like me could take a few days), offers are more professional template for the magazine.
From this point on, the content will be ramped up to at least five posts per week, hopefully with a round-up or feature article over the weekends – more to come on that! On that note, please accept my apologies for the rather sporadic posting to date as I’ve looked to populate the site with content.
I’m excited about the next steps and hope you enjoy what you read. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any ideas, find any mistakes, or would like to offer any other general feedback. Hope to hear from you soon!
September 8, 2009
Hi all, thanks again for stopping by! For those of you who are new to this site, you may be somewhat confused about why exactly there are some posts on architecture and art and then others on abandoned or historic places, while the title says: “From urban exploration to urban legend”.
Well… The reason is that after a couple of weeks of writing content and testing the waters regarding what people are especially interested in, it’s now time to focus on what (according to the feedback I’ve had) are the most popular subjects.
For that reason, I’m keeping a similar format but looking more at forgotten places and objects and, where applicable, where they intersect urban legend, local folklore, and the like. There will also be a strong industrial theme running through this blog that, while not exclusive to all posts, will help to focus the content. However, if there’s something I’ve posted on before that you liked and would like to see more of, please get in touch! As always, your feedback and ideas are greatly appreciated.
