WEB PROJECT PLANNING

I've heard that writing is a great tool for thinking, and for many reasons. One of those reasons is that it helps you to clarify and organize your thoughts, through the process of putting them into words in a way that others can understand.

I've had a lot of thoughts about my webplans floating around my brain recently, and trying to keep track of them is.. well, let's just say I've gotten a bit scatterbrained. So in order to clarify my thoughts about them, I'm writing them down here. :P

I really like the Onio Cafe, but I'm not 100% satisfied with it. I've been going back and forth regarding the theme driving the sort of content I plan on putting on this website. I very, very much am enjoying the calm chatroom vibe of the website, and returning every day to see if there are any new messages from you guys (shoutout to Slams and Nippo!)

This drives my brain to want to direct the website more towards community oriented content - the links page mostly listing personal websites as well as useful websites for creating personal websites - and away from my personal work, such as all my creative projects. Less of a spotlight on me, and more towards connecting people with eachother.

I do have another website, a Wordpress blog, where I'll probably write about my creative endeavors, especially since formatting posts into html isn't the most fluid process when I just want to focus on writing and click 'publish' when it's done.

As far as the links page goes, I'd like to make a separate website for all the helpful and useful links I've found. My codename for that project is OPUILAR - Onio's Portal to Useful and Interesting Links and Resources.

I would also like to make a separate website for the $50 club, with its own forum, but that's a whole 'nother project on its own.

I've also thought about how I can make these a bit more self-sufficient, funding wise. Eventually I plan on paying for Neocities hosting, so I can create multiple sites. That's $60 a year. Domain names for OPUILAR, $50 club, and the Onio Cafe will be another $40 a year. And, though this would be a bit ambitious, if the Onio Cafe ever becomes "popular" enough - meaning a high-rate of web traffic and users posting in the chatroom - I would need to upgrade the chatroom box. Currently it supports 10 clients at once, which is not a lot. From what I understand, that means only 10 people can access it at the same time, and most of those are typically anonymous browsers who choose not to post at all. Upgrading would be $90 per year.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but costs would hover around $200 per year to cover everything I'm hoping to create, which is really not bad, but given money is typically tight for me, I'd like for my miscellaneous web projects to cover themselves. So I'm thinking about opening a small webshop that would be thematically related to Onio Cafe - selling little pixel stickers of various things you might find when visiting your typical cafe, and perhaps other little thematically related knick-knacks.

That shop would probably be on Ko.fi, and I would include a cafe "menu" webpage that linked to each product individually. If it brought in maybe 20 sales per year, that would cover the operating costs. My goal would be integrating it smoothly into Onio Cafe, and avoid eliciting the feeling that I'm trying to sell to the visitor. I want it to provide some experiential value, making the products and the menu page fun to look through, without pressuring sales and making it clear that sales just go back into supporting my little network of websites.

My question to you, the reader, would be.. would having a link to the webshop turn you off from visiting the site, or if its done in a fun way, make the site more enjoyable?

So to recap, I would like to be running: www.onio.cafe (domain not yet ordered), OPUILAR (link directory project), 50dollar.club (domain not ordered, forum and webclub for enthusiasts of cheap computing).

Goals for Onio.cafe specifically: polish the website, order that domain, become a Neocities subscriber/supporter/paying customer, upgrade the chatbox to support web traffic if needed, open a webshop for Onio.Cafe that will sell affordable, fun little cafe-themed knick-knacks to hopefully cover the costs of running all these various projects.

What are your thoughts? Feel free to use the comment form or just post in the chat box!

- Onio

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