Now that you understand a bit about where the seed for WritAnon came from, the next logical question is what direction WritAnon will go in the near future.
The site goals by the end of this year are fairly straightforward:
- The site will be self-sustaining.
- The forum will have 200 members by January 1st, 2010.
- The blog will be updated at least once every week.
We’ve already made some progress towards reaching these goals, and plan additional changes to help us achieve each goal.
2009 Goal 1. The site will be self-sustaining.
There are two aspects of this goal–the first is that the site is self-sustaining because users are answering each other’s posts. Because of this, one near-term focus for WritAnon will be to enhance member’s creativity through inspirational posts (a new feature added this week), topics on this blog, and posting interesting topics in the forums. We have also added three new forums for users to participate in: Songwriters & Poets, Children’s Stories, and Scientific & Technical Writers.
The second aspect of this goal is that WritAnon become financially self-sustaining. This aspect is subservient to user’s experiences–in other words, while advertisements are necessary, we will not use advertisments that interfere with your experience such as pop-ups or annoying overlays.
Towards this goal, this week, we added Google advertisements to our site in an attempt to pull in some advertising dollars. We will also be pursuing other advertising methods, which will be unveiled as the features supporting them are completed.
2009 Goal 2. The forum will have 200 members by January 1st, 2010.
In a similar vein to the first aspect of Goal 1, in order to be self-sustaining, we need to have enough participating members to have a reasonable number of posts each day.
To this end, we’re in the process of creating an advertising campaign. In the meantime, we have also created a Refer A Friend page where you can send an invitation to friends so they can take a look at WritAnon. We have also uploaded a free flyer for users to post at their colleges, libraries, or coffee shops (or anywhere else that you happen to know writers frequent). Please also invite your friends to join — all writers are welcome.
2009 Goal 3. The blog will be updated at least once every week.
This goal is a more personal goal. In order to force myself to write more often, I want to update the blog each week with current WritAnon events as well as making site improvements. This will help me to become more creative, and hopefully give other writers some interesting topics to think about.
Updates to the site this week:
- Three new forums: Songwriters & Poets, Children’s Stories, and Scientific & Technical Writers.
- Refer A Friend page created and active
- WritAnon Flyer created and made available
- Random inspirational story selector made available
Continue to watch for additional features as they appear, as well as a special holiday blog post on July 4 (Independence Day in the United States). See you in the forums!
