Hello everyone! With v5 development coming close to it’s 1 year finish line (a year already?! How did THAT happen??) I think it’s time we started filling everyone in on what’s been going on, what’s coming up, and to get some user input as we start to put on the finishing touches and polish the chrome. So today my blog is the official v5 update information center for anyone looking for the latest news on the release of the latest version of Pixel2life.com and it’s continued development post release.

Just so [cliches] everyone is on the same playing field and all the cards are down [/cliches] I have obviously noticed the slow down in community involvement on P2L and obviously the lack of participation on the forums compared to a couple of years ago as have many community members have noticed themselves. While tutorial submissions are as high as ever, it seems like overall participation of the traffic is lower and I am looking to address this and bolster the overall traffic and coverage the site receives. Basically this update has two primary goals from my point of view:

1. Increase traffic and user/community participation

2. Increase revenue

Increase Revenue:

Now, before everyone starts screaming about my corporate greed and my blood-lust for money and power and all other worldly possessions, I would like to give everyone a little dose of reality. I have seen people complain about the ads on P2L, complain that I already make a TON of money (apparently I swim and sleep in an in-ground pool filled to the brim with greenbacks), so let me tell you… I WISH! The fact is P2L makes very little money, and this past year has been especially bad with revenues NOT MAKING ENOUGH TO EVEN PAY FOR THE SERVER! That’s right… the server that P2L runs on costs $434 a month, and my last check from Tribal-Fusion was $300 and change. Pixel2life is in fact my FULLTIME job, but obviously with the piss-poor revenue I have had to focus on other things to pay my bills as it’s a tad hard to live on $300 a month. Some months are obviously better when advertising is purchased through the site, but it’s still nothing near what it needs to be to justify committing full-time hours to this project any more.

So how do I plan to address this? More ads? Pop-ups? Bank Robberies? None of the above (well… side)! In fact, we’re going to be going with less ads, especially at launch and I have been looking very hard in to alternative ways of monetizing the site OTHER than hammering people with banner/google ads. Combining these new ideas along with a minimal amount of traditional advertising with solid increases in revenue should turn things around effectively. To tell you the truth, it had better or you might find P2L for sale over at Sitepoint lol! I am no marketing guru and have to admit I know very little in the way of raking in ad money from a site, but I’ve been studying very hard the last few months and have found a number of effective methods that I think will be acceptable to everyone. Not only that, but we are putting together something for our community where YOU will be rewarded for helping us generate revenue and assuring our continued survival. I know it’s a little cryptic at the moment, but it will all be clear in the coming weeks. I am of course always open to ideas on generating revenue, so if you have some tips other than the obvious, please let me know.

But, I can tell you the following in regards to our earning efforts:

– We will NOT be increasing the amount of ads per page in the new version… in fact it will be less in many areas such as the main page and category pages.
– We will NOT employ the use of pop-ups for revenue purposes
– We will be drastically REDUCING the costs of purchasing advertising through our in-house advertising system. For example, all PPC purchases will be a flat rate of 5 cents a click for any campaign size.
– Participating community members will have the opportunity to try our advertising system for FREE with no commitment of making a purchase, no CC information etc. FREE = FREE

Increase traffic and user/community participation:

Due to the waning income and participation on the site, my interest in the project has dropped just short of me packing up shop and moving on to bigger things. The huge delay in releasing v5 hasn’t helped matters and up to now, and you very rarely saw a forum post, news entry or blog post from me… I just haven’t been in to it. I want everyone to know that as we near completion and I get more involved in the daily process with Nick, I am getting more and more excited about this and that I am fully committed to making this the biggest and best release of P2L. I am gearing up for the hard work and campaigning I used to do that got us in to magazine articles, TV show mentions and many other forms of media. I am going to go out there and sell our brand, get us badass prizes and get involved with the community that has made us so successful in the last 5 years. The more I started to think about closing up shop, the more I wanted this refresh, this evolution of the site to be completed so we can show the rest of the tutorial community why we are the best and will always be the best tutorial portal for graphic artists and programmers. P2L has a KICKASS fan base and dedicated staff, it would be stupid to give all that up when you all deserve more than that.

Bottom line here is that I am going all out on this release and the months ahead and you will be seeing my ol’ face a HECK of a lot more than you’ve grown used to in the last year.

We are also working on some exciting new ways of getting the members involved in the community, be it the forums or the tutorials themselves. A brand new reward system will be in place, where you can earn the opportunity to advertise your site with us or take home some awesome loot just for being active on the site! We’re going to be bringing in some hilarious content and goodies of our own for you guys to check out and overall I think you’re going to find the site is “fun” again, rather than a simple list of tutorials with no face attached to it all.

Version 5 is without a doubt our biggest undertaking yet here at P2L and I hope you will join fellow P2L members and keep up to date with the blog updates and I urge you not to hesitate to post any of your comments below by pressing the comment button and using the form to share your thoughts. In fact, if you have any last minute ideas for the site, please go ahead and start sharing them RIGHT NOW, it’s not too late to have them added to the site or to the queue of additional upgrades we want to add to the site after release.

I plan to have news and updates for you guys every few days, so be sure to check back here a couple times a week or grab our RSS Feed.

Thanks!
Dan