Gamebrit, my gaming website that myself and a good friend currently run, which I recently blogged about here, is running it’s first competition (details here). It’s simple to enter and a £10 iTunes voucher is up for grabs. All you have to do is be a member of the Gamebrit forum community with 10 or more posts. The Gamebrit Forums are a place for like minded gamers to come together to discuss ;
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Tag: forum
I have mentioned Gamebrit on several occasions during the life of my blog, and for those of you who keep track I last posted about it all the way back in July. Since then the site has gone on to launch and is currently in it’s third month, more details about it’s early development can be found in this March blog posting.
During the development of the site I had a number of people asking me which content management system the site was running, and I can now reveal that the site is running on the relatively unknown CMS ‘Adapt CMS‘. The Adapt CMS website explains the system as so:
AdaptCMS is a PHP CMS that is made for complete control of your website, easiness of use and easily adaptable to any type of website. It’s made easy with advanced custom fields, a very simple but powerful template system and much more.
The system is far from perfect but it is really simple to use, easy to customize, and get to grips with and the support is superb, friendly and personal, so it’s a CMS worth checking out.
As for the sites success, I mentioned back in my January ‘Goals for 2008‘ post that launching the site and making a success of it was one of my many aspirations for the year. The post details that I wanted the site to be reaching a target audience of around 15k uniques per month before the year is out, and thankfully the site is well on the way to reaching that target, with a growing popularity month on month, with it currently averaging around 8,000 uniques. I will revisit my 2008 goals, once the year is over, so be sure to check that to see if I make a success of it.
Finally, if your into gaming, then be sure to check Gamebrit out, join the forum community, oh and please do follow the site, and it’s two owners (myself and Leo Worsdale) on twitter!
Apologies for the lack of updates in the past week, it’s been a busy one!
Goal number eight in my goals for 2008 is to launch gaming site Gamebrit, I briefly mentioned it in the linked blog entry, but today I am going to go into more details as to what to expect.
Development on the site began just before Christmas, with the basic design being completed (see blog image for a sneak peak). The site is currently functioning and running on a good content management system, currently I am just adding content, and of course games into the database, which is taking far more time than I would like. I could outsource this menial work, but trying to keep costs down is key.
The site, as you may have guessed is going to focus on gaming, specifically within the UK. I hope to eventually be able to interview, and run features on UK game development houses and studios. I have successfully gained a foot in the UK gaming industry before (although a small one) so I see no reason why I cannot do it again with a more focused site.
In addition to the aforementioned CMS, which I will touch upon in more detail in a later post, I will also be implementing a forum to hopefully gain some community around the site; a collection of UK gamers, interested in the development of the UK in the gaming industry, oh and bloody good writing.
I initially wanted the site to be ready this month, but due to lengthy input processes I can see this being knocked back. Either way I will keep you updated on it’s progress, this post was really just to let you know, and because I am excited about the opportunities the site will bring. Any questions or comments, just leave your thoughts in the comment section.
This review is part of my free blog review offer.
Bloggin-Ads impressively aims to review a new blog every single day. The owner claims that his inspiration for creating the site was to enable smaller sites to get some exposure along with helpful advice, and I admire that goal.
This site has a really impressive backlog of blog entries, and as although it may not be an actual review every day, it appears Mike and his wife sure have been posting consistently since the blog started in October of last year (see archives). The daily posts made are informative, detailed, and in some instances can offer solid advice and ‘food for thought’ for any blogger. All posts offer up social link options, like bookmarking and adding to digg for example, a good move which will help bring in new and returning visitors. Other positive social aspects of the blog include MyBlogLog and Blogosphere widgets among others.
Additionally to Mike and Michelle posting on Bloggin-Ads the site also employs an interesting user-content style approach which allows registered users the opportunity to have their own review(s) posted. These reviews can be about a blog of the users choosing, and of course their own. This is a unique way of gaining additional content, and a nice way for start up bloggers to get some external exposure and link-backs. It’s like guest blogging for all, an open way for the blog owners to get more blog posts, and more importantly they can pick and choose.
The site has an About page which actually informs the reader what the site is about, it’s inspirations, and it’s overall goals, if only the same could be said for mine! More blogs, mine included, need to work on there about pages. Here is a good post from Skelliewag about writing a good about page. Other pages include the advertising page, which offers up ;
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Happy New Year! I hope you all have a great 2008 and achieve all that you aim to. (Also to bring in the new year, a congratulations from Scott at mythermos.com for winning my small holiday entrecard contest.)
Now as for my plans for 2008, these include goals for my blog, my sites and personal aims:
1. Get a custom blog design:
Mainly a goal I hope to achieve far before 2008 is even close to finished, I want to give ChrisBrandrick.com it’s own look and feel. It’s commonly known that using a public free theme (despite their merits) is frowned upon. Having a design unique to me gives my blog an identity, a brand, and recognition. John Cow has ;
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Vista Talk UK is a UK based forum for discussion on Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista.
I first opened Vista Talk UK back in November of last year but never really gave it much attention, over time the forum has grown, and with a little promotion now has over 200 hundred members. Unfortunately I suspect half of said members are not genuine and are merely bots. The forum has little content, but I believe the domain and the few genuine members may be of worth, especially if sold to the right buyer.
Due to other projects such as Webmaster Play, Halo Three UK, and more I have decided it is time to sell on the forum. If you are interested in owning a Vista forum with a premium UK discussion based domain then feel free to contact me for more details.
Having been working in the online space for a few years now I have always been interested in visiting webmaster forums, learning new things, seeing whats new and so on. I first started online covering one of my main passions; videogames.
So late last year I decided to try my hand at creating a webmaster forum exclusively for gaming webmasters, sure the idea isn’t fresh, but the current offering are clearly lacking. Unfortunately due to several reasons, mainly due to other projects and a lack of time I never started work on the idea despite having plans, and designs in place. Recently work has began on the project and is currently being worked on, I have obtained the .net and .com extension but I have nothing to show at the minute bar a boring frontpage!
Keep an eye on WebmasterPlay as hopefully upon completion it will be far more than just another webmaster forum. Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.