Booting Up Content Again in the Near Future - Who's In?

[racketboy]

For those interested, I created a #content channel on our Slack setup.
More info on our Slack here
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=50785&hilit=slack

[Jagosaurus]

I know we mentioned the Framemeister multiple times, but the OSSC is gaining popularity. Might be a good time to get an article up fairly early (compared to the XRGB mini) in its lifespan. RB thread:

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=51213&view=unread#unread

Nick, will PM about writing. I have a 2 week old newborn. Sleep & free time will come eventually

[marurun]

As I have a 7 mo old, most writing is out, but I would be happy to do some editing for grammar, spelling, and style periodically. And actually, I do want to update the TG-16 101 article. I've learned more about the hardware in the past couple years and would like to update the piece to reflect that.

[racketboy]

As I have a 7 mo old, most writing is out, but I would be happy to do some editing for grammar, spelling, and style periodically. And actually, I do want to update the TG-16 101 article. I've learned more about the hardware in the past couple years and would like to update the piece to reflect that.

Cool! If you want to just copy and past the old TG-16, add you extra pieces and send it in, I can then post it for further review before publishing. Might be some low-hanging fruit.

[marurun]

You know, another thing I've wanted to do and simply don't yet have time to (and for which I might need an equally or more knowledgeable partner-in-crime) is a series of technology explainers. Like how does classic 2D display technology work? What's a sprite? What's a tile? How are they generated and displayed? Why do different systems have different limitations and what kinds of limitations do you see? How is 3D processed and displayed? What does the CPU do and what does the 3D accelerator do? What are the different kinds of game audio and how are they generated? What's the difference between PSG, wavetable, FM, samples, and streamed audio? Stuff like that.

[racketboy]

That would be fun

[isiolia]

Maybe a simpler series of articles might be something like "10 great reasons to have suchandsuch console hooked up in 2017" to highlight great games - well known or not - that just haven't been ported or put on digital channels yet. Probably most relevant for ones that aren't as readily emulated.

There was a discussion kinda-sorta along those lines regarding the Dreamcast, but it might also be a great place to put some of the suggestions that don't quite make the cut for defining or hidden gem articles.

[dsheinem]

Hey, Nick, in the discussion around new content...has the idea of changing the name of the site been seriously considered? Similarly, has there been much discussion of how to successfully promote that new content in a modern web context? Is there someone (you?) who will be doing the leg work on building visibility/visits/shares/likes? think that, for me, I'd want to know if those things are in place before committing a lot of time to do writing, production, etc.

[racketboy]

I have seriously considered the name change, but I don't currently feel like it is the right move. As unconventional as the name is, it does have a great deal of recognition in the community. SEO is strong as well. Even with YouTube being an emerging medium for retro content, I still think traditional text has a great deal of value.

I haven't really announced it, yet but a new modern site design is underway both for the blog and forum. Hopefully completely responsive design and something that should feel modern for a handful of more years. It's a bit of an investment, but should help a lot.

I'm working on some content myself and I know there's a handful of others that are tinkering.

Once the ball gets rolling, I hope to start driving more social media things and try to spend more time myself on both content and promotion.

[Ziggy587]

I have seriously considered the name change, but I don't currently feel like it is the right move. As unconventional as the name is, it does have a great deal of recognition in the community. SEO is strong as well.

I think a name change / rebrand would be a huge mistake. As you said, Racketboy does have recognition in the community. I feel like it's up there with the most well known retro gaming site, even with the recent lack of new content. Search engine optimization is still definitely strong. Even with the forum participation being much lower than what it was at its height, threads are always coming up in Google searches for me. And they're always toward the top of the first page, too.

The tagline might be a different story, though.

Even with YouTube being an emerging medium for retro content, I still think traditional text has a great deal of value.

I had some loose thoughts regarding this over the past year or two. Don't take this as an argument, or even a serious opinion, just food for thought. I don't think it's right to call YouTube an "emerging" medium for retro gaming. It has fully emerged, and it might be the Internet's single biggest resource for retro gaming content (as it is for other subject matter as well).

(Joking)

That said, there most definitely is still value in traditional text. Some people prefer video, but many prefer text or both. For example, the three biggest wood working YouTube channels that I watch each have their own site. For every video they post, there's also a companion blog entry on the site. Of course, in this context, the text version of the video is important since some people learn from only watching and others learn better from reading and viewing diagrams. But, I feel like most people prefer having both. I say this in the context of building stuff, but I feel like the same applies to videos / blogs in general.

Anyway, as to not go off on too much of a tangent... Have you thought about having more YouTube content? I mean, there's already a Racketboy YouTube channel. There just hasn't ever been many videos on it. Being a retrocentric site, a lot of the user base here either doesn't mind or even prefers blogs / articles to videos. But I'm sure if we polled the forum, there wouldn't be many people (if any) that don't like both. Some topics are right for text, some for videos, but some for either or both. I think it's something to consider.

I had some more thoughts and vague ideas regarding this, but I figure I'll wait to see if there's any strong opinions (one way or the other) before I turn this post into a wall of text.