Transcript

It's tough being a creative professional.

I'm not talking about the professional aspect - while getting a job can be challenging, they do exist, and for those with the right skillset easy enough to find.

No, it's more the creative aspect that troubles me sometimes - specifically, something which I'll describe as creative dishonesty.

I'm not talking about dishonesty in the traditional sense here - not plagiarism, or anything along those lines - but more of a perversion of a creative goal through bending to external forces.

Most of us have created something for the sheer joy of the creative process - whether doodling in a margin, or on some grand magnum opus.

It's this love of the creative pursuit that draws us to the creative industry - a pursuit of an aesthetic ideal, a purity and perfection we strive towards.

It sounds a bit high-art, airy-fairy, and I suppose it is - but nevertheless it's certainly a force that drives my own work.

So, creative dishonesty is a magnetic attraction to something other than this purity during a creative process - something which alters the nature of the work.

So, what are these influences? Ha, well - the major one should be fairly obvious. Money.

The 'starving artist' is an ascetic stereotype associated with devotion to the aesthetic - poverty being the consequence of pursuing an unprofitable avenue.

The real world is a harsh mistress, and demands tribute - bills to be paid, tools to be bought.

However, for most creative professionals sustaining a moderately comfortable lifestyle isn't too difficult - although this comes at a cost of a loss of creative control.

Working for somebody else, either in a salaried position or as a freelance sort, working for clients - shifts the focus from satisfying a higher aesthetic, to satisfying a superior.

It's an unfortunate but necessary tradeoff to sustain a living through creative pursuit.

Independent creatives normally have it easier - artists, musicians and writers can retain creative ownership of their work - but the insidious influence of profitability remains.

All too often, that which I'm driven to do is all too different from what I will do to sustain a living.

It's at such times that terms such as 'sell-out' are bandied about - a truly detestable term, and one that implies that artists and content creators should hold themselves to a higher regard then their audience might.

Nobody inhabits an office under someone else's employ for 8 hours every weekday because their creative soul and essence insists upon it. We do it because we have to, else face poverty and hardship.

So, is it bad to allow creative work to be influenced by money?

Assuredly not - a world with only the purest of art would be devoid of much, as you'd eliminate anything resembling pop culture with one fell swoop.

No television show would ever be commissioned without consideration for its audience, no film ever funded if it didn't kowtow a little to cinema's populist side.

There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.

Such influence isn't discrete, however - there's a sliding scale between this mythical aesthetic ideal, and a pure-for-profit work.

Most works fall somewhere in the middle, with some bearing greater influence than others.

And so, to a conclusion, of sorts - sadly no black-and-white resolution to be found.

Is it OK to permit money to influence your creative work? Absolutely - an artist needs to eat.

Is it better to limit money's influence? Absolutely - creative control is a valuable thing, and to produce something under freer constraints is better than with interference from one's paymasters.

Any true artist will feel the pull of the pure in doing their work - most of us aren't cold-hearted mercenaries.

Aside from the money, I get much more satisfaction from doing something unprofitable than I might when employed as a creative-for-hire.

We all do what we must; and a commissioned creative work that has the funding to see fruition is better than an idea that remains bound by some higher goal.

As with so many things, balance is the key to this compromise. Value the pure work you see, but don't disparage the profitable - they might yet fund something wonderful.

Troll face: Perhaps one of the more recognisable memes, or 'rage faces', troll face is an archetypal caricature of those with mischievous intent.

Memes have seen a surge in popularity of late; to the point where they're almost a de facto means of impersonal communication.

Of course, we're talking about internet memes here, rather than the Dawkins-derived overarching concept of reproductive ideas - such as the term 'meme' normally implies.

Memes come in many forms - but they share a number of traits, including brevity, familiarity - and a heavy lean towards visual delivery.

Highly Visual Content

Rage comics are typically 4-panels long, use well-established and recognisable 'rage faces' for expression, and tell a simple story in a direct way - with the fourth panel being the reaction or outcome.

While memes can be text-based, the overwhelming majority comprise an image - and can be likened to a simplified comic in format, with either a single panel, or a number of equal panels (conventionally, 4).

While the format isn't entirely rigid, a large majority of memes will play to this common structure - enhancing familiarity, and reducing the need to supply context to the image.

4-panel comics are generally known as 'rage comics', and usually focus on telling a story - with the last panel almost universally being a simple expression or reaction to the outcome of the preceding story.

These comics employ 'rage faces' - simple caricatures and stereotypes - that convey emotion and motivation in a very straightforward way.

Image macros consist of a single image, with two lines of text. Similar to a joke in structure, their visual cue sets up the context of the joke, while the text completes it.

Single-panel comics are generally known as 'image macros' - and employ a single, established image - normally a caricature of some kind - and two lines of text.

These serve as great ways to tell a simple story, with the image providing quick context - and the text structured as a classic joke, with set-up above and punchline beneath.

The image, in combination with the distinctive coloured backgrounds for each caricature, means that much of the meme's communication is done visually, without the need to read the text.

This visual format lends itself to accessibility, and when combined with the familiarity of a rigid format, grants near instant context to a typical meme.

Instant Accessibility

Repeated use of the same image gives memes their own in-built context, one that is processed on an almost sub-conscious level, and is capable of transcending language barriers.

This instant gratification, without the need for investment, is part of what makes memes so easily digestible - reading even a short joke in a text format requires far more effort than simply glancing at a picture.

Another critical aspect to the success of memes is the ease with which they may be shared: sharing is essential for memes like these to propagate.

Conducive to Sharing

quickmeme is a site specifically designed around the creation and distribution of image macros. [quickmeme.com]

Sites such as 4chan, Reddit, and more recent social contender, 9gag are perfect platforms for posting single images, and indeed are quite prolifically populated with memes.

Posting images to someone's facebook wall, emailing or via IM are all quick and simple ways for memes to propagate - and given their near-universal accessibility, they've seen substantial distribution though a large number of channels.

For those lacking the ability to even upload an image, there exist sites that facilitate the creation of established memes with barely any friction at all - QuickMeme being the most popular example.

It's this combination of instant accessibility, universal context and ease of sharing that define internet memes - and defines much of their popularity.

Tailor-made for a viral internet culture

These familiar images, some crudely drawn, others simply crude - are tailor-made for the purpose they fit. The more successful the meme, the more likely it is to be shared - meaning that the purest, most accessible memes rise to the highest prominence.

None of these are high art, nor is a single image macro a particularly worthy creative contribution - but, they do serve as a lightweight encapsulation of a single idea, and as such are ideally suited to the medium they're distributed on.

The scale of the internet means that there is more information readily accessible than ever before - and the emergence of a meme is an artefact of this information overload.

Reading a paragraph of text is not a grand task by any means - but when presented in competition with something more easily digestible, seems like an almost herculean expense of effort.

It's a shame, for those of us who prefer content with a little more meat - but it's just evidence of a shift in communication in the internet age. Memes are the equivalent of idle chatter - they're not supposed to be deep, or meaningful - but a simple way to express ideas and tell short stories.

For this purpose, they're ideal - and while the concept of an internet meme might evolve, I suspect we'll see such lightweight and easily digestible content endure.

Charlie Bit My Finger: The most viewed video on YouTube - 194 million views. Even home videos can rival Hollywood viewing figures, with the help of the internet. [youtube.com]

The Internet has grown up. Far from the preserve of a geeky few it once was, there's no doubting the potential mass-market that lies largely untapped in the online world.

Content that truly goes 'viral' achieves attention of astronomical scales; The most popular video on YouTube stands at nearly 200m views, and there are presumably thousands more videos with multi-million view counts.

Non-technical, accessible content

Any content that gets a lot of attention has one thing in common: it must have been liked by a sizeable proportion of its audience. Any content that's divisive, relies on certain knowledge or interest, or is less accessible to those outside its intended audience, will not likely reach a 'critical mass' needed for it to go viral.

Make content everyone can relate to

The Simpsons: Demonstrative that topics and scenarios with widespread relevance attract larger audiences than so-called 'cult' shows.

Consider soap operas - tales of everyday people enduring everyday drama. Events and topics relevant to most will appeal to the widest possible audience. Compare, for instance, Matt Groening's 'The Simpsons' and 'Futurama' - both similarly structured TV series, one about a common, dysfunctional family, and another about a dead-beat time traveller flung far forward to the future.

The more familiar, family setting of The Simpsons has helped secure widespread popularity and success for over 20 years now - while Futurama has more of a cult fan-base, and was cancelled after 4 seasons. It's not a question of quality - but relevance. The escapism of science fiction, although a draw for some, cannot match the resonance that the family scenes the Simpsons provide.

Referencing already popular culture doesn't hurt

Weezer's 'Pork and Beans': When popular and internet cultures collide. 21 viral references in a little over 3 minutes. [youtube.com]

If you can't be The Simpsons, you can certainly reference them. Popular internet culture - 'memes' are ripe for recycling and producing content. Something the 'Cheezburger' network has certainly taken to heart.

While memes tend to be quite temporal, and short-lived - you can get away with referencing the popular ones in an effort to leverage their popularity. If you're into merchandising, you could even consider starting a T-shirt company and specialise in riding memes into the ground.

Be fun, humorous, funny, or light-hearted

Break: Popular site built on a solid foundation of humorous content. [break.com]

Jokes and games are popular entertainment

If you can't be interesting, you can at least be funny. Humour has long been a part of the more popular sites on the internet. Some of the oldest 'viral' websites relied primarily on humour for their effect - venerable site 'TheSpark.com' gained some attention through a combination of interactive tests and comical projects such as 'stinkymeat'.

The Onion have been long-term purveyors of internet humour, carrying on the tradition of the print-based magazine since 1996. Consistent output has seen them placed in the top few thousand websites worldwide for traffic for most of their lifespan.

Humour lends itself to sharing with others

Sharing a joke with friends has a history that predates the internet by some margin, and not much has changed. The amusing, funny or silly is a core element of most popular content, and a sprinkling of levity will encourage people to spread the word.

Easily shareable, conducive to 'going viral'

Badger, Badger, Badger: Simple and to the point, with an URL that (although not particularly short) is memorable. [badgerbadgerbadger.com]

Going viral relies on two factors: The first is that the content in question inspires the user to share it with their friends - and the second is that they are able to share it.

Easily shareable URLS for IM and email

Permanent URLs are a must - your users need to be able to share your site with others via IM and email easily. Don't hide your content behind too much AJAX or Flash navigation - ensure they're able to link directly.

Generally speaking, the shorter the URL, the better - if people can memorise your site they'll be able to share it again and again.

Facebook: The current gold standard for social networking, and a platform through which users can easily share links. [facebook.com]

Encourage users to participate through social media

Users will naturally share interesting links with email, IM and social media sites - but you can assist them by providing widgets and buttons for them to do so in one-click. It might not persuade a user to share, but will make it easier should they decide to.

Popular social networking sites include Facebook and Twitter, and more link-oriented sites include Reddit and Digg, although there are many more potential sites, each with their own audience.

Rich, strongly visual content

I Can Has Cheezburger: Cornerstone of a media empire built on pictures of cats with text overlaid. [icanhascheezburger.com]

Oddly enough, text-only content seldom gains massive popularity - most hit content tends to be image or video-based. Audio-visual content is the key as far as viral content is concerned.

Images focus attention

Amusing pictures have long been the staple of internet entertainment - from LOLcats to animated GIFs, the image is a form of currency for exchange online - one only needs to venture over to 4chan to understand the scale of communities devoted to sharing images.

YouTube: Currently the prime place for video content on the web. Member of the Google stables and boasts a potential audience of millions. [youtube.com]

Videos are even better

The only thing better than an amusing image is a short, funny video clip - and YouTube is the perfect platform for video sharing, with an audience ready and waiting to turn an unknown clip into an internet sensation.

With visuals and audio content in perfect unison, there are few formats better for distributing online (bandwidth issues aside) than the humble video. With the typical user's attention span, you need as lively a format as possible.

Instant gratification

YouTube's 'Fred': Video entertainment for the ADHD generation. 1.7m subscribers can't be wrong. [youtube.com]

Non-committed users are impatient

There's no sense in placing obstacles between your audience and the content pay-off. The sooner you cut to the chase and deliver entertainment, the more likely it is casual members of your audience will stick around.

Quicker pay-off means more satisfied before boredom sets in

Long introductions, boring openings and general lack of anticipation will lead to your viewers moving on prematurely - with no chance of sharing your content. Get to the point as quickly as is comfortable, and even the most attention-lacking viewer might stand a chance.

Producing viral content essentially boils down to ensuring you remove any and all obstacles to enjoyment for as wide an audience as possible. You must ensure your subject matter has widespread appeal - and that you are delivering it in an unencumbered, obstacle-free manner - ideally as a video. Also ensure you help users share your video via any means possible, and - with a stroke of luck - you might just manage to reach a large audience.

Twitter has often been derided as a platform for business, since the days when it was the preserve of a few early adopters and tech bloggers. Slowly but surely though, Twitter has become a platform for the masses, and now millions of people find the time to express themselves in 140 characters on a regular basis.

Twitter's popularity of late means that it is a very viable tool for reaching out to your customers - but Twitter's means of direct interaction with individuals in public means you won't be able to adopt standard marketing tactics.

Prime focus is engagement, not advertisement

Twitter is not an advertising platform. Any attempts at conventional advertising will fall flat. To use Twitter effectively you must remember you are directly interacting with people as individuals.

People don't like advertising

A certain degree of self-promotion for business is expected on Twitter, but flat-out and repeated advertising links will get tired quickly. Remember your followers are all opt-in, so a flurry of links might very well see your followers abandon you.

The prevalence of spam advertising on the internet has left most very sensitive to blunter forms of marketing, so advertising shouldn't be your key goal with Twitter as otherwise you'll drive potential followers away.

Engagement is a more natural way to get attention

So what is engagement? Simply put, it's using the means available to you to effectively communicate with a group of people. It doesn't matter if the group you engage with is large or small, engagement is simply making sure as many people within that group feel connected to you.

With Twitter, the two way communication means that engagement is easier than through traditional means; Your audience can respond publicly to your tweets, and you can open a dialogue via the same channel.

Twitter is a very open and free means of communication, and if used correctly can very quickly engender a connection with potential customers. Even those who don't partake in any communication will see that you're open to direct questions and comment - and if you come across well you'll be held in higher esteem.

Engagement comes from interesting tweets

Twitter isn't all about responding to other tweets, of course; Every conversation has an origin point, and to effectively use Twitter you will need to kick-start your own conversations. If you can start something particularly interesting, you'll garner more responses.

Interesting comes in many forms

Precisely what defines an 'interesting' tweet is difficult to pin down - it could be a snippet of news, some product information relevant to discussion, or a link to a blog post or video. How interesting these things are will depend on what your followers are interested in. One thing is clear, your followers have at least one common interest: you.

Tweets you post should have your core appeal and demographic in mind; If you're in the business of selling widgets, you should probably expect your followers to be interested in widget-related content.

Engagement is a two-way street

Of course, once you've started a conversation it's important to read your follower's responses and reply where prudent. A tweet is just a starting point for engagement.

Interaction should be your aim with your tweets

This tweeting to-and-fro, then, is a form of direct interaction with your followers - and is something which you absolutely should be doing. Interaction is an essential part of building relationships (and followers) on Twitter.

Answer your follower's questions...

The simplest way to interact with your followers is to answer any questions they may have. While Twitter might not be the best avenue for customer service enquiries, it's good enough for most queries, and can be used to refer people to the relevant departments if necessary (Twitter, being a public forum, is not the best place for customers to divulge their personal information!).

Customers will appreciate a tweet in response to their question, even if you don't have a solid answer for them - sometimes it's just good to know that someone is listening. Remember, those questions you are currently unable to answer (such as future product release dates or specific details) might make good initiative tweets once you have more information.

...And pose them questions of your own

You don't have to take a passive approach to interaction, of course - you can pose the questions yourself. Tapping into your followers' opinions on relevant topics is a great way to kick-start a discussion - and to obtain useful information on what your customers think.

Any data you might collect from Twitter might not be as methodical as a survey, but you can quite often get a frank and honest appraisal on some topic that conventional means of information gathering might not have picked up on.

Personality is important. Be helpful, humble and human

The general way in which you conduct yourself on Twitter will have implications on the perceived 'personality' of your business. Of course, you want to avoid any negative traits - don't be insulting, dismissive or rude to anyone as anything you tweet will be public (and cannot ever be truly deleted!). You should strive to be pleasant and friendly where possible, to make your business seem as approachable as possible.

Twitter gives your business a voice

The personality you portray via your tweets will extend to more than just the individual posting them; It will colour people's interpretation of the business. Helpfulness is a good trait to have, as it will encourage people to seek assistance where needed, and encourage an open dialogue. Humbleness will help you resist advertising your business too aggressively: you must remember you will have competitors, and to pretend otherwise is foolish. Be prepared to accept your business' shortcomings with good humour, but show willingness to make amends where applicable.

A sense of humanity is also essential; You are not just a business on Twitter, but the manifestation of the business as a personality. In order to interact with individuals you need to take on an individual personality - cold, clinical efficiency will come across as off-putting.

Be open and honest, not closed and defensive

Traditional business communication is very conservative - the inner sanctum of internal operations was seldom broken, and PR extended only to the occasional press release. Twitter (along with blogs, Facebook, and the rest of the social media sites) forms a need for a newer, more open line of communication - one where day-to-day operations are somewhat laid bare through blogs and Twitter updates.

You can spare the gritty dramas of your business, but presenting the good side as openly as possible will help build an approachable Twitter persona. True honesty and openness in your postings (when coupled with a helpful and can-do attitude) will do wonders for customer relations, and for your reputation.

The ultimate aim is to leverage interaction and engagement to build loyalty

If you use Twitter effectively and build a good Twitter personality for your business, getting followers and engagement with your customers will come naturally. Twitter provides a two-way channel for customer's concerns to reach you, and for you to reach out and communicate with your both potential and existing customers.

Using Twitter effectively can build a solid reputation

If you are consistently approachable, friendly, and helpful in a public space such as Twitter you'll quickly cement a reputation as being a good business for customer service. While such a good reputation can be easily tarnished by a few bad experiences, if you work to keep these under control and provide an open outreach for any gripes you will be able to better manage any negativity.

A widespread good reputation isn't something that transpires overnight - it requires a solid customer service team and a long-term commitment to building loyalty in arenas such as Twitter - but no doubt it will make life easier for your business.

Good reputation leads to easier marketing

A good reputation is hard to earn and harder to keep, but will provide good long-term dividends if you can provide a consistent service. Using Twitter to build a solid loyal base of customers is a great start, and those who tweet are quite often to be more vocal than the average customer - keeping those on Twitter happy might very well mean you get glowing reviews on blogs, Facebook and forums.

Twitter isn't a panacea, nor is it guaranteed success in building your business. It is, however, a useful tool for communicating directly with your customers - and a means to demonstrating to the world that you're committed to good customer relations. Twitter won't reward without investment - you need to maintain relationships build with Twitter, and expend effort in keeping up-to-date with messages and tweets, but if done right will be a huge benefit to your business.

Perhaps the most important part of marketing is ensuring the message you wish to send reaches the right group of people. The most effective marketing campaigns tread the line between reach and focus; targeting an effective demographic for the product in question.

You can't target everyone - at least not without an infinite marketing budget - so the most effective campaigns target a specific demographic. To understand how to do this you must first understand how you can separate and designate your target audience.

Geographic Focus

Geographic focus is the simplest scale - it goes from a global scale all the way to the individual, and groups people broadly by their location. You can target people in one town, an entire county or nation - or even pan-culturally: with the internet it's now possibly to target entire swathes of the world easily and effectively. Targeting only English-speaking countries (i.e. US, Canada and the UK) could be one application of this pan-cultural focus.

National campaigns are more traditional, covering one nation at a time for a more unified culture and single currency. New products may be introduced into an even smaller area, so targeting a specific region is also frequently done. In many countries there can be cultural differences across regions - even counties - so campaigns may be targeted to sub-national cultures too.

Regional focus is where things get very specific - usually local-interest campaigns will be for smaller markets - if your product is only applicable to a small group (local publication or services, for instance), there's no sense in advertising outside the local area.

Industry Focus

If you're targeting organisations or institutions, you'll find a similar scale in these markets - a larger number of less-profitable smaller companies, and fewer but larger and more lucrative corporations and govermental organisations.

For the individual, marketing to the larger organisations can be much trickier, but if successful will pay much better. Working as a freelancer, it's wise to bear this in mind - although individuals and small businesses are much easier to find work from, you will seldom get rich from this.

Whether you're part of a large business or an individual yourself, targeting the right type of organisation for your product is essential - leave the specialist, high-intensity items to the high-pay-off clients, and fit the easier to produce, more scalable service to the mass market.

Other Means of Focus

Of course, you can define your key demographic in any way you please - by interest, by income or by gender or ethnicity. Whichever way you choose, the more specific your target the smaller the potential customer pool will be.

A larger group is more difficult to target effectively, but if done right will yield more customers - but mass-market products or services tend to be less profitable overall than some more specialist ones may be. Consider your strategy based on the product you're selling - the right market segment will pay dividends.

Once upon a time, sometime in the heady 'Web 2.0' heyday of mid-2006, I was struck with a flash of inspiration, and decided to start my very own blog - such was the popular thing to do back then. For reasons that escape me I had the domain 'modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk', and such was the venue for my writing.

I was coming to the end of one permanent web design position, and was faced with a bout of freelancing - I think it was the end of full-time employment that inspired me to make an effort more than anything else. Getting popular wasn't my main concern - it was more portfolio-building than anything else, but I was soon to be thrust onto the limelight courtesy of sites such as Digg and Reddit.

And so it was, that Modern Life was to be an unintentional success - 3.6 million page views since its inception, several thousand RSS subscribers, and a healthy four-figure sum in advertising revenue.

Despite all that, the site was not to last: my last post was in December 2007, and Modern Life remains frozen as it was on that date. So why did I stop posting?

The last post coincides with the end of my freelancing sojourn, as I restarted full-time employment in January 2008 - conveniently coinciding with the end of a major freelance job. Starting a new job was a major drain on my time and energy, and it was a blow from which my blogging was to never really recover.

It's only now, some three years later, that I'm finally back in the saddle - so to speak - and writing again. So, the question is, what did I learn from Modern Life - and how do I plan to use my experience to better develop User Interfaced?

The Good

Simplicity is Golden

The one thing I always liked about Modern Life was its simplicity; I tried to be quite restrained in design, streamlining where possible. UI's design is a culmination of that 'bare-bones' ethic, perhaps taken to its extreme. Modern Life was never cluttered, its design intended to be clean, readable, and usable.

At the time of writing, UI is in its infancy and will no doubt see the introduction of more amenities - but I'm approaching the addition of any new features with caution. Simple sites are beautiful.

AdSense Pays, Long-term

Money was never a key concern for my site - I've had a healthy enough income from working as a web designer/developer - but hosting isn't free, so any chance to offset that was definitely a bonus.

It wasn't the most immediate income, but AdSense has been by far the most consistent source of revenue for Modern Life over these last four years. If you're looking for a long-term, slow-burn earnings, AdSense is your best bet.

As UI grows I'll definitely consider AdSense my prime intended source of revenue for the site. As I did with Modern Life, the best way to leverage ad space is to only publish on older articles, meaning that readers who follow the site might never see an advertisement, but those coming from external sources for the first time will. It's a good balance between revenue and intrusion.

Attention Is Easy If You Have The Right Content

In Modern Life's history, I managed to break the front page of Digg some ten or eleven times, yielding the bulk of my peak traffic and laying the foundation for thousands of backlinks.

My commitment to producing good, interesting content where possible was the main factor in this - if you can present a well-structured, strongly visual article on a subject that is both interesting and relevant to your target audience, success will naturally find you.

With UI, I hope to carry on my commitment to producing useful, interesting posts - and if my luck continues, success should find me once more.

It wasn't all good times with Modern Life, though - and some of the more valuable lessons I learned were from the negative experiences I had.

The Bad

Unexpected Popularity is Constricting

I never was a fan of the domain or site name I had chosen for Modern Life - it was too long, and irrelevant to the subject matter. Originally the full title was as per the original URL, 'Modern Life is Rubbish', but I elected to shorten this to 'Modern Life' and redirect the URL to modernl.com.

Getting a decent domain these days is tricky, particularly if you want a short .com address, but I'm reasonably happy with userinterfaced.com, and it has at least some relevance to the topic at hand.

Selling Text Links

I have mixed feelings about text links. On the one hand, they were by far the most lucrative way of making money - but on the other they were borderline-spam, and somewhat restrictive.

The majority of the Text Links I sold were through TextLinkAds, providing a hassle-free interface for selling plain text links to advertisers. Rate of return was good, paying in the region of $80 per month, per slot. I was earning $300-400 per month at my peak via TLA.

I also indulged in some direct selling of links, where I was offered healthy sums of cash for placed links. The majority of these links were on archived articles, but were amongst the most spam-like of links seen on my site.

Although they were well-hidden and none-intrusive, in retrospect I was never too happy with this. I was never dishonest regarding my advertising policy, but I feel you lose some integrity when you sell out portions of your site via text links. They're something that, while lucrative in the short-term, I won't be considering for UI.

Audience Interaction can be Distracting

As much as I appreciated my readership, and loved reading comments and other feedback from them, I found that at times it could have a negative effect on my ability to write. My initial lack of direction and subsequent confusion as to audience expectation made it harder and harder to sate my perfectionism in my work.

I added blog comments at the request of some of my readers, but I found them to be a distraction - they're not only another vector for spam (Akismet was a godsend but they were a drain on time), but added somewhat to the clutter on-site.

With UI, I think it's unlikely I'll ever implement any form of commenting or feedback system - it goes against my bare-bone simplicity philosophy, and is a distraction from writing. Sites such as Digg and Reddit provide a platform for content discussion, with a community already built in, and there's no need to duplicate that functionality with UI.

That's not to say I don't want any feedback whatsoever, of course - but in the case of UI I'm going to favour the more personal, and more easily managed, form of feedback - email. All personal messages are appreciated and gratefully received, but if you want public discussion, take it to your local forum or other community site.

On Perfectionism

For Modern Life, my desire to continually better the previous posts I had made ultimately became crippling, and was ultimately the site's demise.

With UI, I plan to do a lot more writing and a lot less proof-reading and discarding of ideas. Regular posts with a few spelling mistakes and of variable-but-usually-high quality are better than no posts at all.

I expect if User Interfaced ever becomes popular this post will be buried somewhere deep in the archives, but writing is quite a personal thing at heart - and ultimately this post is for my own benefit. I learned a lot from Modern Life, and I plan on taking on board those lessons with User Interfaced, a hopefully more mature - and improved - iteration.

YouTube is a great platform for creating and promoting video content, and with Google's partner program it can be lucrative, too. In order to leverage YouTube effectively, though, a solid subscriber base is essential - more subscribers will ultimately lead to more video view growth, and allow you to reach a wider audience.

Here we're taking a look at three fundamental rules to ensuring steady YouTube subscriber growth.

Video Quantity

The first rule is simple: produce videos, as often as is feasible.

A larger number of videos nets you a larger search cross-section, meaning you will instantly have a leg-up compared to a smaller number of videos. Furthermore, a regular flow of content indicates to your viewers that you are an active producer, giving them much more incentive to subscribe than an apparently-inactive account.

It's critical to properly populate the description and tag fields for each of your videos, ensuring they match your content closely. Extraneous or 'spammy' tags will do you no favours, as viewers will quickly lose attention if they come through an irrelevant search keyword, potentially harming your search strength.

Keep tags strongly focussed - and diverse, as having the same tags on all your videos will reduce your cross-section. It's worth spending a little time on, to ensure you appear in relevant YouTube search results, as many new viewers (and potential subscribers) will find your videos this way.

Video Quantity is a sure way of increasing search cross-section, subsequently traffic, and ultimately subscribers for your videos, but you will find this rule is in conflict with the second - you must ensure consistent quality of your videos.

Content Quality

The second rule: Ensure your videos are of the highest quality possible.

It might help if we can better define 'quality'. Essentially, a quality video is one more likely to entertain, and more likely to encourage a positive response - a 'like', a positive comment, or a subscription.

There are many different factors to this notion, and far too many to effectively cover here - but ensuring your videos are well-written, well-produced and formatted in an interesting way is a good start.

You must ensure your videos are entertaining to watch - and the more entertaining, the better. Pacing is an important factor - you don't want to bore your audience. (I've written more on this here).

There are no hard or fast rules in determining quality, as it's down to your individual viewers. Be sure to value any feedback you get, and factor it into any future videos you produce. If you can, try and visualise your videos from the viewpoint of your audience. The better you can do this, the easier it will be to make improvements.

Understanding your audience is part of the third rule, too - you must be aware of the expectations of your subscribers.

Thematic Consistency and Serialisation

The third rule: ensure thematic consistency in your videos.

This third rule is somewhat more nuanced than the other two; It relates to the theme and topics which you cover in your videos. In essence, you want to ensure a continuum of theme between all the videos you produce.

So what does that mean? Well, say you produced a few videos on a certain topic - a series on 'Car Maintenance', for example. You should ensure that any future videos you publish via that channel are thematically related - interesting to your existing subscriber base. You would risk alienating your existing subscribers if you suddenly started posting videos about knitting, for instance.

When somebody elects to subscribe to your channel, there is an implicit promise your channel makes to produce further videos of relevance to the first. While quantity is important, you must also consider the consistency of your themes.

Having a strongly defined theme will help people to understand your intended niche better, and will also help you when producing future content if you have a clearly defined demographic or interest to produce for. A tightly focussed channel with attract more subscribers.

Another thing you can do is make the implicit promise of future videos more explicit - and running video series is a great way of doing this. If you can come up with a topic that can be covered in multiple parts, serialisation can help build a persistent interest in your channel that will very often lead to an increase in subscribers.

Be sure to emphasise the fact that the videos your viewers watch are part of a greater whole - set up playlists, mention the other episodes in video itself (previewing the forthcoming episode at the end of a video is a great way of doing this!). If your viewers know there are more videos to come - of a similar theme, and of sufficient quality - your subscriber base will see rapid growth.

Creating basic buttons is an important core skill for a web designer, and can lend a sheen of professionalism to any UI. They're not hard to create at all - and this tutorial will take you through the step-by-step process.

For this tutorial, I was using Adobe Photoshop CS3, although any recent edition should suffice.

First of all, you will need to create a new PhotoShop document - exact size is unimportant, but you will need some space to work with. I'd recommend something like 600x400 to work with. Set the background to transparent.

Next, up select the Rounded Rectangle tool. You can either click + hold on the rectangle / polygon tool item and select the rounded rectangle from the pop-up tool menu, or press Shift+U until the rounded rectangle tool is selected.

Ensure the 'shape layer' option is selected at the top of the page.

Select your desired button background colour. In my case I'm using the UI orange, #c45f3a

Next, draw a rounded rectangle of the rough proportions you would like your button to be. You can always change the size later.

Once you've drawn your rounded rectangle, it is desirable to adjust the points to better fit the pixel grid. Select the pen tool for this.

Select the buttons path by Ctrl+Left Click inside the rectangle. Next, hold Control and drag the selection box over the edge you want to move. Ensure all 4 points relevant to that edge are selected.

Use the arrow keys to nudge the points until the edge of the rectangle appears sharp (you may find it helps to add a matte background layer). Repeat this process for each of the four edges.

Next, we can start to add effects to our buttons - select the 'fx' button from the bottom of the layers palette, ensuring the button layer is selected.

I added a 2px internal stroke of a slightly darker shade for my button - you might also consider a subtle drop shadow, or a gradient overlay (a black and white vertical gradient with a blend mode of 'overlay' and opacity of about 30% works well). It's good to experiment here.

Once you're happy with your basic button shape you can add the caption. Select the text tool, then click somewhere on your canvas to start typing.

Drag the text into position and resize it (Ctrl-T to transform) to sit nicely on the button.

You may want to use the arrow keys to nudge the text into position. You can also use the pen tool to adjust the button width for a better fit.

A small drop shadow can help the text stand out a little more on the button - I used 33% opacity, 1px distance and 1px size.

Readjust positions and sizes if needed - once you're finished select Image > Trim to remove any excess whitespace.

Save your newly created button by going to File > Save for Web. Select your desired filetype in the drop-down in the right panel (I would recommend PNG-8 for most circumstances), then click save to choose a filename and location.

All done! Repeat and adjust text / width as necessary. You could even try some CSS hover effects by altering the border style to a highlight colour. You can try it out with this handy pre-made PSD file..