CJGraphix - The Business of Freelance

My very own twitter unfollower tracker ... who.unfollowed.me

I've always believed in working on personal projects to keep yourself sharp. Recently, it seems like twitter apps are all the rage, so it was time for me to build a twitter app. About 9 months I wrote a little script that let me track who had unfollowed me on twitter. I quickly snagged the domain name unfollowed.me and let the script sit there... dormant.

Another resolution I had for 2010 was to FINISH projects I start. Considering how long ago I started who.unfollowed.me it was about time I finished the app up and launched it. So here it is. http://who.unfollowed.me

The 'Wrapped' Cover Party

These projects aren't about prizes, or even street cred for that matter. Just about doing SOMETHING... I even cheated and used the Chipotle Burrito in mine.

I think it's awesome that the people below participated. I hope that they continue to participate and challenge themselves with each new project. February's project will be announced later this week!

Here they are: (in no particular order)

Andrea - MadeAwesome - @viandrea

Jenny - JointKustody - @superjenny

Collin - cjgraphix - @cjgraphix

Eric - www.ericpantoja.com - @eip56

Tim - duzodesign - @timothymarshall

Twenty10, proving I am still a designer

So, I've been in the web space for almost my entire career... but how did I get here. Graphic Design. Layout, Text and Images, Quark Express. Can I get a what what for Quark Express... okay fine, maybe not. Either way, I had been learning print design for almost a decade before I went off to college to become a Graphic Artist.

Here we are now, ten years post graduation and all my portfolio shows is web work, cause that's really all I have done. No more!

For christmas this year I requested, and received, 'Creative Grab Bag - inspiring challenges for designers, illustrators and artists'. And every month I am going to select a project from the book and get back to my roots as a designer.

Without further aduei, project January.

Packaging Design: Design a Magazine Cover

Client: Wrap (Wrapped?)

Description: A monthly food culture magazine. (pick any month)

Demographic: 32-40yr / Women (70%) / College Graduates / $75k - $100k/yr

Size: 8in x 10.5in, Full Color

Deadline: January 29th

So, that's it! or is it...

This isn't just for me. It's for you too. Yes you. Leave a comment to get in on the action, and then comment and leave a link to the work when completed. I'll do a wrap up post with the entires on Feb 1st!

Columbia Riverkeeper Relaunches

I'm happy to report that the Columbia Riverkeeper (CRK) have a brand new website thanks to their Program Administrator Kelly Nokes. She stepped in, after almost 18 months of a stalled project, as my contact person inside CRK and getting the website launched was her responsibility. Together the lines of communicatiion opened up and we worked together to launch the new CRK site.

The site is stictly an informative one, but CRK now has the ability to use the CJG CMS and make consistent and continual updates to keep their memebers and volunteers up to date on programs and CRK related news and events.

To be a magpie, or not to be a magpie

If you've been on twitter for any amount of time you have probably heard people tweeting about 'Magpie', or seen some tweets with the #magpie hashtag. Even under the threats of being unfollowed I decided to sign up to Magpie and really see what all the fuss was about, after all the worst thing that could happen was I would make a few hundred dollars a month like Be-A-Magpie told me.

If you head over to http://www.be-a-magpie.com/ you'll see that you can 'covert your tweets into bling bling'. Now how does be-a-magpie do this? Magpie is an ad network for twitter where advertisers first create ad campaigns using keywords. Those keywords are matched up to tweeters based on their tweets, and ads are then 'blended' into your tweet streem. Seems like a pretty cool idea, but unfortunately lots of people on twitter are not interested in having random ads placed into their tweet stream and have said they would unfollow anyone who had a magpie tweet. To date, I've had 5 magpie tweets and have not had anyone unfollow me directly after the tweet.

I've seen a lot of additional features added to Be-A-Magpie since I signed up. This is a brief overview of some of the things you can do with your account.

Tweet to Ad Ratio:

This is the number of times you have to tweet before Magpie will tweet on your behalf. Right now I have mine set to 3 tweets to 1 ad, but Magpie can't fill those numbers. I am lucky if I see 1 Magpie tweet for every 500 of my own tweets.

Customize Hashtag:

The default setting is the hashtag #magpie in front of the tweets, but you have the ability to change the hashtag, or completely remove it. I've gone ahead and removed it, but only because I can approve that ads are placed inside my stream. If the magpie ad isn't something I would promote anyway, I don't approve it.

Pre-Approval:

This is by far my favorite feature. As magpie finds ads that might be appropriate in my stream they ask me to approve the ad before they tweet on my behalf. As it stands right now I've only approved 3 ads, while I've declined about a dozen. I tend to approve ads that look like they are something I would normally tweet about, and decline ads that just look like spamtastic garbage.

Let's not forget all the standard account settings available as well, changing password, entering more personal data, deleting your account. All these things are also possible through Magpie. Finally thought, we get to the good stuff. The money... right?

In a month Magpie placed a total of 5 tweets into my stream for a grand total of $4.80. Now a couple hundred like Magpie thought it could get me.

Is Magpie worth it?

As an income stream Magpie hasn't proved to be worth anything. I think that is a direct result of Magpie not having the ad inventory available to really turn anyones tweets into serious bling bling. At the rate I'm going with Magpie it will take me about a year to be able to cash out. As it stands now I've had the 'You're ready for a magpie-tweet! Hold on, it'll soon be aired.' alert on my account for at least a week.

Will I stay a magpie... sure, why not? I'm not losing anything from being a magpie, and if they want to tweet for me once or twice a month for about a dollar, than so be it.