As usual, I have been paying close attention to the feedback I get from my email newsletters, comments made to me in person, so on and so forth. And let me tell you, there have been some really good ideas thrown at me. In fact, I liked them so much that I'm actually going to incorporate ALL of them!
Here are just three of the suggestions and things you can expect to see implemented within the first few weeks of 2010:
- Create a Tool Bar - I'm currently testing out my very own tool bar that my fans can download and attach to their web browser. The "Shenole Latimer Tool Bar" will have feeds for my news updates, performance calendar/alerts, google powered search engine, and some other goodies. The information is brought to the tool bar in real time. So, as soon as I post a performance or a news item, you will receive the information on the tool bar, without cluttering up your email inbox.
- Provide RSS Feeds - Both the tool bar and RSS feed ideas were ones suggested to me as an alternative option for fans who may want to keep up with what I'm doing, but not be on my email list because they already receive so much email from other sources. Or, because they don't always have time to visit my website, blog, facebook, myspace, etc.
An RSS feed, for those who don't know, is just a way to subscribe to and receive content that you like to read, without needing to spend the time visiting those particular websites that they come from. Instead, the RSS feed (stands for Real Simple Syndication) sends you any new postings. - Interactive Map on My Website - This is a fun one! Someone had commented to me that they thought it would be cool if I had a map showing where all of my appearances are so that fans can get a sense of all the different places I travel to.
So, I have set about marking off all of my 2010 performances and appearances on a dedicated google map that will be posting on the events page of my website in the beginning of January, 2010. The map will be interactive in that you can zoom in and out on any location, click on a marker to find out a little bit about that particular appearance, and even get directions directly to any location that you select.
I think I will have it on satellite view so that you can have fun seeing what each location actually looks like.
In addition to implementing these ideas and suggestions, I would also like to perform a number of tweaks on my website. Mostly, these tweaks have to do with the inconsistency with how my website appears on different web browsers. In other words, people who use AOL see it differently than the people who use Internet Explorer older than 7.0, who in turn see it differently than the people who use Firefox, and so on.
Things are simply not as easy when it comes to website design as they were even just 2 or 3 years ago. With the introduction of all the new web browser releases designed to take advantage of the potential of Web 2.0, it's becoming much more difficult (or at least I'm finding it that way) to come up with "universally accepted" website designs.
Well, time to bring this blog post to a close. Thanks for all of your feedback and suggestions. Keep them coming!
