Weblog

It has been a crazy couple of weeks around the office. No matter how much you plan for it, you never quite know exactly how a site launch is going to go. You aren’t sure if people are going to like your work, how much traffic you are going to receive, and what the community response is going to be like.

It is even more nerve racking when it is your own website going live. There is no creative brief, client direction or outside forces involved. It is just your ideas exposed to the world, and if it is not well received, you only have yourself to blame. To raise the stakes even higher, it was the official launch of Foundation Six as a business, so it was crucial that this project launch went smoothly.

Success

I am happy/relieved to report the August 3rd launch went off (almost) without a hitch. Feedback was fabulous, community support was overwhelming, and the inquiries are already rolling in, which is ultimately the single most important aspect. The only hiccup was a couple of closely timed tweets from a few influential individuals sending a volley of traffic to the site. Due to my omittance of page caching and the purchase of the lowest level hosting package, the server went screaming. Thank goodness Engine Hosting is responsive and forgiving, and quickly allowed for more bandwidth during the busy period.

The site has now been featured on several gallery sites, including: CSSREMIX, Best Web Gallery, CSS Mania, Creattica, Patterntap, and Line 25.

Traffic figures have been overwhelming to say the least. In the first week, almost 24,000 unique visitors stopped by foundationsix.com, over 58,000 pages were viewed, 2.5 pages were viewed per visit, and 2:32 was spent on the site by each user.

These kind of results certainly didn’t come without some assistance, and there are some fantastic people that I need to mention.

Thanks

Christian Ross: My cohort at noteandpoint.com, Christian has writing skills that don’t come along every day. It is great to know that I have someone to take my rough ideas, and finely finesse them before delivering them to the world. No, he did not polish this post, or it would have been much more eloquent.

Nol Franklin: A man of few words but of many solutions, Nol spends his days making sure that things run smoothly in the beast that is IE, so you know he is a great asset to the team. He is an EE whiz and can write you some custom jQuery faster than you can blink. I can definitely see us working together in the near future.

Cameron Moll: To my luck and surprise, Cameron has helped me launch the last couple of projects merely by using the voice he has earned over the years on the internet. Due to the sheer size and loyalty of his following, I have to say his tweets and comments have greatly contributed to the success of both projects. I really appreciate it, Cameron.

Jesse Bennett Chamberlain: Man, am I lucky to have a friend like Jesse. He has helped me so much along the way with my transition from traditional print media into the digital design realm. The amount of time and patience he has put into me is practically divine, and as a bonus prize I get to learn from one of the most talented interactive designers in the world. I truly hope there is something I can do to help him out someday.

Some other people that are mention worthy include Noah Stokes, Simon Collison, Mike Precious, Chris Bowler, Engine Hosting, and Lacey Battaglio. While each of you helped in a different capacity, be it through a tweet or reviewing mockups for me, I appreciate the role you played, and I hope I have a chance to work with you all in the future.