I’ve been out of pocket for a few days. My brother X was out here for the weekend, visiting from across the country, plus I’m busy plugging away at the new blog design. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, at some point in the very near future, What’s Cooking at DD will be changing into a new and improved blog. We have a new name, a new URL, and a new fresh look. I’m also very excited to say that we’ll have a new contributor to the blog, who will share his thoughts on some new topics that we’ll be talking about. I’d share more, but then that would ruin the surprise!
As I start doing the design and layout, I’d love to hear any feedback you all have about our current blog. What things do you like? What things don’t you like? What things do you want to see more of? What do you want to see less of? Anything you’d like to share, we’d love to hear (including constructive criticism.) We want the new blog to be a place that you all will enjoy visiting and reading, so we’ll try to integrate your comments into our new design (assuming they’re feasible and make sense to us ;))
We’re also planning an exciting giveaway for the launch of the new site. The prize is currently being debated, but it’s looking like it’s between $100 to Amazon or a $100 VISA gift card. Which would you prefer? Or would you like to see something else? Another option would be to have multiple prizes. It’s going to be a scavenger hunt type contest (ie. find the post that talks about XYZ) and we could do a $50 prize for the first person to complete, $25 for the second person, and another $25 for a random entrant. These are all just ideas though – nothing is solid and I CAN be swayed to go one way or another.
Anyways, I just wanted to keep you all up-to-date so you know what’s going on and will understand why things slow down on What’s Cooking while we gear up the new blog. Thanks in advance for your patience and I hope you all are as excited as I am!
Peace and Blessings,
Miriam
denise says
June 8, 2010 at 3:09 pmI hate scavenger hunts on websites, but that's just my opinion. I think the visa gift card is a nicer option than amazon.
Lauralee Hensley says
June 8, 2010 at 3:20 pmDitto, hate scavenger hunts on websites, I quickly lose interest in them. Visa gift cards are better in my opinion too.
This is just an idea and I don't know if your systems have the capability to track everyones points or not, but why not do a earn points thing like this: For every article you read, whether a giveaway one or not that you comment on, you earn points towards a near end of the year prize that only people who achieve in the top 25% of point earners can enter for, like a nice Visa Gift card. I don't know though, maybe that doesn't seem fair to the newer visitors and readers to your blog. Just a thought.
Miriam T. says
June 8, 2010 at 4:10 pmHm… I like you're thinking. I think that would probably require having some sort of user account creation or cookie tracking.
Ultimately, the goal of the scavenger hunt was to re-introduce some of the popular reviews/giveaways that we've hosted, so that the old content doesn't get lost in oblivion. Maybe making it a simple “Share your favorite post/giveaway” question? I also want to provide an incentive to re-subscribe/follow/fan our different feeds since many of them will be changing with the site.
Thanks for your feedback though! You've been providing great food for thought. 🙂
John Darrow says
June 8, 2010 at 6:50 pmI'd have a slight preference for the Visa over the Amazon GC, but I know there's a fee to you to provide the Visa, and that's stronger than my slight preference otherwise. So I'd go with the Amazon.
Karissa says
June 22, 2010 at 5:22 pmLove the new look!! Keep up the great blog!!