A new design and what to expect in 2019 from BlogGeek.me?

The new look is here - and it is less… green.

I’m splitting this one into two main parts - the redesign and what’s going to happen in 2019.

BlogGeek.me - Redesigned

When I started this blog, what I didn’t want is yet another blue website. Somehow, it didn’t seem right to me. I ended up with a green one. So much so, that it stuck to almost everything else that I did online. As a kid, I really liked light blue - I don’t think green was anywhere in my sights.

Earlier this year, I wanted to refresh the look and the “brand” that is BlogGeek.me a bit. Luckily, the original designer just moved back from being a designer in an IoT startup to being a freelancer again, so I asked her for a new look. Which she happily and lovingly provided.

A few months later, with a lot of deliberation, hard work and updating ALL posts and pages (I had a lot of crap lying around due to custom shortcodes and plugins that accumulated in 6 years), I decided to take the plunge and update the main site with the new design.

What are the main differences?

There’s a lot… but here’s what you should know:

1. I’ve removed the number and frequency of nagging popups. From now on, the only thing that will jump at you might be what is called an exit intent - it will show relevant content you may want to review further, and only once you’re ready to leave the page (no more searching for the x in the middle of reading an article)
2. What is it that I do for a living? My site was designed and built as a blog. That last redesign I did was nice, but still left people wondering how I can actually help them. I tried fixing that with a new homepage and a simplified menu bar and footer area
3. No course. I haven’t closed my WebRTC training - I just moved it to a website of its own: WebRTCcourse.com. This allows me to focus on the course and improve it in ways I just couldn’t do when it was part of BlogGeek.me
4. Better reading experience. For now, I decided that article pages won’t have a sidebar, so you’ll get a distraction-free reading experience. The fonts are also bigger now (I am getting older, and with it my preference of font size seem to be changing)

Oh - and the pictures of me featuring on the website? They’re also new. Took them earlier in 2018.

Things are still broken

Not everything is working flawlessly. And there’s a reason for that. I knew that if I want just ship the thing, it will never come to be. So I decided to just release it “as is” at this point. I wanted to have a fresh start in 2019 with my website.

Here are somethings I know are broken:

1. Mobile. Bad job there. This is known and will be taken care of through January
2. Digital payments. The online store that I have/had was split into 2 - the one on BlogGeek.me which serves the reports and a separate one on WebRTCcourse.com which… needs to be fixed

Other than that, some pages are still ugly, and in other cases, there might be some dead or broken links.

If you find anything - just email me about it - I must have missed some of the ailments throughout this transition so I really appreciate your help here.

What to expect from BlogGeek.me in 2019?

Honestly, I don’t really know. At least not exactly.

Each year I start off with a plan, in which certain initiatives take place throughout the year. Some of them come to fruition while others - don’t.

Here’s what I decided for 2019:

Webinars

Last year was a rather slow year for webinars. Both on BlogGeek.me and on testRTC (where I am a co-founder and CEO).

This is going to change.

In 2019, I want, at least theoretically, to do a webinar a month for each. A line up of topics has been created and is maintained (I’ll need more topics, but I have a good starting point).

For BlogGeek.me, webinars would be around topics that make sense for me at a given month. First one will be around Mesh/MCU/SFU - one of those topics that I can endlessly babble about.

testRTC webinars are going to focus on things that you can do with testRTC. Instead of trying to aim for generic WebRTC industry/testing/marketing/promoting/whatever non-focus, we’re going to double down on best practices, hacks and interesting things we’re bumping into with our customers at testRTC.

testRTC

Speaking of testRTC - we’ve had a good year in 2018, growing our list of customers and getting into new areas. We’ve rewritten a big portion of our backend and we will continue with the rewrite in 2019 to close our technical debt.

Expect some new features and a new product or two from testRTC to be announced during 2019.

Articles on BlogGeek.me

I am going to write this year on BlogGeek.me, as well as other places when time permits.

For now, I plan to stick with a weekly article per week, something that was hard to maintain this year and I assume will be harder in 2019.

WebRTC Training

My online WebRTC course got over 250 registered students. I want to scale it up even further.

This year, I’ll be giving the course additional focus, making sure it stays the best alternative out there for those who wish to learn WebRTC.

In February, there will be a few announcements about the course.

Reports update

The reports will get some refresh in 2019.

The WebRTC for Business People is up for a 2019 edition (later this month). I’d like to thank Frozen Mountain for sponsoring this initiative and making this edition free for everyone.

I might do an update to Choosing a WebRTC API Platform report. There are enough changes in the industry taking place that merit such an update. If you are a CPaaS vendor, who is now offering WebRTC support of some kind and you’re not featured in this report already - contact me.

The recent AI in RTC report I’ve written with Chad Hart doesn’t need an update. Yet.

Kranky Geek

Unlike previous years, Kranky Geek already has a date for 2019: November 15, San Francisco, Google office - same place as always.

If you’d like to talk about sponsorships, speaking opportunities and such - we’re happy to start this earlier than usual.

In any case, mark your calendar.

Other projects and initiatives

As in previous years, more projects will crop up during the year. There are a few I am contemplating already, but not sure yet if I’ll be doing them.

If there’s a project you’d like to do together - just tell me.

2019

Have a great new year!