Secret moves, partially revealed…

I’ve got to be a bit more careful with my Facebook status updates.

You just never know who’s reading, and – more importantly – how they’re going to respond.

Secret Moves

One lovely afternoon a short while ago, I was making really good progress on some of my UKGospel.com projects.

I was so chuffed that in the heat of the moment I wrote something like ‘making secret UKG moves’ as my Facebook status update.

Signposting…

Background: I post several status updates a day on Facebook and Twitter, the vast majority of which are links pointing out a lot of the good work that people do out there.

I also post random notes about more mundane stuff happening around me.  As you do.  The ‘making moves’ update was one I thought no one would notice, let alone respond to.

Less than a minute after posting it, I get a few ‘tell us’ responses, which – strange as it sounds – caught me totally by surprise.

Moves revealed

I told that nosy lot they had to wait, and pointed to the (rather obvious) clue in the  status update: the word ‘secret’…

But now, I can let a few little kittens out of a rather big bag:

UKGospel.com Version 2

UKGospel.com Version 1.5 – which I built using Moonfruit – serves its function rather well (and is a definite funtional improvement on Version 1), but it’s a pig to update quickly.

In these lightning-fast times of Twitter and Facebook breaking news stories at a bewlidering pace, the current news setup I use (June 09 example link below) just isn’t fit for purpose.

I can’t justifiably call the site ‘The World’s Most Frequently Updated’, because I don’t think it is.

That might work if I was looking for a slick marketing angle, but it doesn’t if I’m looking to tell the truth.

So I’m hooking up with Clementines Hosting to start work on UKGospel.com  Version 2, live sometime next year, I think.

Minimum requirements include PHP and HTML, a fully scalable CMS and – of course – RSS.  Now that will be quite obvious to many of you reading this, but you’ll be surprised at the amount of people building sites today that simply aren’t future-proofed that way.

If you’re looking to build a site and need to bounce ideas around, I’ll be happy to share.

Frequently updated news

So, the question is: what about the news updates..?  That’s a crucial part of what UKGospel.com is about, and definitely one of the things it’s known for…

Easily the most visited parts of the site are the monthly news pages (example f rom June 2009) and the events page.

So while the ‘grand rebuild’ for version 2 starts, I need to keep the popular news and events feeds going.

Easy Answer

The solution turned out to be quite easy.  Use my blog.  It’s good to go, has a bit of exposure already, has RSS and can be updated in a flash.  Problem solved!

More secrets

UKGShop.com, and Video: I’ve finally started dabbling in video and making great use of the UKGospel.com YouTube channel, which I’ve had for a while, but hadn’t really utilised.

First used it a couple of months ago, when I uploaded some footage I shot with my phone (LG Renoir, 8 megapixels. What iPhone?) at the Victizzle and Tunday gig (one of the few videos shot from backstage), giving a great view of both the artists and the audience.

Last week I started the second phase of the video strategy, part of my plan to expand UKGShop.com, by offering album audio previews in video.  Not as strange as it sounds.  Have a look.

There are a couple more UKGShop.com announcements to come either in August or September, but that’s all I can say for now.

Secret moves, and all that.

UKG Podcast

After dabbling into audio updates earlier in the year, the UKG Podcast (still need a proper title for it) returns soon.  The format’s been slightly rejigged, and there are a few pleasant surprises in the works, which I’ll tell you about soon.

Finally

In between doing all sorts of other stuff, it’s taken me all day and most of the night to write this. Time check 2:21 am. For the record I started around 10:00 am yesterday.

So, in summary:

• UKG Video now live on YouTube

• Get news updates via my Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds.  For those if you not subscribed to either of those, never fear.  The UKG blog will now be the main news delivery channel, accessible either through the link or as usual via UKGospelcom/news

• New UKG Podcast shortly.
• More secrets coming soon.

Don’t nobody ask me nothing.  You’ll get it when you get it.