How to Simplify: Part 2 - My Web Presence

My web presence is chaos right now. I run:

• jeremyshuback.com
• frogsbull.com
• youtube.com/user/thebulfrog
• thepspod.com
• exustraining.com
• twitter.com/thebulfrog
• frogsbull.tumblr.com
• a google reader feed
• a gmail account
• a facebook account

It’s a bit overwhelming. I’m set on simplifying, and in the light of what can I remove, let’s go through them one at a time.

Jeremyshuback.com I’m proud of what my site has accomplished. Check out these specs: (over the course of a year and a half)

Most of the people come for the tutorials. While people find them helpful, I’ve finished teaching the foundation of how to use Photoshop. The next challenge is pushing myself with increasingly more difficult tutorials. How do I use the tools to create? Future tutorials will include me creating a website and other works of art and design. The rule of these video tutorials is if I’d watch them myself, I’ll assume others want to see them as well.

The main purpose of my portfolio site is to showcase my work to employers and potential stalkers. It’s a bit of a cluster fuck at the moment. When visiting you ask if I’m an animator, matte painter, illustrator, designer, teacher, or improvisor? There’s no point of focus.

My demonstrable strengths are matte painting and web design. That needs to be the focus, with everything else pushed aside. Once I work on my print design portfolio and motion graphics reel they can start to take the spotlight.

Frogs Bull The blog exists to keep me motivated. It’s there to show my process in writing, improv, design, and painting. I have another post coming up focused on this subject.

Youtube Channel This is gaining the most momentum. It just passed 13,000 views, with each video ranging from 100 to 600 views. I’m getting roughly one new subscriber a day. I think of the youtube channel as a less frequently updated version of my blog only containing the videos.

ThePSPod I just made a final episode saying to go to the youtube channel.

ExusTraining A second ship to bail. It will echo the youtube videos and have a sign up form for those interested in learning in person. I’ll spend time on it again when I get 10,000 youtube followers. It could be a while.

Twitter / Tumblr / Facebook / Google Reader Using the bit.ly sidebar, tweetfeed, and a facebook app, I can now star a post in google reader, have it show up on twitter, and get aggregated on tumblr. Facebook is facebook, and the less time spent on all of these the better.

So to wrap it up - my barely visited sites will get dropped for good, keeping my portfolio site, an ongoing blog, and a set of tutorials. Micro posts on twitter / tumblr will fill out the rest. I get the impression this could all be reduced further. This is a first step.

It will take time, but the eventual goal is to have only two sites - JeremyShuback.com for my portfolio and TheShuback.com (still to come) for my blog. For now, I’ll keep with my baby steps.

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art. -Chopin