I know it’s been a while since any major updates around Design Float, but I’ve been working hard on getting some awesome new features developed to ensure that Design Float continues to be the best social media site for designers. I have big things planned for the future of Design Float and the first phase of several large feature additions is right around the corner. This first phase is going to include a groups feature and support for video and podcast submissions in addition to some other nice surprises. The features have already been developed so now it’s just a matter of integrating them seamlessly, tying up all the lose design ends, and completing tests. Stay tuned…

Well I might be a bit behind, but I’ve decided to see what all the hype behind Squidoo is about, so I went ahead and created a Design Float Lense. Setting up the lense was fast and easy. I was able to have it pull in the latest category specific Design Float content via our RSS feeds.

In the end, I hope this helps spread the word about Design Float and maybe make an impact in the Squidoo design community. If you use Squidoo, be sure to check it out, favorite it, and share any ideas, comments or recommendations with me!

Source: www.squidoo.com/designfloat

I wanted to give everyone a head’s up that I will be migrating Design Float to a more powerful server that will allow us to scale easier moving forward. The past couple of months, traffic and demand on the databases has continued to increase and we have outgrown the specs of the current solution. Despite all the updates from the recent redesign, things still aren’t fast enough, so this upgrade should also speed things up even more. My apologies for any downtime over the next couple of days.

Well it’s been a while since my last blog posting. I have since gotten married, visited beautiful Spain on my honeymoon, and settled into a nice little domesticated lifestyle. In addition, I’ve also made a lot of improvements around Design Float. Some you may have noticed, other’s not, but here’s a list of what has been going on around here lately:

• Private Messages Work: I have finally resolved the long outstanding issue with private messages, so feel free to start adding friends and sending them messages.
• Related Links: The related links tab located on every entry page now functions and actually pulls related links. Imagine that!
• Cleaned Up Profile Page: I spent some time reorganizing and cleaning up the profile page. Also coming soon will be the ability to add your usernames to other popular social networking and bookmarking sites right to your profile.

I’ll continue to try and make improvements around the site wherever I can so feel free to keep the feedback and suggestions coming. Until next time.

It’s been a while since my last post so I figured it was time for a general update. A few big things have happened over the past couple of weeks. I accepted a new day job working on an exciting new web startup, so I’ve been trying to prepare for a departure from my current day job. The end of my two weeks notice is this Friday, so once the transition goes though, things will run a little more smoothly for me.

In addition to accepting a new day job, I decided to move Design Float over to a new host that I feel can better handle current and projected bandwidth demands. I decided on Media Temple’s Grid Server and couldn’t be happier. The transfer went much smoother than I expected and took only a few hours with no downtown and no data loss. I feel good about our new home and look forward to settling in with Media Temple as Design Floats permanent home.

The site is still steadily growing, we are approaching 500 members and should hit 600 by the end of the month. Feed subscriptions have surpassed the 1,000 mark and continues to increase (1,389 at last glance). I expect over 40,000 unique visitors this month and am hoping to break the 100,000 page views a month mark.

Advertising
In an attempt to lighten the burden of my student loan debt, I have opened up some sponsorship sections throughout the site. My intent is not to cover the site in ads and the majority of the banners that display in the sidebar currently are banner exchanges with other respected and relevant projects and I will only accept sponsors that I feel our users will find useful and relevant.

Learn about advertising opportunities on Design Float.

Thank you to everyone who continues to visit and support Design Float and remember, your praise, complaints, suggestions, and ideas are always appreciated!