A Few Thoughts On Mac360’s Project ‘Full Circle’

We’ve been busy. Kate and I recently embarked on a journey to re-design the Mac360 web site.

We started the re-build process from scratch using the latest XHTML and CSS and Mac design tools, and an unorthodox approach, considering that Mac360’s red-design is to objective.

Unorthodox? Yes. We call the project ‘Full Circle’. We’ll build a dozen web sites before we re-build Mac360. That will give us more experience and opportunity to try different designs, layouts, and features.

Stage One of ‘Full Circle’ is nearing completion. The first step was to create a basic design, a code base, with a standardized look and feel that we could use on multiple web sites. The second step was to complete the first site.

I’m proud to say that Kate’s personal site, PixoBebo, uses the code and design techniques, and is off to a successful start with nearly 1,000 visitors a day after only two weeks and little fanfare. It’s sneak peak time.

Think of PixoBebo as a trial run, a shakedown cruise. Stage One of ‘Full Circle’ has a couple of additional sites based on the same layout, design, and code base. NoodleMac will launch next week, and will focus specifically on Mac software reviews. I plan to follow that launch with Toolbotix, which will be my version of Kate’s PixoBebo.

Similar design and layout, different color scheme, different content. Alex was so pleased with Kate’s site that she wants me to build one for her so she can list her favorite free Mac software. Sigh. Everyone wants to get into the act.

If you haven’t looked at Kate’s site recently, we added a Comments feature yesterday, on top of the color scheme changes from a few days earlier.

Additional changes and improvements will be ongoing as we expand the code to include more features.

Stage Two will be the launch of a couple of new Apple, Mac, and iPhone/iPod touch sites that we’ve been planning for awhile. The design, layout, and color scheme will be much different than PixoBebo, NoodleMac, Toolbotix, or Alexis’ site, though the underlying code will be shared.

Stage Three will be Mac360’s complete re-design. New layout, new look and feel, completely new code base. Bigger, wider, prettier, easier to navigate, and with a few more features. The color scheme will remain similar, though modified. Kate likes lavender. What we learn and implement on the new sites in the next few months during Stages One and Two will show up in Mac360’s new look, the final stage.

In the meantime, we welcome your thoughts and insights, so don’t hesitate to tell us what you like about what we’re doing, as well as what you’d like to see more of, and less of (besides lavender).