The Blog of Xangis

It’s been a while since my last update.  I didn’t want to admit it in public, but it turns out that I just wasn’t ready to “survive without a job”.  There was just too much I didn’t know and I didn’t have a large enough aggregate income stream to keep going without a job.

I’ve taken work in corporate America writing software for a home automation company.  Despite the fact that I’m a little sad about going back to what I was trying to get out of, the place is rather interesting and I get to work with a lot of interesting devices.  This may last a while since it seems to hold my attention fairly well.

Even though my few-month stint as a non-employee didn’t result in a successful escape, the things I  learned during the process were invaluable — SEO, web marketing and advertising, affiliate programs, press releases, business management, and a whole pile of information on other topics.  I think the next time I try to “survive without a job”, whether voluntary or not, I’ll be in a much better position to make positive progress.

On the business-building front, there are a few sites I’ve shut down and/or stopped working on, such as the Indie Challenge series of sites.  There are a few reasons various sites have disappeared, but it’s mainly a combination of them not taking off to any degree and a lack o finterest in building them into something successful.  The large number of sites I started with initially was a sort of test — to find out what would work and what wouldn’t work naturally for me.

It’s said that one should focus rather than diversify when it comes to site building.  I agree with this, but it seems to make a bit more sense to start with a large pool of options and let a Darwinistic approach decide which site(s) will be your main focus.  There are a few more sites and projects that are in Darwin’s crosshairs at the moment, but I’ll speak of them later.