Like a bastard step-child, FloydCounty.Com has been an often-neglected web site, not even worthy of inclusion on my web servers, parked as a domain with Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting.
I registered the domain name, FloydCounty.Com, in 1997 but did little with the web site until moving back to the county in 2004. For a while it ran as a blog. Last year, I announced plans to turn it into a multi-media news and information site and re-launched it several months ago as a combination blog/news site. I talked to other bloggers in the area about contributing to it but only one, David St. Lawrence, stepped forward to add material to it as I all but ignored the site while getting too wrapped up in other projects.
But David cannot carry the load alone and the limitations of the WordPress publishing software used on the site led him to decide to concentrate his efforts on new, photo and blog oriented sites of his own (although he has graciously offered to continue to contribute to FloydCounty.Com).
Which leaves me to ponder what to do with the thing. I’m not sure Floyd needs another information site. Floyd County in View and FloydVirginia.Com provide extensive information resources and Floyd Countian Rose Bowen’s excellent NRV Today covers daily news in the county (far better than the New River Valley Current section of Roanoke Times web site).
My original goal for FloydCounty.Com was a multi-media site with photography, video, interactivity and more. All are time-consuming. Perhaps now that I’ve pulled the plug on the time-absorbing and resource-eating Campaign for Our America I can devote more effort to making FloydCounty.Com work. I’ve suggested to David that we might pool our efforts to incorporate what he wants to do into the format but that decision is up to him. My vision for FloydCounty.Com was that it should become a collaborative web site featuring contributions from county writers, photographers and poets.
What do you think?
12 thoughts on “What now for FloydCounty.Com?”
David:
Good points. I’m not sure FloydCounty.Com needs a column from me. I’m probably overexposed on the web now with Capitol Hill Blue and Blue Ridge Muse. Same for photography. I’d like to see the site use more contributions from area photogs. I have Muse, Blue Ridge Creative and Blue Ridge Photography to showcase my work.
Anybody have any favorites in photoblog software?
Doug
Ask David Sobotta from the View From The Mountain blog, he’s toyed with a bunch. What sort of features are you looking for? If it’s running on a Linux/*nix/Xserve box I could whip something up pretty quickly.
Sean
Time is scarce at the moment but I’m really interested to catch up on your concepts here. I started a similar (I think) project here a couple of weeks ago. The idea is to celebrate and make a spot for all the various creative folk who seem to have frtched up on this part of the Rappahannock River. It’s at http://www.rivervoices.net. Very much a work in progress at this point but I have high hopes for it. It will ultimately pair up with The Fredericksblog (http://jimbrodhead.typepad.com/fredericksblog/)
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