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Behind The Firm List Blog
AutoMatte-ic
Had someone comment on the 7-8 month delay between submitting a firm and having it listed. This of course, is for those submitting themselves as Basic Member firms (there is only a 24-48 hour delay for Full Member firms.) The person wanted to know why I just didn't automate the system and get rid of the delay.
For those of you long time listeners, first time callers, I've probably addressed this subject before here, in one of these pieces. But I'm not above restating, rephrasing things. Helps me to probe further why I have made the decisions I have and continue to see how I can make the site better.
The slightly different take on the subject that I had this time which might not have been fully developed in the past, is the whole notion of "the free web."
For as long as I've been on the web (just about since the beginning), things have been free. People expected things to be free. It's the loving, open-minded nature of this world hive of information and communication, right?
Well, unfortunately, the web has become commercial. While I won't really delve into that topic right now I will say that even if the Amazon.com's and Kozmo.com's of the web never came about, the point would still be: this can't be free.
You or may not be a web tinkerer. I'm talking about someone who has built sites around interests, passions, hobbies, crushes, whatever. You built something, people came, you kept building, and so on.
Took a bit of work, didn't it? How much? Did you end up putting in about a part-time job's worth of hours into it? A full time job? Well, that could be pointed out by many as either stupidity or craziness on your part. I mean, why did you do all that for nothing? That's what they're thinking while they go ahead and make use of your project and my project.
Am I expected to run The Firm List? Is there some contract that I signed that obligates me to keep it up to date, to add all 300+ firms who submit themselves a month?
No, I'm not. I chose to make this site and I could shut it down at any moment. But is that a solution? No, not right now.
I've chosen to keep this site going. I haven't chosen to do that because it does bring in some money (less than 1-1/2 weeks of my day job's salary), but because it's an important project for me and it's an important resource to others.
So what do I do? Well, I've chosen to do what I've done, and that is no not overtax myself trying to add every firm in the same couple day window I managed for 4+ years. No, I figure that if you're in a rush, you can just submit your firm as a Full Member.
Yes, that costs money. I admit it. I will pull your firm out of sequence, get to it as soon as is possible for me and do whatever I can to help you all in exchange for $50US. I will not go out of my way to list your firm immediately, interrupting everything else I have in my life, to add your firm for free.
Doesn't that seem fair?
Sure, having a 7-8 month backlog is perhaps more motivation for someone to lay down $50 bucks for the Full Membership then say 1 week. There's no one who can tell me that I've managed to accumulate a 1,300 firm backlog of firm submissions just because I want to make more money. I accumulated it because I have to make money and I can't count on this site to make it for me. So I go to a day job, work 8+ hours then try to fit a personal life and this project in around that. That's how a 7-8 month backlog comes about. Oh yeah, also because the site becomes more and more popular with each day and people want to be listed.
Do you want to be listed that badly? I can point you towards other directories where you might be added instantly.
So then it's a question of whether or not I am making an efficient use of my time. Could things be automated? Sure, they already are. The delay isn't because the data couldn't be plugged directly into the website, the delay is because I would never let it do so.
The Firm List is the site it is because I review each submission before choosing to add it. This is to ensure that the firm does actually offer web design/development services, to see where it is actually located, to correct errors included with the submission, etc. You'd be amazed at how much junk data is submitted to any form on the web. There's only so much instructions, warnings and data checking scripts can do. Most "automated" sites end up with a lot of junk in their database. That's perfectly fine for them, not for me.
There's a lot of dead links/firms on The Firm List, I admit that. This is a hard enough struggle, let alone having new junk added.
So, until I can autoMatte this site, it will continue to be a little bit of wait. The only other thing which could change that is if enough firms rose up, paid what they think they've gotten out of the site and voila, perhaps I could make a living doing this, focus on it fulltime, catch up on old items and tackle new ones.
In the end, it would make this site a better resource. It's up to you whether you think it's worth it.
