The How I Met Your Mother site | be awesome instead » Blogging

What Are You Looking For

aaron — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:29:05 +0000

Recently, I got an email comment from a visitor to Be Awesome Instead, which read:

I stumbled onto a single image from your site (anyone can be cool but
awesome takes practice). I decided to come check out the rest of the site
and I have to say…disappointed man. Take a stroll around yonder
Intertubes. There’s a whole other level of awesome out there, I think you’d be surprised. I recommend getting a Stumbleupon account and rethinking what’s going on here at beawesomeinstead.com. Ill check back, hope to see some
awesome!

This bothered me at first, but you tend to grow some thick skin when you play online so I took some time, thought on it and replied asking the person to be a bit more specific, what they were looking for and what they expected?

No Answer.

Still it makes me wonder, what are people looking for when they visit BAI? I have all kinds of stats (articles visited, most comments, search terms, etc.) and I try to use these to gauge the content of the site. When BAI first started, it was on a whim and I had no idea what I was doing. I got the name after watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother and hearing Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) say, “When I get sad, I just stop being sad and be awesome instead. True Story.” In fact, the Awesomeness Poster is still a huge part of this site!

The content of the site has wondered at times but I try to focus on great (and awesome) shows I watch like HIMYM and Scrubs as well as other interesting/funny things I would consider awesome. De-motivational posters have been popular, as have some other quite random things I never thought people would care about. (On a side note, it’s really annoying when people hotlink to your content. I have toyed with disabling it but I will hold off for now. Just stop it. Stealing bandwidth like that is not awesome, it sucks. And if you aren’t smart enough to figure how to copy a pic to your own site and host it there and then leave a credit link then feel free to contact me and I will be happy to teach you.) Sorry for the rant, I digress.

I say all that to ask this, what are you looking for here? How I Met Your Mother show recaps? Scrubs stuff? Awesomeness? BAI has increased from it’s awesome beginnings to around 450 unique visits and over 1100 page views a day, so I assume with the growth something keeps people coming back. Sound off below, so the site can better serve you and thanks for visiting.

*note…this is NOT an attempt at a New Years Resolution…Resolutions are worthless. I resolved a long time ago to never make another and I haven’t…see the irony? Besides, if you can’t change when it’s needed waiting until New Years won’t make a difference.

New Years Resolutions are worthless

aaron — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:32:43 +0000

*SPOILER* – There is a link exchange gift at the end of this page!

New Years Resolutions are worthless. I say that…I pretty much believe it too. Personally, I haven’t made a New Year’s Resolution since 1993, when in a stroke of genius, I made a resolution to never make another New Years Resolution….I find it quite ironic overall but whatever. So here I sit…”resolution free since ‘93″ to borrow a phrase from Ted on How I Met Your Mother. Seems I have found some guys on YouTube that agree with me, well for the most part:

I guess I have just felt making them was worthless. If you see something in your life that needs changing, don’t wait until the new year to do it… Unless of course, your wanting to quit procrastinating so much… then by all means wait. If you have to make a resolution then resolve to be awesome instead…otherwise just forget it because your probably wasting your time….however, do not despair. As my New Years gift to you, I am willing to offer you a free backlink for a mention in one of your blog posts.

Criteria for getting a free backlink:

* The post should link to the home page using the anchor text “Be Awesome Instead“.
* Some mention of our your New Years Resolution plans (or not plans)
* It must have a link to this post somewhere in the blog.

That’s it. I will be checking the pingbacks and monitor the comments section and every few weeks and then make 1 big blog posting linking back to all the sites that participated in this offer. Why not take 10 minutes to write a short post on your blog and receive a valuable backlink in exchange? Once you are done, and if no pingback appears in the comments, post a link to your review in a comment on the bottom of this page. If you don’t see a link within about a week feel free to contact me using my contact page with a link to your article. Thanks and Be Awesome this year!

2007 Be Awesome Instead Year In Review

aaron — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:31:57 +0000

Well with 2007 trying to get out of here so it can have a long awaited eternal nap and 2008 upon us, I felt like reflecting a bit on this last year. 2007 has been a pretty decent year for beawesomeinstead.com (henceforth called BAI). Since my first blog post on 9.22.2007 (Chuck Norris vs. SEO), BAI has had over 7500 hits! For those who have visited, Thanks. I’ve been meaning to mention it (and plan too in a future post) but my BAI uses a slightly modified version of the Link Love Plugin by Andrew Timberlake. I have constantly debated on a no follow vs. a do follow blog so as a test/compromise I decided to use this plugin. Any visitor who leaves more than 4 valid (not spam comments) will get some link love from BAI. It’s my way of saying thanks without totally committing to dofollow and the extra comment management that that entails. On that note, I wanted to mention that I try to reply to all comments and this blog will always try to do that a reward our readers. Moving on…

When I first started the site, I had plans to make How I Met Your Mother and Barney (in particular) the source of the blog. I wanted to post some other things too but mainly stick to that. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), the whole writers strike got me thinking about expanding my focus not just the awesomeness mentioned by Barney, but Awesomeness in general. We’ll see how that works in the coming year. I will still be talking about HIMYM, especially with the departure of Scrubs it will be the only awesome show on television….but I digress. I also got to guest post on notsoboringlife.com.

These:
haven’t done too well for me. I think all total this year I made about $2.50 from Google (Yes, the decimal there was intentional). I’ll be trying to find a way to increase that in the coming year and try to document and discuss anything pertinent and helpful.

Those who have been supporting the site seem to enjoy the mock up of Barney’s Awesomeness Poster that I did. In addition to the poster in the store there is also an Awesomeness mouse pad with the same look. Also quite popular. Feel free to check that out and add a little bit of Awesomeness to your rooms.

In case you missed them, here are the top 10 blog post from BAI for 2007.

This year I have plans to start two new blogs. I don’t want to divulge too much now but I have my reasons and will be sharing more in the future as well as keep sharing Awesome content here. If you were to see my drafts page you would cry…or laugh..or both. Either way, thanks for joining us here at BAI and keep joining us in the future. If you want to keep up try subscribing to my RSS feed: Be Awesome Instead Feed

Comments are always welcome. Cheers and Happy New Year!