A year in review

The time has come to undergo a small stock take. Looking back on 2010, it should be obvious just how much has been added to the website in the last twelve months.

There are now 825 pages on content and 1,320 uploaded files on the Encyclopaedia of  New England Online.In addition, there are a further 1,281 page that have not yet been created, with the list of wanted pages actually continuing to rise as more content is added. The old saying of one step forwards, two steps backward seems to have been the order of the day in 2010.

Unfortunately, I do not have a record of how many pages and files existed on the site this time last year. This timer next year, however, I will be able to look at this page and see just how far the site has progressed.

The future

2010 was the sixth year of New England Online. I am very proud of the work I have done so far. HOWEVER, there is much more that needs to be done in order to get the website up to the standard I demand of it. The truest maxim of the entire enterprise is the idea that content is king. This applies as much today as it did in June 2004 when for no sane reason I kicked off this crazy venture.

The political events of 2010 in Australia and elsewhere demonstrate that a conservative alternative approach to the idea of socialism and big government is desperately needed. In a very small way, I want New England Online to show the world an alternative to tradition-bashing progressives who value nothing over themselves and their own selfish needs.

For a couple of years now I have been talking about multimedia content, and I still want to develop videos to add a further level of believability to the site. The kind of short little videos that has been used by Sweden to promote that realm are the sort of thing I still have in mind:

Sweden: Open Skies, Open Minds tells one everything you could ever want to glean in four minutes about Sweden. A cursory exportation of the video and want it is trying to say about the country and it’s people can be readily deducted. Sweden is not New England of course, and what this video is trying to say is not what New England is about. That said, this is a marvellous video that provides a brilliant insight into what the Swedes think of themselves and how they want us to think of them.

I hope 2011 affords me some opportunity to something very similar for New England.

Striking a Blow

For a long time, I have felt that New England Online is in the top three for the most comprehensive and largest geofiction site on the internet. Given that geofiction is usually the haunt of children and those of us with childish imaginations, I suppose it isn’t much to boast about. Typically, a piece of geofiction will be built on a free web hosting site, such as geocities, and consist of six to ten pages. They often fall out of use after a short period as the author reaches an age where there are more important priorities. For what it’s worth, I feel that New England Online shares a pedestal at the top of the pile with Bergonia and Verduria, both of which are remarkable and the continuous creations of adults.

I think the time has come for me to challenge the status quo and go for a complete package, the likes of which haven’t been seen much in this genre before. This week, I have settled on a course that will see what is currently New England Online become the Encyclopedia of New England, which more content added with a view to having around 1,000 pages. In addition, I plan to add multimedia, news, and weather. The site will become a portal, and contain a full package of information aimed at selling the Kingdom of New England to the world. It will be a massive undertaking, and will take some time. However, New England Online is now three years old, and needs a massive reinvigoration to bring it up to date with the technologies that now exist in the so-called “Web 2.0″ world.

New England Online – The Radio Play

Yes, yes that’s right.

I have begun to draft a six-part radio play to put on the website next year. The play will feature an Australian journalist traveling to New England and meeting five different people from all walks of life.

The play will essentially be a “mockumentry”, and to all intents and purposes, appear to be real. I am hoping to produce the play at the end of the year, where it should be available for streaming on the website early in 2008.

I will continue to post updates as they occur.