People of the Internet, I am alive!
Sorry about my extended absence. My computer monitor had been on the fritz and decided to stop working entirely the morning after Halloween. Without it, I had no way of working on the site, which, to be completely honest, was quite liberating and enjoyable. It was a much needed break. No offense to you guys, of course, but working on my website nearly every day for almost 6 months has been pretty a exhausting endeavor. Don't get me wrong, as I do enjoy this site immensely, but trying to keep up with the movie industry almost entirely by myself is clearly a pipe dream.
In other words, I've decided that it's in my best interest to cut back on some things on the website. I put a great deal of time and effort into this site, and yet I wish I had more to show for it. I've got a pile stacked with dozens of reviews to finish, and yet most of my free time is spent working on movie pages or image galleries (while data shows that very few of you actually look at them anyway). Therefore, I will no longer be creating movie main pages. It really pains me to do this, but it simply takes up far too much of my time, and truthfully they don't get a lot of page views or interaction. I'm proud of them, and won't be deleting the ones that have already been made, but it's pointless for me to continue doing them when my time would be better spent in other areas.
I will still continue with the galleries, however, although that's primarily because searching for high quality movie stills online is actually just as time consuming as taking the screenshots myself. That may sound hard to believe, but often times the search results are slim pickings. Doing it myself means the images are all great quality and the same size, and I can take whatever pictures I want, which comes in really handy when I need them for use in my features.
A few blog posts ago, I announced that I would be creating a discussion forum for the website, but considering that my website now allows for full implementation of Disqus, I'm opting to use that instead. I encourage you guys to sign up for Disqus, since it's a great and popular discussion tool that can be used on many websites. However, if you don't want to make a Disqus account, you can always comment through your Facebook, Twitter, or Google accounts instead. Pretty convenient, right? Previously I had two different comment systems in place on my website, and I kind of hated that because it was clunky and unprofessional. Now I've transitioned the site entirely to Disqus. On the downside, that does mean all of the previous comments on the website are no longer visible, although I still have access to them, so they're not lost forever. Additionally, I learned that I've been setting up Disqus all wrong, so that problem has been addressed and mostly fixed. I hope you'll all be pleased with that change.
It goes without saying that I've struggled to stay on top of the constant influx of movie news. This is not a dedicated movie news site and I never actually intended for it to be. Perhaps one day the site will be able to manage that, but that would require a fully functioning staff with paid employees and the site isn't there yet. Fortunately I've had the help of friends Hannah and Ammy to get more news to you, and I'm truly grateful for them volunteering their time to write news articles when they can. In order to alleviate the burden of so much news, I've been thinking about making a weekly news feature where I can briefly discuss some of the week's big movie announcements, without having to give each news piece its own separate article. This idea isn't set in stone, but I believe It would allow me to talk about more movies more quickly, while allowing me to continue to place emphasis on the news I find most interesting.
Pick My Flick is running very late this month. but in its defense, there aren't very many exciting picks for you to vote on this November beyond the films I've already decided to see. Currently I've already seen Big Hero 6, Interstellar, and Dumb and Dumber To. This week, I'll see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, and then I'll give you four movies to vote on. I've decided this month's Pick My Flick will only have a 7-day voting period, but you will be able to vote every 24 hours. I hope that works out for you guys, and at the very least, I hope it will please my nagging sister.
In my off-time, I watched a few movies at home, which I had started writing about here at length. However, if I'm gonna write that much, I might as well turn them into reviews rather than allowing them to get lost in a blog, right? For the record, I watched Man of Steel, Dredd, and Prisoners. Maybe these movies can help me get my Rear View Reviews section finally up and running.
When I started 5 Minute Movie Guy, my main interest was in writing reviews and blogs. Since then, things have grown to the point that I've been struggling to just stay afloat. While it may appear that I'm taking some big steps backwards, it should at least give me more time to get things back and track so I can start moving forward again. I am sorry about any inconvenience and sincerely appreciate your continued support.
Oh, and one last thing...
Sorry about my extended absence. My computer monitor had been on the fritz and decided to stop working entirely the morning after Halloween. Without it, I had no way of working on the site, which, to be completely honest, was quite liberating and enjoyable. It was a much needed break. No offense to you guys, of course, but working on my website nearly every day for almost 6 months has been pretty a exhausting endeavor. Don't get me wrong, as I do enjoy this site immensely, but trying to keep up with the movie industry almost entirely by myself is clearly a pipe dream.
In other words, I've decided that it's in my best interest to cut back on some things on the website. I put a great deal of time and effort into this site, and yet I wish I had more to show for it. I've got a pile stacked with dozens of reviews to finish, and yet most of my free time is spent working on movie pages or image galleries (while data shows that very few of you actually look at them anyway). Therefore, I will no longer be creating movie main pages. It really pains me to do this, but it simply takes up far too much of my time, and truthfully they don't get a lot of page views or interaction. I'm proud of them, and won't be deleting the ones that have already been made, but it's pointless for me to continue doing them when my time would be better spent in other areas.
I will still continue with the galleries, however, although that's primarily because searching for high quality movie stills online is actually just as time consuming as taking the screenshots myself. That may sound hard to believe, but often times the search results are slim pickings. Doing it myself means the images are all great quality and the same size, and I can take whatever pictures I want, which comes in really handy when I need them for use in my features.
A few blog posts ago, I announced that I would be creating a discussion forum for the website, but considering that my website now allows for full implementation of Disqus, I'm opting to use that instead. I encourage you guys to sign up for Disqus, since it's a great and popular discussion tool that can be used on many websites. However, if you don't want to make a Disqus account, you can always comment through your Facebook, Twitter, or Google accounts instead. Pretty convenient, right? Previously I had two different comment systems in place on my website, and I kind of hated that because it was clunky and unprofessional. Now I've transitioned the site entirely to Disqus. On the downside, that does mean all of the previous comments on the website are no longer visible, although I still have access to them, so they're not lost forever. Additionally, I learned that I've been setting up Disqus all wrong, so that problem has been addressed and mostly fixed. I hope you'll all be pleased with that change.
It goes without saying that I've struggled to stay on top of the constant influx of movie news. This is not a dedicated movie news site and I never actually intended for it to be. Perhaps one day the site will be able to manage that, but that would require a fully functioning staff with paid employees and the site isn't there yet. Fortunately I've had the help of friends Hannah and Ammy to get more news to you, and I'm truly grateful for them volunteering their time to write news articles when they can. In order to alleviate the burden of so much news, I've been thinking about making a weekly news feature where I can briefly discuss some of the week's big movie announcements, without having to give each news piece its own separate article. This idea isn't set in stone, but I believe It would allow me to talk about more movies more quickly, while allowing me to continue to place emphasis on the news I find most interesting.
Pick My Flick is running very late this month. but in its defense, there aren't very many exciting picks for you to vote on this November beyond the films I've already decided to see. Currently I've already seen Big Hero 6, Interstellar, and Dumb and Dumber To. This week, I'll see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, and then I'll give you four movies to vote on. I've decided this month's Pick My Flick will only have a 7-day voting period, but you will be able to vote every 24 hours. I hope that works out for you guys, and at the very least, I hope it will please my nagging sister.
In my off-time, I watched a few movies at home, which I had started writing about here at length. However, if I'm gonna write that much, I might as well turn them into reviews rather than allowing them to get lost in a blog, right? For the record, I watched Man of Steel, Dredd, and Prisoners. Maybe these movies can help me get my Rear View Reviews section finally up and running.
When I started 5 Minute Movie Guy, my main interest was in writing reviews and blogs. Since then, things have grown to the point that I've been struggling to just stay afloat. While it may appear that I'm taking some big steps backwards, it should at least give me more time to get things back and track so I can start moving forward again. I am sorry about any inconvenience and sincerely appreciate your continued support.
Oh, and one last thing...
Check out my brand new HP monitor with 25 inches of widescreen HD glory! I bought the largest size I could fit within the space of my desk, and look! It fits...
LIKE A GLOVE!
RSS Feed
