When I started QTE Gamers, I had no idea that I would be where I am now. As i've mentioned before in other posts today, I had no experience in reporting videogame news and no experience in dealing with PR, so I really didn't know what to expect. Looking back on the year its fun to see how things have changed.
One of the main changed is what happened to the QTE Gamers Blog. In the beginning it was never to be used to report news. The main idea was to use it to discuss my experience in the videogame industry. What eventually happened was I found that I was being given screenshots, artwork, videos, and various press releases. I had only expected to be given press releases, not the rest, and I soon came to the conclusion that I could do something with them. After hunting round the net and experimenting with ways of displaying the additional material, I decided that I should adapt the blog for news.
As the blog was never really designed to be used for news, it is a bit clear that it's not the best designed blog for reporting on screenshots and stuff. But that doesn't mean I haven't made changes to the site. One of the biggest changes was making it so I could have a Read More/Comment section. Before, when I had press releases, they would go below the article I had just written, but they would take up a lot of space on the front page of the site. Some people had made comments and suggested that I should look into it. I, myself, had thought about doing something to make this situation better. After a long hunt and trying a few things, I ended up with the solution I have now. Now the front page of the site is focused on the news, with press releases/fact sheets accessible by clicking on the Read More/Comment.
Other changes to the site have come mostly from me. I've tried to always make the news accessible. The QTE Quick Links came about as I wanted it to become easier to search for news stories for a specific console. I was personally having issues with using the search box that Blogger supplies, so set about looking at ways I could make changes to the blog to make searching easier. The tags under each post are useful, but the Blogger search doesn't search for them specifically. The quick links search specifically for the tags and have become a welcome addition, not only for me but the readers.
There have been small changes over the year, like widening columns and changing colours, which I have done to make the site more presentable. There have been some changes suggested by readers. On the big ones was for iPhone users. As the phone doesn't have flash, people were unable to view the screenshots. So I simply added a link to the album and now iPhone users can click the link and view all the screenshots in that particular album.
There is a lot more I want to do to the site. Unfortunately, I have no training in HTML which means I have to look up solutions on the internet that other people have come up with and use trial and error to make any change to the site. This does mean that some things I have tried haven't become a part of the site because I couldn't get them to work right. It is annoying as I have many ideas that i'm just not able to bring to the site.
Who knows how the site will evolve. I'm open to suggestions from the readers and i'm always on the lookout for ways to make the site better
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