Post launch reflections

TheGoodBlogs launched quietly last week. We didn't spend any marketing dollars or the customary press releases. We wanted to put our toes in the water and test out our audience. We were pleasantly surprised. Perhaps the maxim, 'you can't keep a good idea down' is true afterall. We've had a surprising number of queries and visits to the site. This week, we're faced with more work, juggling with sending out beta invites, putting in our next round of enhancements and generally being open for business. While many technology blogs serve as commentaries of emerging Web 2.0 ideas, I think over time, this one will be biased to the other side, i.e. what is it really like inside a Web 2.0 company. Sharing our challenges, anxieties, paranoia, success and hopefully not to many failures.

The post-launch syndrome is an interesting one. The last 10 days has been anxious ones, not to mention the long hours, gathering feedback, making last minute tweaks. The aftermath that follows is the typical trough that follows the preceding high. Now we have some time over the weekend to reflect on what we have done. I'm reminded of the classic Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, where the little fella throws up a balloon full of water, catches it and gets thoroughly drenched. His insight to his whole adventure? How can something seem so plausible at the time and so idiotic in retrospect. While it does describe some of our prototypes, luckily, it doesn't describe what we have launched or our vision. Nevertheless, there is the feeling of reality. The weeks of hypothesizing whether this is a great idea or how many people will get it is moot. We've launched and to an extent, we are now at the mercy of the blog gods. It is scary, make no doubt about it. But to not try would be a personal traversty I could not live with. I wake up every morning with a sense of urgency and excitement, there is so much to do, so much more we can improve, so many bloggers to reach. I need to temper that stress and exercise patience...the blogs will wait for us. It is not a phenomenon that will disappear any time soon.

To those who will visit TheGoodBlogs, I hope they realize it is a work in progress, we make no claims to understand it all. But we do bear the passion or burden of trying to make the whole blog space, more understandable and accessible and generally helping readers beat a steady path to all the good blogs...