One of the domains I own, and have for a long time, is innerharbour.com (here’s a 2001 screenshot — man that page looks positively Jurassic now). Currently, subsites include my Unofficial Guide to Victoria and my new companion site, Around Victoria’s Inner Harbour.
It’s also where Frugal Victoria started (as frugal.innerharbour.com) and since that site has now been sold, I am feeling a little… not quite empty… but I imagine it’s a bit like watching a child move out . OK, not quite that maternal but I did spend hour upon hour designing, building, and writing for that site and it was bittersweet to let it all go.
The problem is, at some point last year, I got all excited about what I could do with innerharbour itself and wiped it clean with a fresh new Drupal install…. then I forgot about it, or got busy, or whatever. So my question is, what do you think I should do with it?
Possibilities include:
- a portal site for all our Victoria-themed properties (e.g. victoriaafterdark.ca) plus our other faves (e.g. victoriagridproject.ca) — but portals are boring and questionable in the world of SEO.
- a showcase for local writers & artists? (I would of course include my and Mike’s work… but there are so many great creative folks to choose from)
- something political?
- something else that Victoria is missing?
My goal is to put something up this weekend — if you have a particular sense of what would be great, let me know in the comments or find me on social media.
It is your site, but since you asked…
I think Victoria is lacking a credible alternative news and information community. I am on Vibrant Victoria which comes close but it is a corporate site with a pro-business agenda reflected in their “news” being almost entirely focused on real estate development. Monday Magazine (the physical edition) used to be much better at covering stories of local politics but has always lacked anything beyond Victoria City Hall and the theatre/arts community. As for the T-C well, they actually do OK for a corporate media business but finding what happened and is happening in my neighbourhood is usually lacking.
There are some niche sites for amateur sports, families, tourists etc but when I want to know what is happening around town on a given weekend it seems very difficult to find. I want a site I can go to to find out what is happening in local politics and around town.
Wow, this is going all strange and rambling and is not helping for something you can have up by the weekend. Maybe I’ll just stop there for now. 🙂
Thanks, Ted! Unfortunately, I don’t think I have the time or resources to maintain a news site (and I agree, Monday Mag has totally been failing on that count in recent years). As for events, there are several good sites for that already.
Have you ever looked at B-Channel News? They have been very involved and interested in the political literacy discussions and have had the best municipal election coverage in the past two elections.
If we do a portal, I’ll try to find some sites to satisfy these needs 🙂