Once a month now I'm going to start doing a short post that I've dubbed "State of the Site". I intend to cover what our eventual goals are, how we're working towards those goals, how we're doing financially, and any other relevant information.
Where We've Excelled...
This month has been an amazing one for the website. We broke some new records for # of visitors, we overtook some of our most popular competitors (Plube.com and Goleech.org), and we released some very cool new features. In addition, we've had a surge of additional content, caused by a new tool for our top administrators, which helped make specific tasks much easier for them.
New Features
I'd like to highlight a post that was made just a few hours ago:
This is an excellent example of what the new "Multiple File Hosts" feature allows. Originally only the top Rapidshare linkset was posted, and the "AutoBot" transferred those links over to MegaUpload and MegaShares, while an excellent submitter Kan submitted linksets for several other file hosts, to make it a post that likely will never be seen without at least one set of working links.
The AutoBot's ability to transfer links between sites isn't perfect, but it does the best it can. Storage.to has a hard time with files sometimes, and it takes a lot longer, but we feel it's a great addition. Eventually we'd love to support auto transfers to Hotfile.com, but there are so many restrictions on uploading and downloading there, that it will be a miracle if we're ever able to pull that off.
Beating the Competition
Here's a great graph demonstrating how over the past 3 months we've overtaken a few of our top competitors, and how this month we've steadily been climbing above them. I personally have nothing against either of these sites, we're all just out to accomplish different things. However I also don't recommend them, due to excessive ads and pressure to subscribe on one and content inappropriate for children on the other (not that we're perfect in either area either though).
Note that we're the blue line.
Where We've Had Problems...
Most notably this past month were bugs in the AutoBot system. For about a week and a half it was consistently adding MegaShares linksets that didn't have any links in them. This was due to some improper linkchecking by the AutoBot system, and it has since been resolved.
In addition, we ran into some communication problems this past month or so. I learned I need to make a more concerted effort to regulate the quality of the titles, etc. we use, and to make sure I treat everyone fairly. Too often good intentions can get lost in translation, and its important that I do my best to prevent this.
Where Your Money Went...
The money for the second server was a huge help this past month. The AutoBot is a direct result of that, as well as the new administrative tool that I mentioned earlier. In addition, I recently launched a program I've titled "SinlessLinks OS", which was made possible by our new second server.
SinlessLinks OS?
Using the new server, I've set up a "sandbox" (aka a Development Area), and I've given out access to this development server to a few programmers that expressed an interest in helping out in the past. Together we're going to be reprogramming the entire site, and adding a whole slew of features. I hope to finish up this "overhaul" in December or January, and when we do, I'll be making all the code for the website Open Source (hence the OS in SinlessLinks OS).
That means that early next year, anyone that wants to can have a copy of the website, along with the entire database. This is being done for several reasons...
First, I want to make sure the website "lives forever". One way to help make sure this happens is to make sure that everyone has a copy, and that if anything happens to the website, someone else can put up an exact copy, replicating what the site looked like the day it went down.
Second, I want the website to always be improving. I don't have time to always work on it though, and so this will allow any well-meaning, skilled developer to make additions to the site.
Third, I can't do this forever. The career path I'm pursuing would be a conflict of interest with what SinlessLinks is, and this is the right way for me to be able to "hand over" the site to the public. No worries though, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, I'm just making all the preparations way in advance so that nobody will miss me when I'm gone :-).
The Vision...
You've caught a glimpse of the vision in what I've written above, but I figured I'd give you what my current "official" vision looks like:
Welcome to SinlessLinks OS, where every possible online file host is supported, as well as a multitude of torrent indexing websites, and possibly direct links to torrent files themselves. Every quality version of every post is easily accessible, and links are automatically transferred between dozens of file hosts. You can submit a review, rate a particular quality version, or an entire television series. Anyone can post items, but only those by approved posters or given enough thumbs up in the free-for-all area will actually get seen by the majority of the visitors. Any set of posts or new “non-posts” can be formed into a “collection” that’s easily brows-able. The search feature is updated with the new information constantly, and delivers consistent and reliable results, along with matching users, reviews, requests, and more. The best part – the entire operation is open source, copies of the latest code and database are available on the website every day, and the site is handed from caretaker to caretaker to ensure that it will never die.
~SinlessLinks
