Chris J. Karr, January 25th, 2009

Audacious Software has a new web presence.

Originally, I planned to reskin the original site this morning and spend this afternoon making a few last-minute tweaks for the Shion beta release. What ended up happening is that I spent all day working on the website, and I’ll be working tomorrow and Monday to get Shion test-ready. Beta testers, thank you for your patience.

The reason that the web work took longer than expected is that I had to craft a consistent visual identity out of something that was no more than a simple idea this morning. The results of this process are now online at

http://www.audacious-software.com 

The new site is largely the same as the older site, with some notable exceptions:

1. The Audacious Software forums are no more. I retired the Vanilla setup I was using in favor of the new UserVoice forums. Tech support is now being handled by a FogBugz wiki.

2. I made a handful of minor changes to the product pages. The Shion page has been updated in anticipation for the 2.0 beta test, and I’ve begun to demote Cidney in prominence until I have the time to give that app the time that it needs.

3. The Books links still point to the old site. I’ll bring Books under the Audacious Software umbrella when the 4.0 work is underway.

4. I replaced the old Audacious Software store with a new Amazon-powered store. The new Amazon store will allow me to better link complementary third-party products with Audacious Software applications. For example, in the Shion section, you can find a rich selection of INSTEON hardware. The Books section includes the initial set of electronic readers that will be supported in Books 4. (For the curious, I’m earning 4-6% for each item purchased from the store.)

5. I updated the Audacious Software Twitter page with the new layout and the new company logo.

6. At the suggestion of some of my researcher friends, I made the R&D section of the home page a bit more specific.

7. Using some of the leftover graphics, I went ahead and purchased some new business cards from MOO:

(We’ll see how long it takes for the cards to arrive from the UK.)

~ 

From the perspective of making progress on the beta test, the day was only marginally productive. However, from the view of establishing the “Audacious Software identity”, it was a very productive day. I can’t complain too much about that. :-)