One of the projects I've been working on for Pampered Puppy has just gone live: Merrylog. Daily photos of the princess pug, with light commentary and comments turned on. Since this is a business project, I thought I'd share the decision process that led me to the launch of the Merrylog.

And bear with me, because there is liberal use of the word "we" - yes, I'm currently the only Pampered Puppy full-time employee, although there are contractors on a part-time basis. But when I speak about a business, the word "we" just always seems to make more sense. And so it shall be below.

1. People just love dog pictures. One of the most successful content areas of the site is our photo contest area. Every month, we hold a photo contest and generally receive 250+ submissions. I post the winners along with a varying number of "honorable mentions" (usually between 40 and 60 photos), depending on how many great photos there are that month. And people love it. They often make it their first stop when they visit the site. And they come back, every month, just to look at the dog photos.

2. People just love Merry. The next successful content area of the site, after the contests, is the Merryvaluations program. Companies send us samples of their products, Merry tries them out, and then we take some photos and write a review. I've adopted a very diva-esque "voice" for these reviews, in keeping with Merry's persona, and people just seem to love them. Many of our visitors feel they know the princess personally based on those reviews, which have been running every month for over a year now.

3. A test case for community. I'm afraid, really, that ever since Pathway to Darkness, communities scare me a little bit, though I know they can be a neccessary evil. The real problem is that they're a huge time investment. At its peak, Pathway to Darkness had over 3,000 community members in its discussion forums, and I'd say a good 30% were regular posters. That meant 300 to 500 posts a day. It made for a LOT of work in moderation. This is the main reason I've avoided launching similar forums for Pampered Puppy; I'm just not sure I have the time. But allowing, and even encouraging comments for the Merrylog photos means that I can test the waters a bit and make my decision from there.

4. Daily content. This was a big one. I needed a way to be able to provide more regular, fun content for our visitors without needing to write a new article every day. Writing the content for Pampered Puppy is exhausting, and quite frankly knocks me out. But a blog format, with light commentary, I can do. And since I finally went out and bought myself a Canon G5 (more on that later), I feel relatively confident that I can take decent daily photos of the pug.

5. Leveraging the blogosphere. In the end, this isn't about altruism; after all, it's a business. So yes, I'm hoping that even a small amount of whuffie in the blogger community will help to drive more people to the site.

6. Ad space. This is the first time I've ever had a blog that runs ads - no, they're not Google ads, they're the same ads I use throughout the Pampered Puppy site. More ad space is good, since demand is rising quickly particularly among larger companies who would like to do large ad buys. And since I have pretty strict guidelines on the creative, I'm hoping the ads will be more of a value-added service. At the very least, they shouldn't be too intrusive to the enjoyment of the site.

So, there you have it. There may be a followup post in a few days about how I chose and modified the tech to do what I wanted, if there's any interest. Please feel free to stop by and take a look; and don't hesitate to let my little pug puppy know what you think by leaving a comment! :)

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