BC Survey results, Part III

In previous weeks, I have posted the statistical data that resulted from the reader survey I conducted late last year, and too some time to address specific features that you'd like to see me add to the blog. Links to those posts can be found at the end of this one.

This week I'll take a look at the features you don't like very much, and I'll wrap up by giving a brief update on where things stand on the redesign.


What don't you like?

1. Wrecking Cincinnati
This will never go anywhere! While sometimes depressing and sad, I think that it's important to inventory what we have lost and why. Sure, a good deal of these buildings are shoddy in construction or contribute little to the Cincinnati "look", but I would like to salute them anyway. They once housed our city leaders, our merchants, our grandparents...well, you see where I'm going with this.

2. I'm not a big fan of the layout - having links and ads on both sides of the content makes the site feel cluttered to me.
My goal is to stay with three columns, but to make it less cluttered and to require less vertical scrolling.

3. I'm not a huge fan of the black background
I addressed this one two weeks ago. It's likely to stay, at least for the short term.

4. In my opinion, there are too many blog links.
I agree. Some will be culled (like Cincy Blurg) and navigation will become a lot easier through a JavaScript menu.

That's it?


Upgrade update

Part of the "server" problems I had last week had to do with may attempts to change the DNS nameservers to a custom host.

Currently my domain is hosted with the registrar and the blog content is hosted by Blogger. I attempted to change my domain host to, well, an actual web host.

However, by doing that I could no longer get the linkage between host and Blogger to recognize each other.

I won't bore you with the details - but if someone knows how to host a Blogger blog on a custom host with a custom domain without using FTP, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

Once I get that done, I will have to install content management software (probably Joomla) onto the servers of my new host.

Then it's just a matter of putting my pages together the way I've pre-designed them.

In other words, work is being done, albeit slowly.

Previous reading on BC:
BC Survey results, Part II (1/18/08)
BC Survey results, Part I (1/11/08)

BC Survey results, Part II

Last week, I published the numerical data I received from the Building Cincinnati Survey.

This week, I'll be looking at comments about the features that you said you wanted to see added to the blog.

Next week, I'll cover the feature that you'd like to see me remove.

Thanks again to everyone who participated, and please feel free to send me feedback anytime.

1. A search bar would be helpful.
There is a search bar at the top left corner of the page, in the Blogger bar. That box searches this site only. I'm currently working on upgrading the search functions on the site, and I have started adding tags to my posts. Searching will continue to get easier.

2. I would like to see agendas and minutes of Cincinnati Board of Building Appeals, board of Zoning Appeals and Historic Conservation Review.
So would I. I would recommend contacting them directly for minutes and agendas.

3. I'm always interested in development by locals.
So am I. I'm trying to make a better effort to start showing some of the new home construction projects going on locally, and I'm also pursuing a couple of renovation projects that haven't started yet.

4. How about a weekly or monthly feature on bad architectural decisions? Name names.
That is worth exploring. I definitely need to beef up my architectural coverage!

5. I am always looking for new, fun places to eat and just moved here. I wouldn't mind some sort of reviews or guide to Cincinnati restaurants.
That is kind of outside of the scope of this blog, and there are several local blogs that focus on this very issue. Check out my blogroll for links to some of those blogs.

6. More information on older historic homes within the City of Cincinnati. I live in Mt Washington in 160 year old home. I know of many other older homes in the area. I think it would be interesting to spot light the older homes found within the city.
Again, I plan on adding to my architectural coverage. I'm always looking for submissions about readers' old houses, so continue sending them in!

7. I'd like to see the CBD, Covington, & Newport get a little more coverage, if possible.
My coverage of Northern Kentucky is pitiful. I am building contacts over there, though, so that will definitely improve.

8. An archive by post type, i.e. new office, new residential, wrecking cinci, etc.
I have started tagging posts and you'll have the ability to search by tags in the future. It's a work in progress - I have about nine months of posts that I still need to tag, but I'll announce it when it's ready.

9. More coverage on the city's prosecution of absentee landlords (if there is any).
Thanks to Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Greg Hartmann, documents pertaining to court cases are no longer available for public viewing. I have been able to find snippets of information for my Wrecking Cincinnati posts, but not enough to be able to support full-length articles.

10. More coverage of suburban developments
This will always be an urban-focused blog and it will never include greenfield developments or subdivisions out in the townships. It will, however, include things like brownfield redevelopment in Reading, redevelopment along the Winton Road corridor in Forest Park and pedestrian-friendly development in Blue Ash. I will pretty much avoid Butler, Clermont, Warren and Boone counties altogether. There is also another problem I run into - it seems like officials in suburban jurisdictions are much less likely to respond to my inquiries.

11. As always, i like more articles - maybe there's room for another writer??
If you readers can help Building Cincinnati grow, then this is a definite possibility.

12. I'd like to see a section devoted to current programs to assist those interested in development. for instance, a special loan program the city might be offering for a certain area for certain reasons. include a forum to get insight from others.
Something like this would probably not happen very soon, at least not until this blog is upgraded to a website. At that point I plan to add a lot more resources - something I cannot do on this blog without making the layout much more cluttered than it already is.

13. Possibly a bit more notice on time based items like hearings, auctions, etc.
I will try to give a little more notice on these things - maybe an extra day or two. Sometimes when a story runs is dictated by content, but I'll try to be more conscious of this in the future.

14. make an interactive map of neighborhoods with on going projects in each. Here you could put links to news articles about the projects.
I plan on adding something like that when I upgrade to a website.

15. More neighborhood photo essays; more development history
When I upgrade to a website, I plan on scrapping the Photobucket galleries for more essay-styled neighborhood photo pages.

16. It might be nice to include polls for the safety of downtown. Basically ask everyone if they feel it's getting safer. Although a lot of great and amazing things are happening downtown, people are still scared to go there. We need to find every way possible to make them think otherwise.
A poll is not going to change anyone's perceptions, especially when the vast majority of the people who read this site are pro-City. What's needed is a complete change of mindset. People in this region seem less mentally equipped for city living than in other parts of the country, it seems.

17. Also, more about YOU the blogger, a more personal approach might make the posts more interesting to read. I find myself wondering how you got involved in these issues, what your perspective is, what is your day job and how do you stay motivated to update constantly?
I hate to keep talking about "upgrading to a website", but that's the plan as well. A full "About Me" page where I can include the personal stuff.

18. An area that is specifically focused on OTR development plans. As a young professional with a minimal income it would be nice to have an updated site to find out when development is going to occur so I can act fast on a property when the opportunity arises.
I want to stay away from focusing on one neighborhood, but I will post about any news of note when I hear about it.

19. Ways to get involved
This will be integrated into my list of resources, once that time arises.

20. I would like some more personal, subjective commentary. What is your gut reaction of a neighborhood or project? Would you live in a certain development?
Outside of my comments when I post a link to an outside article, I try to stay pretty objective. If I'm going to post my personal feelings on a project, look for it in the article comments.

That last one reminds me of something - I'd like to add "Recent Comments" to the blog, which will make it easier for you to track comments on articles that disappear from the front page. The widgets I've found so far all lack something, usually putting the story titles in lower case. I know it's nitpicking, but it just looks bad. If anyone knows of a good "Recent Comments" widget or a snippet of code, please contact me.

BC Survey results, Part I

First off, I'd like to thank the 86 people who took part in the Building Cincinnati survey. Your answers will help me take this from a humble blog to a full-fledged website.

Also, thank you for keeping it civil and for not wasting my time with spam comments.

Since you were so helpful to me, I thought you at least deserved to see the results. I have added my takes on what I think the numbers mean.

Next week, I'll dive into some of the comments that were left and give you some feedback on what I think about your suggestions.

* Age: Most readers are aged 25-34, while 71 percent are between the ages of 25 and 49. No readers were under 18, and 7 percent of readers are over the age of 50.
This is not surprising to me, though I would have expected one or two kids.

* Sex: 84 percent of respondents were male.
I'm not surprised by this either, being part of several urban-themed message boards that are overwhelmingly male. I would be interested in finding out why this is the case.

* Neighborhood: Slightly more than half of my readers are Cincinnati residents. All but six live in Greater Cincinnati. Six respondents live in Northern Kentucky and one lives in Indiana. Non-residents live in Columbus; Baltimore; Fullerton, CA; and Randolph, NJ.
Given that this is largely a pro-Cincinnati blog, this makes sense. I can see that I need to work harder for Kentucky content, though, and I promise you that I'm addressing that.

* Profession: Only 25 percent of respondents work in a field that is related to my content, the majority being non-profits, preservationists and architects. The majority of "other" answers were from interested residents.
Fantastic! I want this blog to have broad appeal, but I also like to have experts who read and who can offer specific insights. Please chime in more often!

* Family income: Very even for all catgories from $30,000+, with $75,000-$100,000 winning a slight plurality. Eleven percent of respondents make less than $30,000 per year.
Interesting - all walks of life. Development affects everyone, I suppose.

* Highest education completed: 98 percent of my readers have had at least some college, with 56 percent graduated and 20 percent holding masters or doctorate degrees.
I'm glad I attract such well-schooled readers! Perhaps this is why I never have to spend any time deleting idiotic comments.

* General opinion of Cincinnati: Half of respondents had a very favorable opinion of the City, while another 44 percent had a somewhat favorable opinion. Only 3 percent had a somewhat unfavorable opinion, with an equal amount being neutral.
You probably wouldn't enjoy this blog much if you hate the City, because it's not really for you.

* How did you find Building Cincinnati?: 52 percent found BC through another blog. Twenty-two percent found it through a search engine, and an equal 7 percent found it either through a news article, word of mouth, or from Urban Ohio.
The importance of a blogroll. A sizable chunk of my hits come from other local blogs.

* How often do you read BC?: 68 percent of you read several times per week, with 31 percent reading daily. Another 19 percent read once or twice per week.
I don't know why I asked this question, because I can see this stuff in my site stats. But I'm glad that people like the site enough to come back day after day - that's why I write.

* Have you referred others to BC?: 63 percent of readers have.
Why not? ;)

* Do you subscribe to the BC RSS feed?: Only 13 percent of you do.
This shocked me, but only because I can't live without my feed reader. I still remember the days of having hundreds of sites in my favorites list that had to check every day. No fun.

* Do you read any other local blogs?: 52 out of 86 readers answered this question, but there are far too many to list here. (Cincinnati Blog appeared most often in the responses.)
Most people read more than one blog. I read about three dozen. Luckily, we have a bunch of fantastic local blogs. If you're not reading them, you should be.

* Ease of navigation: 51 percent find BC very easy to navigate, while 38 percent said it was somewhat easy. Eleven percent had no opinion.
I think the hardest part about the navigation is the clutter, which leads to this question....

* Visual clutter: Half of you find the site slightly cluttered, and 5 percent find it very cluttered.
It's getting out of hand, especially the links. A redesign is coming, and I promise you it will be much, much better.

* Advertising: 87 percent of readers think that the advertising on BC is minimally intrusive, while the remainder think it's slightly intrusive.
I think we're all used to seeing ads everywhere, and we're desensitized. That being said, there is probably as much advertising - space-wise - as there ever will be.

* Content: 96 percent of respondents believe that development coverage on BC is comprehensive, with nearly two-thirds of those choosing "very comprehensive". The remainder say my work is average.
I try to fill in the blanks on what the local media doesn't cover and to give publicity to smaller, less sexy projects around the area. I kind of explained that in an article a couple of weeks back, but I'll just say that I still strive to put stuff out there that people want to read.

* Accuracy: 90 precent of respondents believe that my work is accurate, with four-fifths of those saying that it's very accurate. Ten percent find the accuracy average.
Ninety percent isn't good enough for me. I'll work harder. That's a promise.

Wrecking Cincinnati: Who are the losers?

As Building Cincinnati enters its second year, I wanted to take a closer look at one of my daily features, Wrecking Cincinnati.

I first started writing news on demolished buildings on the Urban Ohio forums.

And in the first few months of this blog, finding content was often a problem. What better to fill some space?

So in July I started it as a weekly feature, and in late August I decided to post one per day.

I would like to stress that I do not consider all of the buildings I post to be important, contributing structures worthy of saving. Some are absolute dumps and have always been.

Still, they were part of our built environment and were once home to Cincinnatians with families, hopes and dreams.

I have taken a look back at some of the homes I have featured, and I thought I'd try to nail down which neighborhoods have been hit the hardest.

I began by finding the number of housing units by neighborhood by using Census 2000 data, the last census for which complete data is available.

I then estimated the number of housing units in each demolished building, fully knowing that this is imprecise. If anything, I made conservative guesses.

Finally, I divided the number of housing units lost by the amount of housing units in the neighborhood and then sorted each neighborhood by percentage.

Again, it's imperfect, but here are the true losers (with percentage of housing units demolished):

1. Lower Price Hill (1.55%)
2. Camp Washington (0.61%)
3. Avondale (0.55%)
4. Northside (0.44%)
5. Corryville (0.43%)
6. Walnut Hills (0.28%)
7. North Fairmount (0.25%)
8. University Heights (0.22%)
9. Linwood (0.22%)
10. Mount Lookout (0.21%)

Some of these numbers can be influenced by the size of the neighborhood, where the loss of one building could inflate the stats. For example, Lower Price Hill only lost two or three buildings, and Linwood one. On the other hand, it seems like I'm posting one or two from Avondale or Northside every single week.

So here is a listing of total number of housing units lost (remember, these totals are only of those that have appeared on Wrecking Cincinnati):

1. Avondale (40)
2. Northside (20)
3. Corryville (9)
3. Over-the-Rhine (9)
5. Lower Price Hill (8)
5. Walnut Hills (8)
5. University Heights (8)
8. South Fairmount (7)
9. Evanston (6)
9. West End (6)
9. East Price Hill (6)

One other caveat about the numbers - almost all of the Corryville demolitions took place on the redevelopment site at MLK and Vine.

I'll do this again in early 2009, since the sample size will be so much larger. Perhaps by then there will be enough information to start tracking some trends.

Inside BC: Some changes

Over the weekend I made a couple of small changes.

The first major change is the new font, Gill Sans MT. I think it looks classier than the old font and ties in better with the font in my header. This font should show up on all browsers that have come out in the past few years.

The second change is a widening of the blog to accommodate my Google advertisements. I have tried to keep it as unobtrusive as possible.

Please let me know if you have any font issues or if the blog is too wide and requires you to scroll left to right. It would be helpful if you include which browser you use and what your screen resolution is.

In the near future, I plan on migrating the blog over to http://www.building-cincinnati.com. I still have some research to do to make sure I don't lose any posts in the move. For you, the reader, coming to this URL will automatically forward you to the new site.

I'll be sure to post when I make the move.

BC now part of Cyburbia

Within the last week this blog began appearing on Cyburbia's Cities and Places page.

That particular part of the website is an aggregator that culls posts from various urban-related blogs.

It's a great way to keep up with what's going on in other cities.

Cyburbia, which was launched in 1994, is an urban planning portal and message board. I've added them to my links.

Domain purchased

Over the past weekend I purchased the domain building-cincinnati.com.

While this is not ideal (having to mention the "dash"), it was the best I could do to still get a ".com" address.

About a month ago somebody purchased buildingcincinnati.com. I haven't found out who bought it (although I have a couple of guesses), but they have basically thrown away about $30. Great business move.

Look for this blog to eventually migrate to the new address. I'll be sure to let you know before that happens.

Dear readers,

If one of you has purchased the domain name "buildingcincinnati.com", please e-mail me at buildingcincinnati@gmail.com. I'd like to talk with you.

Thanks.

I didn't win

I didn't win.

But being recognized as one of the ten best is still pretty good.

Congratulations to Drew Steinbrecher and Michelle Lentz for their co-championship, and to Kevin Dugan for winning the best blog competition among chamber members.

Links to their blogs can be found in this post.

It seems like local blogs are being added at a much faster pace. Hopefully we can all work together to make each other better. And maybe, in the future, we can make judges' decisions on which blog is best much, much more difficult.

Northern Kentucky has not been forgotten

It occurred to me that I haven't written about Northern Kentucky since July 2, and even that was mostly culled from a post on another blog.

I plan on hitting the area south of the river some time soon. Perhaps I'll even do a "Northern Kentucky Week" or something to make up for a month of neglect.

Cincinnati's top 10 blogs

My humble blog was named one of the top 10 local blogs (see below) by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, CincyTechUSA and Cincinnati.com.

My name appeared in the business section of the Enquirer and in the Cincinnati Business Courier. Never mind that the Business Courier misspelled my name and got the URL wrong!

My understanding is that the winners will be mentioned today.

As far as this blog goes, the best is definitely yet to come.

---

Here are the top 10:

• "Building Cincinnati," Kevin LeMaster, Cincinnati development news
  
• "Cincinnati Blog," Brian Griffin, political and progressive news and opinion
  
• "DesignCincinnati," Drew Steinbrecher, design and architecture highlights around the region
  
• "Fort's Cancer Sux," Melissa McLaughlin, a local woman's quest to beat stage four breast cancer
  
• "Freckle Photo," Melissa Speelman, a local art teacher's photos of her family, friends and classroom activities
  
• "Each Note Secure," Joe Long, a WOXY.com staffer's take on local and national music
  
• "Lance McAlister," Lance McAlister, sports
  
• "My Wine Education," Michelle Lentz, local and world wine news
  
• "Patent Baristas," Stephen Albainy-Jenei, intellectual property topics
  
• "Strategic Public Relations," Kevin Dugan, PR developments and issues locally and globally

Inside BC: Changes

Over the weekend I spent several hours re-formatting this blog into a three-column format.

Blog information is in the left column, the main stuff is still in the middle and development news/blog archive is still on the right side.

The masthead has also been improved.

The best part is that the photo galleries are now on a drop-down menu at the top of the right column. No more being buried at the bottom of the page!

I would like your input on the new look. How does it perform on your monitor? I have tested it out on several computers and it's looking fine.

Vote for me!

The Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, Cincinnati.com and CincyTechUSA are sponsoring a "Best Blogs" contest.

There are two categories: Best overall community blog, and best blog by a Chamber member.

Click here to nominate a blog. You may vote for more than one. I have voted for a lot of local blogs, because I appreciate the work that goes into them and I feel that we should all support each other.

Here's the crappy part. The deadline is Friday, July 27. In other words, TODAY! I don't know if they're accepting entries throughout the day or if there's some sort of cutoff point. But, as of this writing (12:15 AM, Friday) the nomination page is still up.

Oh...the crappier part: Winners receive an iPhone but NO AT&T service. So you have to pay for that. What good's the phone without the service? Geez...at least pay for a year or something!

Inside BC: New feature

I've recently added development news from Cinplify. Cinplify is a local news aggregator for local news and blog posts that lets readers vote on which stories are important to them. The widget I installed shows the five most recent stories posted to the Construction/Developments section. Clicking on one of those stories takes you through Cinplify--all you need to do then is click on the headline to go to the original story. (You may even want to poke around Cinplify for a while.)

I'm also looking into taking this blog to three columns instead of two. The two columns require a lot of scrolling, and I don't like my photo links being buried at the bottom of the page. I'd also like to fill the whole page and get rid of all of that dead space along the sides of the blog. Most peoples' monitors can handle the wider pages -- only 7% of my last 500 visitors were using 800 x 600 resolution.

Oh...and I added a Technorati thing, if you're into that.

Inside BC: Readership is growing!

This blog has passed the six month mark and it's growing very steadily. In January I had about 85 unique visitors for the whole month. Last month, I was just short of 2,000.

I try my best to provide content that people want to read. I plan on really growing this site and I can always use your help.

Consider this an open thread where you can post your comments and criticisms.

If you'd rather, you can e-mail me at buildingcincinnati@gmail.com.

I read all comments and e-mails, and will take the time to answer any questions that you may have.

And thanks again for reading the Building Cincinnati blog.

Inside BC, 6/5/07

An occasional feature where I rant about this blog....

FeedBurner, who manages one of my site feeds, has been purchased by Google for somewhere around $100 million. They have been very reliable with my feeds and in notifying me of any problems, and I wouldn't expect that to change. Hopefully there will be some new features integrated with Blogger.

Photobucket, who hosts my photos, has been purchased by Fox Interactive Media for somewhere in the $250-$300 million range. This worries me. I just want a photo host that's quick and reliable. Recently, Photobucket has added all kinds of new features, yet they've never been able to master putting together an interface that doesn't run like molasses, even on a fast computer. I worry that having Fox Interactive Media is going to mean even more hype where there should be substance. Time will tell...I have six more months before I have to renew.

One thing that I ABSOLUTELY do not like on the Photobucket site is the "Buy Prints" feature in the top right corner. Here viewers can purchase prints of my photos through QOOP, but none of this money goes to me. So it's okay for QOOP to make money off of something that they don't own?

In the Photobucket forums I heard it explained that anybody can right click on your photo, save it, and "steal" it, therefore it's not any different if they do it with QOOP instead. Bullshit! Some random idiot downloading my photo for personal use is one thing. Officially sanctioned theft of my property, which is then compounded by a monetary payment to the thief, is quite another thing.

Now I'm starting to get mad, so I should stop.

On Friday, I shattered a record for unique visitors with 260, page views with 419 and returning visitors with 75. (I know, pretty weak relative to some of the massive blogs out there.) My previous record for unique visitors was something like 48. All of this for a story about the Cedar Grove project in Price Hill, which involves the rehab of four houses. Maybe people thought the project was something else?

(EDIT: It was pointed out to me that the Price Hill post was linked to by Cincinnati Nation, and a search through my stats proved that to be the case. Thanks to Cincinnati Nation for the referrals.)

I got two comments (well, one posted twice) in that topic and it was in Spanish. From what I could gather, the blogger has a site where you can order personalized T-shirts. Ostensibly he was offering me the opportunity to create Building Cincinnati shirts. I think I'll wait a little while on that one, and I'll probably go with a company that isn't some random blogger/blog page.

The hits keep on comin'

Last Thursday was my best day as far as reader activity on this site goes. I managed a whopping 57 unique visitors. (I know...big deal, right?)

Most of this traffic can be attributed to this post in the Cincinnati Beacon. I know this for a fact because my stat package shows me what links people go through to arrive at my site.

I've added the Cincinnati Beacon to my "Links/Blogroll" section, and I thank them for including me in theirs.

And for those of you who just found out about the site, I do welcome comments.

Small change made

I've made a tiny change to the photo gallery links. Clicking on them will open a new browser window.

Yes, I am aware that some people hate that, especially those of us who use browsers with tabs. Unfortunately, this is the only way I could make it work for people using older browsers.

Site feeds

All of my site feeds are now available in the right column, just above the blog archives.

I've also added the feeds for comments. I know these are sometimes useful when someone replies to a topic that's buried. Instead of searching through all of the topics for one or two comments, these feeds deliver them directly into your feed reader/news aggregator program.

Behind the scenes, 2/21/07

One of the neat things about having a blog is taking a look at who's been reading it.

I use a program called StatCounter that breaks down all kinds of stats for me, including the countries from which clicks into or on my blog originate.

So far, I have the following, in no particular order:
United States (97% of users), Canada, China, Argentina, the Netherlands, Kuwait, Singapore, Denmark, Japan and Sweden.

I have no doubt that a few of these could be bots, spiders, etc. Still, it's interesting to think of what some cat in Argentina thinks when he's viewing this blog.