Joining us this evening with a new crew: our host, Anthony Cole (lightdifference/lightbook in IRC), with fellow Random Shapes members Steven (StevenBao in IRC) Bao and Henry (Henryetc in IRC).

In this edition, we discuss:

• Random Shapes leader, Mattbob, going to Uruguay on a mission trip. See you in two years!
• Bryan Culver’s very interesting PHP script that switches your site’s style depending on whether it’s day or night in your area.
• Is 9rules dying? Us three all think it’s at least lost its prestige, and agree that the community is dead. Random Shapes, on the other hand, has a more active community than ever and with it’s always-open application process is adding members all the time.
• Jordan Chark’s delicious interview with Wil Shipley, developer of the excellent Mac media categorization app Delicious Library.
• Conner Downey’s informative review of the of the Mac RSS reader
• Random Shapes members’ high school graduations, and Dustin Bachrach’s in particular, as he was the only one to write about it. Congrats to all of you graduates! We apologize if we didn’t know you were one.

Hopefully this edition was listenable, but if you are dissatisfied, summer looms, kids — get on Skype with us and help out! Hit up any of us in IRC if you’d like in on the next edition.

The podcast discusses topics ranging from Flickr vs. Zooomr, the suckyness
of Open Office, Linux, and how funny our pronunciation of words is
(alumin-i-um, eh?). It’s a tad late this week, but here’s
the podcast:

Members mentioned:

• Judson
• Erin
• Thilak
• Elisabeth
• Alex
• Jonny

If you want to contribute to the podcast, pop Joey Brooks (aka tunicwriter) an email (joey at this domain); he’ll appreciate your feedback.

Subscribe to our podcasts through RSS or iTunes.

Members mentioned:

• Thilak
• James
• Stabani
• Bekka
• Harrisony

If you’d like to contribute to the podcast, complain, or send praise just send an email to podcast {at} randomshapes.com.

Subscribe to our podcasts through RSS or iTunes.

Yeah I know, not very exciting. But I’m pretty excited about it anyways. It’s been an awesome first year.

• We’ve grown from 7 to 60.
• We’ve changed the site 4 times and made it significantly better each time.
• We’ve become a more well known blog network with a good reputation.
• We have an awesome, growing community of loyal members.
• We were interviewed for a book about teens on the web and have partnerships with other teen websites.
• Most importantly we’ve learned a lot and this next year will be even better.

Also, I’ve spent this first year running the site by myself. I’ve spent hundreds of hours working on Random Shapes, probably more, and I can’t keep up with it. It’s an awesome problem to have. Joey Brooks is partnering up with me to fix this problem. He’s been very helpful with some of the behind-the-scenes stuff and you’ll be hearing more from him later. I’m really excited to be working with him and having his help during this next year.

So what’s new?

The Design
Well what more can I say. It has a new look. There’s still some IE issues but it’s just about done. I hope you like it.

Search
This is probably my favorite addition to the site. You can now search the whole network from anywhere on the site. Search is replacing the Groups we used to have. Now you can search all the posts on any topic you want. Groups weren’t organized or narrow enough to be useful. Search fixes that problem.

Feeds
We’re putting them everywhere. You want an RSS feed of all the latest posts? You got one. You want one for a specific search term? You got one.

Member Profiles
What? Where? Actually, we don’t have this yet but it’s coming this week. Keep an eye on the Members page for changes and to learn more about each member.

About Us
We’re no longer just a blog network. Random Shapes is a community for teens that features the best teen content on the web. We aren’t going to be just blogs forever.

Related Posts
Now when you find a post you like just click the related link next to the post and 3 more posts on the same topic will magically appear. It’s a fun addition to the site and it’s just another way you can find the content you’re interested in.

If you noticed anything weird going on with the site let me know and I’ll see if I can fix it. Otherwise, I hope you like it! I’d love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, criticisms, and ideas.

Harrison: How would you describe yourself?
Bryan: Interesting? Yeah, that’s probably the best I can do. You’d have to ask other people. I hate writing about myself.

Harrison: How did you get into blogging?
Bryan: Channel surfing when I was like 11/12, I stubbled across TechTV and they were talking about Blogger. Many years later, here I am.

Harrison: Whats your typical day like?
Bryan: Weekdays: I wake up around 5am. I avoid falling down the stairs on my way to the kitchen. Make my coffee. Drink it. Find something to nibble on. Go back upstairs. Turn on iTunes and take a nap for half hour before I get ready and go to school. Go to school, listen to teachers ramble, go home. Do my homework. Go to the mall, hang out with friend until 7. Come home, eat, shower, and screw around on my computer till I can not function (around 12) and go to bed. Wake and repeat.

Weekends: Anything I feel like doing as long as it’s after noon.

Harrison: Why do you blog?
Bryan: Apparently some people read my blog. I just use it as a platform to design on.

Harrison: Xbox 360 vs Playstation 3 vs Nintendo Wii & Why?
Bryan: None. I’ve only played on a 360 once but I am not much of a video gamer.

Harrison: Am i a ninja?
Bryan: If I am a rockstar, then sure you are a ninja.

Harrison: How long have you been blogging?
Bryan: I started at blogger in 2001 but at my own domain in 2003.

Harrison: Any final comments?
Bryan: Read my blog. I sometimes write something good. Oh, and I just found a new web comic to read: http://candicomics.com That’s all here.

Welcome to the network Bryan and thank you Harrison for doing the interview!

Random Shapes Tshirt

To create a community you need interaction and interest. With Random Shapes, interaction came first. Before we had a site we had a forum and interest grew from there. The Random Shapes community has grown tremendously and I’m hoping you’ll hellp make it grow just a little more.

As of today we’re opening up the Random Shapes Forum to anyone who would be like to be part of the community. The forum is small right now but so is our community and as the community grows the Forum will evolve with it.

Join us in the forum for more.

Harrison: How would you describe yourself?
Michael: Mild obsessive compulsive, easy going tyrant.

Harrison: How did you get into blogging?
Michael: Through a close friend, I was curious of her background and found out she was a cutter. I got interested and signed up for a depressive LJ account in an effort to read her blog.

Harrison: Whats your typical day like In detail or idealist summary form?
Michael: Pretty status quo, work in the city for a Web Dev. firm, do my code crunching, get home and typically drink with mates at the local pub.

Harrison: Sounds good, work hard and then go to the pub.
Michael: It has it’s unfortunate effect the following morning.

Harrison: Why do you blog?
Michael: For the coverage of course, we’re all shovanists just some a little more forthcoming. No, I love writing and I love technology. Two things that go hand in hand in my world.

Harrison: Xbox 360 vs Playstation 3 vs Nintendo Wii
Michael: Wii!

Harrison: Is that because of its sexy name?
Michael: No, the gameplay is off this planet,just wish they could bring the graphics up to play though… silly Nintendo.

Harrison: If I said to you “The dingo stole my baby!” what would you say to me?
Michael: Lies! You killed it! Followed by strangling…

Harrison: Any final comments?
Michael: Bored, go check out Boing Boing, “Crazy sculptures of giant breasted dolls”, mad…!? Loved the interview. Thanks Harrison!

Welcome to the network Michael and thank you Harrison for doing the interview!

If you like short podcasts you’ll love this one. Sorry for the delay but hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) we’ll start doing podcasts more regularly. As always if there’s something you’d like to contribute to the podcast, complain, or send praise just send an email to podcast {at} randomshapes.com.

Members mentioned:

• Elisabeth
• Kiwiqueen
• Jules
• Joe
• Jonny
• Aaron

Subscribe to our podcasts through RSS or iTunes.