Eating Your Own Dog Food
I’m sure we have all heard the expression “eating your own dog food”. What it refers to is building something and actually using it for yourself. An example would be everyone at Yahoo actually using Yahoo Mail instead of GMail. Think about it, how often do you use your own site?
Before we launched 9rules Notes, we often wondered why people didn’t stay on our site longer and use it and while the answers were obvious we found that we couldn’t expect people to use the site if we weren’t using it ourselves. So we began to brainstorm on how we could make the site more interactive, while still growing the brand and helping our Members in the process and because of this 9rules Notes was born.
Now the 9rules team actually uses the site every single day just like everyone else and because of this we have become more aware of what needs to be improved. Before it was easy planning a design, implementing a design and then walking away expecting everything to be grand. But once we began using the site we found that it was a completely different story.
Not that we don’t want to improve the site for our Members and users, but we want to improve it even faster because we are using it and there are things we want to see happen. Maybe that’s stupid motivation and a bit selfish, but either way, improvements help everyone out.
Think about your own site, even if it is a blog. Do you really use it besides posting an entry and maybe some followup comments? How often do we think about our designs and implement the ideas that we think are good without actually trying them out over an extended period of time? I spent the last couple of days actually using Wisdump and let me tell you, it’s not that good. Sure it’s fine if you want to read the latest entry, but beyond that it really serves no purpose.
While planning out the next design, using the current design has taught me a couple of things that I know won’t be making it into the next one and have helped me think of new ideas that probably would have never occurred if I hadn’t tried the site out myself. So if you own a site, why don’t you go about using it for the rest of the week. Followup on comments if you have them, go looking for old content and just see where the site takes you. Does the actual design make you want to tear your hair out after 15 minutes on the site?
Have a go at it, you might find that the food doesn’t taste that good.
Internets is playing a big and very important role in our lives and also providing us more affordable opportunities of the internet marketing due to the great competition in the industry and because of this web hosting packages are now also cheap then before. Even more then less hosting companies are offering you the free domain registration with their hosting packages and also providing security software packages to secure your online data. You can find lots of companies on the internet that are providing dependable and affordable VoIP service to their clients. Internet service providers ISP are mostly using the wireless internet technologies to get faster.
Related reading:
Good post. Personally, I use my personal site a lot. I use it to find my old bookmarks, find my old photos, and so forth. I look at it as a repository for all things “me” online. That way, when I need to refer back to something I’ve done online in the past, I only have to look in one spot — my own website. :)
By Jeff Croft on November 14, 2006 2:18 pm
Yeah it would be nice to be able to say that with my own site, but I can’t. Of course my design guruness is no match for Lara Croft’s. Maybe I will just steal your design, that will make things easier for me.
By Scrivs on November 14, 2006 2:20 pm
Heh. My point, simply, as to echos yours: find thins to build into your site that will make it useful *for you*, and there’s a good chance other people will find it useful, as well.
By Jeff Croft on November 14, 2006 2:44 pm
I’ve gotten into the habit of using my site every day. When I redid the backend, I didn’t build a fancy admin tool. So, I read, navigate, and leave comments on the site just like everybody else. It’s given me more informed decisions of what problems I wanted to solve when redesigning.
By Jonathan Snook on November 14, 2006 4:44 pm
Ah nice system indeed Snooker.
By Scrivs on November 14, 2006 4:56 pm
I use mine often. The whole reason I started it was as a repository for my ideas, techniques, fixes, and so forth. Now I find myself going back often. And the nice thing about it is that people leave comments to help you out or make your solutions better…
By John Labriola on November 14, 2006 5:40 pm
I use mine from time to time. I tend to find posting stuff to it helps me to remember that stuff better so I don’t tend to need to look it up again as often. Other things (code snippets and cheat sheets) I need regularly.
I use my own site differently to everyone else though, because I know what’s there. It would be great if I could visit my own site as someone who’d never been, so I could spot the gaps and problems that my familiarity with the site prevents me from seeing.
By Dave Child on November 14, 2006 7:08 pm
As far as 9Rules and dog food is concerned though…I would think that the main concern of your members and particularly future members is not the length of time spent or the ease of use of the 9Rules site, but rather what really factors into them being accepted and remaining as members.
From a dog food perspective, I think an interesting exercise for you to do (assuming you don’t already) would be to have each of the “owners” (you, Mike and Tyme) individually put together a completely anonymous blog with a made up persona and then submit it for your next round. Alternatively, you could bring in an anonymous blog, keep it up for a few months or so and then let it sit and rot — see how long it takes for the partnership to uphold the standard of quality and kick the site out…
I think to get a real feel of what it’s like to be an “unknown” who is accepted, or how well you uphold the standard would be a good heaping spoonful of dog food.
By Mark on November 16, 2006 12:02 am
[...] Insightful post by Scrivs titled – Eating your own Dog Food – and asks whether you are someone who actually uses your own blog? [...]
By Speedlinking 17 November 2006 on November 17, 2006 1:28 am
Benutze dein eigenen Kram…
Als Betreiber/Autor wundert man sich des Öfteren (”Hallo NdR”), warum nichts passiert und niemand die – mit Liebe und Bedacht erstellte – Website nutzt.
Marketing wird oft als Grund aus dem Hut gezaubert, aber nur zu häufig liegt es an d…
By m3nt0rs weblog on November 17, 2006 8:19 am
I use my site every day.
I originally started it as a place I could stick stuff I needed to remember, and I still use it for that.
What I think is funny is when I go looking for something on Google and they send me to my own site :-)
By pcunix on November 17, 2006 11:50 am
very nice blog, caught me with the title. I just had to read it. Logical. but I also do not use my site as such and have found many mistakes just going through it. I learned most by the style this blog was writen
By ericat on November 19, 2006 9:40 am
[...] Eating Your Own Dog Food [...]
By Links for November 17 | the texas blog on November 20, 2006 4:10 pm
I constantly use my site whenever I look for good links that I’ve posted or I search for old entries. These things keep me on my toes when it comes to evaluating and reevaluating my IA and that is why I keep things where they are. I also proofread all of my entries, which is why readability matters a lot to me, and I comment all the time, so I keep the comment box clean.
By Montoya on November 21, 2006 11:43 pm
[...] The other day I came across “Eating Your Own Dog Food” at Wisdump and I figured I should share how I have been doing this on my own sites. [...]
By How to eat your own dog food | Christian Montoya on November 25, 2006 3:35 pm
[...] Apparently they cannot eat their own dogfood. [...]
By Get A New Browser » Blog Archive » Des Moines and Viral Marketing on November 29, 2006 1:30 pm
[...] Apparently they cannot eat their own dogfood. [...]
By andy brudtkuhl » Des Moines and Viral Marketing on November 29, 2006 6:34 pm
[...] of a website with the focus on design and the web. Full fat and full taste at regular intervals. I ate my own dog food and it was not so tasty December 3 | diary of a website, flavour Over at Wisdump, Scrivs encouraged us a while ago to‘eat your own dog food’ in the sense of using your site and seeing what it’s like. As many of you will have seen it’s been one of those insane months for me, not a bad thing (nope this isn’t a toooo busy to post post), however during this time I’ve also been eating some of my own dog food. No, we didn’t run out and decide puppy chow was the best option. Whilst doing the dog food test (I think that’s a great way to call it), I discovered one glaringly obvious thing. I actually don’t like this version of Diary of a website. [...]
By DIARY OF A WEBSITE :: DESIGN BY CAFFEINE » Blog Archive » I ate my own dog food and it was not so tasty on December 3, 2006 8:06 pm
Interesting post.
My main site is my design portfolio and as yet I haven’t developed any way to get around what you’re saying.
I run a blog alongside my portfolio but although my programming skills are on the rise I’ve not yet implemented a client portal. I guess that’s a step in the right direction – such as posting preliminary designs and sketches in a specific client section whereby access is password restricted.
By David Airey on December 7, 2006 12:28 pm
A very good post. Makes you rethink some things.
By Andrei Botez on December 15, 2006 4:07 am
[...] I am starting to create value in my blog. These days I posts only when I have something important, or useful I want to keep reference, then I write a post about it. And sometimes these materials which I keep records of are useful to others too. So as more people starts to search, my blog get indexed which is good for me. Or simply as Wisdump put it ‘Eating my Own Dog Food‘. [...]
By Internet Famous - Why I dun blog post frequently, and you should too! on January 4, 2007 11:45 am
[...] Well if I’m going to be telling businesses about using blogging to fuel their business growth, then I better eat my own dog food, so to speak. [...]
By 5 Reasons Why I Blog at SuccessCREEations by Chris Cree on February 9, 2007 9:51 am
More info please…. Your topic about Your Own Dog Food needs more comments. I\’d like to spend me Saturday nights reading about own own business online
By Own Own Business Online on September 15, 2007 12:20 am
The fact that so many blogs focus on pet shows once again that they are indeed man’s best friend. It’s great to see so many people now looking more seriously at dog’s health issues, whether it’s dog food or pet insurance.
Compare the top pet insurance plans quickly and easily at Pet-Insurance-Information.com
By Mike Riley on March 25, 2008 3:48 am