Change to our update schedule
Torrid Art is basically an artist’s website, a place where I can show my work. As I describe in the blog entry Art, mass-produced commercial art, and the galleries of Torrid Art, I consider my work for Torrid Art to be a compromise. Within the constraints of shooting mass-produced art for TA, I attempt to inject artistic content.
As an artist’s website, Torrid Art does not resemble a large, corporate-owned site. The site is “hand crafted.” The photos show more care in their creation, production value and presentation. I believe that the “hand-crafted” and “small-team” aspects of TA have strong appeal to many of our visitors and members. It is the focal point of their user experience. The tradeoff is that the site does not “move” as fast as a big site; update schedules and site development are slower.
Torrid Art has always had an update schedule of three updates per week. Each full gallery is approximately 100 photos and split into two parts. The two parts are added to the site in successive updates. In two weeks there are 6 updates, or three full galleries. New models are added every other Monday.
That schedule has worked great with our small staff, leaving just enough time for small site improvements. However, that schedule leaves little time for ambitious site development, and that brings us to the point of this blog entry.
TA is still a new site - a growing toddler. We are constantly discussing additions and enhancements for the site, primarily targeted at improving the user experience. And now we have reached a crossroads in the growth of TA. There are many site enhancements planned that require time to develop, test and implement, but we have been unable to make much progress with them because of the update schedule. To make TA a much better site, we either have to get more human help, or reduce the workload. Since our budget is too small to hire more help, the workload has to change.
Therefore, we will temporarily slow down the update schedule just a bit to free up time for these other tasks. Starting this week, the week of 6 July, our update schedule will be a little slower. There will be two updates per week instead of three. Nominally, the updates will be on Monday and Thursday. New models will be introduced every three weeks instead of every two.
It’s hard to predict how long this temporary slowdown will last. It may only be a few weeks, or it might last a few months.
We apologize for this change to the update schedule, but it’s for the greater, long-term good of the site. With some luck, by the time the slowdown is no longer needed and we go back to the original schedule, we will have the resources to adopt a new, more ambitious schedule, and we wont ever have to implement an update slowdown again!
Thanks to all the members for your understanding and patience, for all the comments you’ve sent in through the feedback form, and for your continued support of Torrid Art.
RAP
