I decided that I think I want to write another book. In doing so, I've been doing some preparation for that and also mapping out some of the software I'd like to write.
When I see what's out there, I feel like I could crush the competition. I mean really mangle the crap out of them. The funny thing about being a solo developer is that in many cases you can be a lot more agile without the constraints imposed by a large company or an owner. I think I can do it faster, and hopefully better. What product areas? Well, if I said then I'd be tipping off the competition. I certainly don't need that.
In all of my professional programming career, I haven't been a part of an organization that crushed its competition. A lot of that has to do with my dotcom era jobs, where no one was winning. I guess technically I was a part of a competition ass-kicking team when I worked at Progressive, but in a company that big, you don't really feel as much of a stakeholder since they can do just fine without you (as I'm sure they are now).
Hopefully the advertising market can kick off to a strong start in 2005 to support me during this endeavor. The 4th quarter really sucked, and I'm feeling the pinch now. CoasterBuzz I suspect has peeked in terms of revenue and traffic, because the potential audience really isn't that big. Ditto for smaller niches like PointBuzz. I need to broaden my horizons beyond content or I'm going to starve.
(EDIT: In response to Alex's question.)
I submitted the proposal for the book in January. the proposal went through editorial review by lots of other authors, was revised, then went through it again. I was offered a contract in March, and began writing it.
My "finish date" was at the end of Sept., after which time it went to more people for review in its entirety. I had to turn in the revised draft by the end of October. Then in late November, I got the revisions from the copy editors (for grammar, formatting, clarity, etc.), and I turned in those edits about two weeks ago.
In January I'll get PDF's of the actual laid-out pages. More revisions, then by mid-Feb. they'll finish the changes and it'll be on the shelves mid-march.