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A Week

The first year of 1 Thing A Week

Week 53.0 — 29th October '18

The entire purpose of 1 Thing A Week was to find a manageable format with which to blog. I finally hit up on a formula where I can post regularly and share the interesting things I find with a wider audience. I feel like my style and voice has evolved over the past year but there's a long way to go. I don't feel entirely comfortable with how things come out all the time, but I had to start somewhere to be able to improve. This week, let's take a look back at the first year of 1 Thing A Week

Favourite articles

First up I wanted to look back at some of my favourite articles. This really is the first time I've found a way to get thoughts and content out on a regular schedule. It's certainly been a fun challenge. Here are the 10 I enjoyed putting together the most:

WeekTitle
3NO_ONE EVER REALLY DIES
While the article itself was short, it was the first with lots of embedded content. It took plenty of time to put together and the first week to feature notable items
7The Evolution of Kendrick Lamar
One of the first longer-form articles (although not that long)
10How to take better photos
One of the longest articles and the first where I really spent the whole week preparing for it, I really hope the advice has been useful for someone as it was an eye opener for me
14What is the point of the Apple Homepod
17Getting the most out of your digital assistant
31Top 7 kits at the 2018 FIFA World Cuo
This really got me geared up for the World Cup and was my first experiment with an article that had a top n list format
32Apple WWDC Roundup 2018
36UEFA Champions League branding 2018
462018 Apple iPhones & Apple Watch
This felt like being a full-time tech reviewer and I loved it, I look forward to covering more events in the future!
50My 5 favourite web & design resources

Iterating: Adding features

I've iteratively built up the features and functions on the site over the last year two. When the site launched, there were no notable items. You can even see how the site looked back on January 18th 2018. It was a lot narrower than I even remember, there was no sidebar and the archive was basic to say the least. Now there are a lot more features and depth to the site. These features all appeared over the course of the year:

  • Notable items that are quick links to interesting content I find over the course of the week
  • Share section with links that make sharing to social networks easy
  • The Market which is in need of some love
  • There are now category and tag archives
  • You can search the site, powered by DuckDuckGo
  • I'd long been commenting on notable items, it just wasn't available to anyone but I finally made my thoughts available

I think the commentary feature was my favourite to get working. I'm a follower and admirer of a number of sites that have a good balance between quality and quantity. It turns out it's not an easy balance to find but I'm hoping the commitment of 1 Thing A Week and the addition of notable items that I'm finding a good balance.

Feedback

I consider 1 Thing A Week a constant 'work in progress' and a learning excercise in a number of different ways. I still have lots of features that I want to add, things I want to learn and lots of content to think about writing. If there's anything you'd like to see covered, added or constructive criticism, I would love to hear it.


Updates

I wanted to share a selection of stats with you all too covering 1 Thing A Week's reach over the past year.

1 Thing A Week stats
More from 1 Thing A Week
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Notable

Quick links and commentary on interesting articles, videos and more throughout the week.

  1. 53.1 – Monday
    1. Magic UX by Special Projects bgr.com
    2. Google's Night Sight for Pixel phones will amaze you theverge.com
    3. New logo for Berluti by M/M Paris underconsideration.com
    4. Metrino coffee table desk   $2,600+ theawesomer.com
    5. There's a .new way to make Google documents wired.com
  2. 53.2 – Tuesday
    1. Thunder Road trailer The 10 Eas on trailers.apple.com
    2. Louis Theroux's Altered States trailer BBC on youtube.com
    3. First look at Amazon-backed smart glasses for $1,000 by North CNBC on youtube.com
    4. Freinds From College season 2 date announcement Netflix on youtube.com
    5. Big Boi Tiny Desk Concert NPR Music on youtube.com
    6. SOL MotorsPocket Rocket   $5,100+ blessthisstuff.com
    7. NES controller mouse toxel.com
    8. Kokichi Sugihara's 'Triply Ambiguous Object' theawesomer.com
  3. 53.3 – Wednesday
    1. 800-volt Chevrolet eCOPO Camaro is designed for drag racing engadget.com
    2. NASA x Vans Old Skool & SK8-Hi 'Space Voyager'   TBC hypebeast.com
    3. Colorised photos of a girl killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau marinamaral2 on mobile.twitter.com
    4. iPad Pro — Change Apple on youtube.com
    5. Unified inbox coming to Gmail on iOS techcrunch.com
    6. Mars Mission watch   ~£259 OVDwatches on kickstarter.com
    7. Airglow Borealis in the Canadian Rockies Yuri Beletsky on apod.nasa.gov
    8. Ultraviolet Earth from an Observatory on the Moon G. Carruthers, Far UV Camera, Apollo 16 & NASA on apod.nasa.gov
    9. De-sk, the modular desk blessthisstuff.com
    10. Honest Trailers - Batman: The Animated Series Screen Junkies on youtube.com
    11. Orionids Meteors over inner Mongolia Yin Hao on apod.nasa.gov
    12. Apollo 11's journey to the moon Vox on youtube.com
  4. 53.4 – Thursday
    1. Infrared portrait of the Witch Head nebula nasa on instagram.com
    2. The 15 tallest statues in the world theatlantic.com
    3. Republicans have broken politics Vox on youtube.com
  5. 53.5 – Friday
    1. A robot that draws algorithmically-generated portraits kottke.org
    2. Spies in Disguise trailer Fox Family Entertainment on youtube.com
    3. Welcome to the Petty Hall of Fame topic.com
    4. The winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year for 2018 kottke.org
  6. 53.6 – Saturday
    1. Ultra-impressionistic portraits made with just a few thick strokes of paint kottke.org
    2. Skagen Falster 2 smartwatch   $275 blessthisstuff.com
    3. 3 ways to make better decisions — by thinking like a computer Tom Griffiths for TED on youtube.com
  7. 53.7 – Sunday
    1. This prop master's work is hidden in plain sight Great Big Story on youtube.com
    2. True Detective season 3 trailer HBO on youtube.com

Jump to notable items for Week #52, Week #54 , view the notable archive or my favourites.

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