Welcome To The Hairstyles Magazine Blog !

Welcome Letter

HairStyles Magazine

by: Damien R. von Dahlem

photo: Damien von Dahlem and long time girlfriend Roxy Star.

Welcome to HairStyles Magazine.

After three years in research and development, and 100 days in coding and programming, formerly Hair News Magazine, is now Hairstyles Magazine. I think we put together a great on-line magazine, set a new standard in the hair and fashion industry, and I hope you, our viewers, think so too.

The Beginning

When we began Hair News Magazine in 1999, we were only the second website dedicated to hair on the internet, and we were the very first website to offer hairstyle galleries. Today there are tens of thousands of hair websites on the internet, all of them following the the ideas and content for which we set the standard.

Over the years with the dramatic increase in competition, or ‘copy cats’ as we call them, and the incredible speed of internet technology innovation, although no one was able to topple us, our ranking did begin to slip. In all fairness it was our own fault. It was my fault. I lost sight of the ball and the website became old and dated.

Research & Development

Hair News Magazine needed a face lift if it was to remain competitive and not go the way of the buggy whip. We were not far into R & D before I realized that a face lift wasn’t going to do it. We needed to start from scratch. We needed to reinvent the magazine, we needed to reinvent ourselves. We needed to be bold, innovative, modern, and daring, or not bother at all.

To this end we needed all new computers, servers, and cutting edge software, the very best on the market today. We went out and spent the money, and got them.

I set very strict editorial guidelines for the first launch, including our launch date of 1 September 2011. I had hoped to be done with two weeks to spare for beta testing, but alas, here we are on our target date without a single day to spare.

Editorial Guidelines

The exact editorial guidelines are of course proprietary and confidential, but here are a few of them:

1. The viewer, the viewer, the viewer. Everything we do needs to be seen through the eyes of the viewer. Ask viewers what they want, and then give it to them.

2. The site has to load fast, navigate easily, and be content rich.

3. The look and feel of the site must be modern and clean with plenty of white space. Not this current trend of messy, busy, cluttered, tabloid look websites that inundate the internet.

4. Ads are a necessary evil when it comes to design or there is no website, but ad placement needs to be non intrusive, and above all, not be tricky or misleading to the viewer. I hate websites that disguise ad links in their content and navigation. I find this practice fraudulent and distasteful. Our ads are clearly ads, and as much as possible, out of the way.

5. No keyword loading. Keywords are again a necessary evil as they are food of search engines, and without search engines websites might as well not exist. I still struggle with having to leave keywords in articles where I think the flow of the article suffers, but we will never load pages with keywords or misleading keywords.

6. Only the highest quality photos and content.

7. Keep the site updated and fresh. Keep an eye out for new and innovative ideas that serve our viewers. Keep it interesting. Give the viewer a reason to return.

8. Test every single page on the website on every single browser on the market, and every single platform. If the page does not display exactly the way we designed it to look, start over.

9. The hair and fashion industry used to be closely aligned. Vidal Sassoon’s hairstyles used to set the standard and the fashion for every single fashion magazine of any note. We need to do our part to bring them back together. You simply cannot have one without the other.

Note Of Thanks

None of this would have been possible without outside help. I want to thank the moving company that moved our entire office from Fort Collins to Denver in the middle of the night on New Years Eve in complete secrecy, away from the prying eyes of any competitors. I want to thank Comcast for their discretion and for getting us connected in a priority manner. I want to thank Google for their discretion and one on one face time and advice. I want to thank Codero for migrating our websites to our new speed demon servers within hours. I want to thank the painters, electricians, and carpet layers for getting our new offices up and running within days. And most of all I want to thank the love of my life, my long time girlfriend Roxy Star, for her advice, insight, and amazing patience with me over the last 100 days.

The Future

Today the magazine is only 600 pages deep, but that will change quickly. The content will almost double in the next thirty days, and almost double again by the end of the year. We have some brand new innovations coming that have not been done in our industry before, and we think you will enjoy them.

In January 2012, we will already begin the R & D for the next generation website, and the new design will begin by June 2012. We look forward to regaining our number one position. We look forward to serving you for many years to come.

Thank you for your time.

Damien R. von Dahlem, Editor and Chief, HairStyles Magazine

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