This past year was a long one for us, and we went threw many changes a long the way. As we near the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007, we reflect on how Devlounge started and got to the point we’re at today, as well as what you can expect from us in the future. Not only that, but we also want your thoughts on how we can improve Devlounge in the upcoming year.

The beginning

It was almost a year ago when Prash first came to me with the need to start a new project. We contemplated for a while what field we should try to enter, and thought about various options for different projects we had in mind. In the end we settled on building a designer and developer resource filled with a collection of articles and interviews written in-house and by guest contributors.

It was in January that we purchased the domain you’ve all come to know as devlounge.net. With a “coming soon” splash and newsletter signup form up for a few months (very web 2.0ish) we worked on the first Devlounge release, which officially went live in April 2006.

Our very first article was a guest contributed article by Paul Stamatiou on April 3rd. The article was a modification of one of his own previously published on his blog, but it provided the spark that would lead to an overall very successful year in Devlounge land.

The Year

In the six months we’ve been around, we expanded fairly rapidly and built up a strong collection of articles. I can’t thank my staff team enough, which, only about a month ago, went through a significant revamp adding some talented individuals who are sure to provide some great articles in the year to come.

We also went through 3 different redesigns in the short 6 month period, and many of the changes came fairly quickly. Only a month after Devlounge 1 was released, an updated version hit screens everywhere, eventually giving way to the design you see here now which took over in September / October. Work is never done though, as I’ve been tweaking things here and there week in and week out, hoping to improve usability and organization with every change / update.

But it wasn’t just about giving you something to read, but also giving you something to play with. Over 2006 we released a total of 3 Wordpress themes; Prebuilt, Wave, and Iceburgg, all of which can be picked up here. Staff members also did their share, which Ronalfy releasing Custom Reading Width, a unique script that you’ll only find here.

The Year Ahead

We have a lot of plans for 2007, but much of it depends upon you, the readers. We want to know what you want to see more of, less of, and just general things we can do to make Devlounge a better place. Please leave your thoughts in the comments are reading this article, because all your feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Some of the things we already have planned:

More Interviews – While our articles database grew fairly well, we really lacked in the interviews category. We really plan on stepping this up in 2007, so designers beware – you could be getting interview invites in your inbox from us. We already have a few planned for the first few months of ‘07, and we’ll try to get as many as we can out each month throughout the year.

More Code Related Topics – We also intend to find a few more staff members to up the contributions to the code related topics such as php, ruby on rails, and javascript. We’ll try to have this straightened out within the next month so we can really expand our article coverage in 2007.

Contests that Work – Believe it or not, we did a few contests this past year, but with not much no success. That will all change in ‘07. We’ll start with small scale prices that have high values, such as advertising here on Devlounge, Mint licenses, flickr pro accounts, etc, and than hopefully we’ll expand to much more valuable prize packs. If you have any ideas about what kind of contests you’d like to see, let us know below.

More for the community – And as always, you can expect an array of new articles and community givebacks, including more wordpress themes, psds, fonts, etc.

Now it’s your turn

Leave your feedback below. It really helps!