I suppose it is traditional for New Years Resolutions, although I can't say that I keep them any more than the rest of the population. I try and recall last year's resolutions and found that I kept a few and missed a few more. I suppose the Information Superhighway is often a road paved with good intentions, and you know where that goes...

Sometimes I think I should take the road less traveled, and given the economy in 2001, the road to MagWeb.com was indeed a road less traveled. I expected better in 2002, and to a large degree, we got it--we dropped in the 1st quarter, recorded a tiny bit of growth in the second and third quarters, and as for the fourth quarter...well, it started off well in October, stalled badly in November along with the rest of the business climate, and recovered for December.

I'm looking forward to a better 2003.

You probably do not think of it much, but MagWeb.com is like a web iceberg--what you see is the tip of what's there. Considerable background processes occur, not to mention the herculean task of actual production and insertion. When you click on a link and something appears, you can thank a number of people who own (or are hired by) MagWeb.com when things appear.

As for resolutions, first a look back:

From 2002

Survive: Well, that sounds like a funny objective. But given the fallout from huge corporations spiralling down into oblivion, falling into bankruptcy, and the general economic stagnation, that seems part of every business' mantra. MagWeb.com remains a small, independent website doing what we can with a tiny fraction of those others' huge budgets. We are able to continue providing the same level of service and content growth as in the path, and indeed, increasing that with additional material.

MagWeb.com 100th Publication: I wanted to be able to have 100 publications in the MagWeb.com archive, and so we did. Now we have 106, and I look forward to recruiting more. I'm keeping up with those we have and back fill in the archive with back issues as can be done. My appreciation goes out to all those who send electronic files!

25 issues per month: I wanted to post an average of 25 issues per month--300 for the year--which would be one more issue per month than we posted in 2001 and 2000 (288 issues for each year). At the end of October, we had 250. However, a spiral fracture of my pinky in mid-November and a cast for a few weeks (amazing how many things are connected to the pinky bone!), coupled with typical end of year holiday crunch time really impacted my productivity. We hit 293 for the year, better than last year, but a mere seven short of the magical 300. Dang. So close.

Poll I wanted to run it in July, but sadly, was delayed until the late fall. However, we did get some wonderful feedback to incorporate into 2003.

Special Projects We like to do soemthing more in line as a media company rather than just being a website archive.

Emperor Triumphant music CD. We actually produced it in 2001 and officially released it in 2002. Sales have been slow, but then again, our poll noted a lack of enthusiasm among our members for buying music. Talk about horse and carts...should have done the poll first. I take a little solice in that MagWeb.com tried to do something different. Guess it will turn out to be a collector's item...

Borodino 2002 Napoleonic Conference With people scared about the 1 year anniversary of 9/11, and military bases with heightened security scaring away visitors (assuming it was even open to the public), holding a Napoleonic conference the week before the anniversary on a military base at the tip of Virginia was not the best of timings. The Conference itself attracted over 100 attendees, and for those stalwarts, it was a great show. For MagWeb.com, it mimicked the music CD: good exposure and experience, but slow sales. Whereas I doubt we'll do another CD soon, the possibility of another more encompassing conference in a commercial hotel/convention center closer to the Boston-NYC-Philly-Balimore-Wash DC corridor is a distinct possibility. It will be a different format, but a possibility nevertheless.

Unnamed project Stranded, but being rebuilt. Some progress towards the end of the year.

Another Unnamed project Rough prototype attempted. Tanked. Rework in progress.

Personal Time: This has a bit to do with MagWeb.com in the sense that time spent on a personal life is time taken away from building the archive...or visa-versa. Usually, I can manage it well enough, but I had some goals in mind...

Painting For a month and a half, I steadfastly made time to indulge in painting. Then, like most time-related, long-term resolutions, MagWeb.com came in and appropriated that time. I stole time here and there, but by and large, the painting projects sat idle.

Movies and Theater Well, did better with this one. Not much better, but better, attending both summer stock and professional performances, and actually getting to the movies and video store from time to time.

Reading I did much better with this. Most of this is MagWeb.com related, but I did manage 75 book reviews in 2002, so that's about a book and a half a week.

Freshen Up Web Design: So busy building the archive, I never could get to a slight redesign that I wanted to do.

For 2003

Freshen Up Web Design: Slight redesign for July 1, 2003 (MagWeb.com's birthday), especially on the free side to attract more folks into MagWeb.com. I showed a prototype of what I wanted to do and got the thumbs up, now it's time to do so on a larger scale.

Unnamed project Progess through the year, or at least I hope it will be so. Like MagWeb.com, it's a great idea, but needs considerable work to come out even in prototype. Well, we here at MagWeb.com are used to longer lead times--it took from 1996 to 2002 to get from 8 magazines to 100 (106). I hope it takes less time, far less time.

Another Unnamed project The rework continues. The "boutique" approach may give way to "warehouse store" approach just to launch it. There's a lot of background work that needs done.

25 issues per month: Here we go...300 issues for 2003. Plus, we want to do all the other "bonus" goodies that make MagWeb.com more than a magazine archive.

Painting Still bound and determined...

Survive and Prosper: We increased our advertising in 2002 and are revamping and increasing it even more in 2003. We hope to draw more people to our website and induce more people to just try MagWeb.com. We'd be extremely pleased if all the folks who visited just tried the full archive for a week ($10 for 40,000 articles). Once inside, the sheer quantity and quality of the articles usually convince them to join for a longer time.

A Note About E-mailing MagWeb.com

With all the spam spinning into our hard drives, and believe you me, we get a lot (FYI: the record is 432 e-mails in one day!) I want to ask a favor. Please make sure that when you e-mail us with a question or comment, that you make the subject matter something military history-oriented or a specific magazine. Subject headings like: "Hi" and "A Question" get dumped into the trash can without being read. "A Question About Napoleonics" or "WWII MagWeb.com" will be read. I've been fooled into opening spam with generic headings too many times. I know I may have ditched some legitimate e-mail, but too many viruses and spam are making me a little pickier in what I open.

Obviously, if you're responding to one of our renewal e-mails, that subject line is A-OK. But if you're sending us questions and comments, please use something a little more specific to MagWeb.com.

Thank you.

To you...

All of here at MagWeb.com wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year. And again, thank you for all your patience, your word-of-mouth advertising, and support.

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com