Today is the first birthday of Tabulas. Wow, has it been a year already?



It's been one helluva interesting ride so far. I started, knowing barely anything in PHP or mySQL and programming in general ... and although Tabulas isn't something to be incredibly proud of from a technical point of view, I do feel a sense of accomplishment in where it is today. 15,000+ users ... and a firm commitment to embrace web standards (FOAF, OPML and RSS to name some) while developing this as a tool for everybody to help keep track and "chronicle your lives."

(Cheesy, I know. Sorry. I'm listening to Josh Groban right now, and it's not really helping me).

But really. Where do I go from here? What will the next year hold for Tabulas?

I'm moving into an important crossroads in my life; the next time Tabulas has a birthday, I won't be in college anymore. I'll have stepped out of this bubble into the real world. Will Tabulas become my life? Will it still remain a hobby? Will it go crashing to the ground and die just like thousands of dot.coms when I can't financially support the site anymore? Will I be more focused on Lightbox7?

Hell, let's look at more personal questions. Will I have a steady source of income? Will I be able to support myself? Although things don't look horribly promising right now, I'm just chugging along ... focusing on these web projects because I have convinced myself that somewhere along the way, I will reach financial stability.

I don't have lofty goals for Tabulas; I don't want it to become the most used blogging tool; nor do I even want to make a financial killing with it ... but I just want people to use it and go, "Wow, this is a solid tool. Whoever made it put a lot of thought into it, and I love it."

I've slowly watched as the voice of the original community that Tabulas so proudfully boasted (remember those days when you could visit EVERYBODYS Tabulas within a few hours?) ... slowly diminish into the writings of thousands of strangers.

I really don't know how many hours I've put into this site, nor how many hours people have frustratingly put into making their Tabulas do what they wanted ... but I do know this. Things'll only get better from here on out.

I have so many plans, and once I reach some sort of financial stability through LB7 and Audiomatch (and hopefullly Tabulas), I work fulltime to reach those goals.

Thanks to everyone for their contined support of the site, whether through compliments, just _using_ the site (showing to me that it's a usable tool!), or the purchasing of paid accounts (special thanks to those initial core of subscribes: lauryn, dodozhang21, and daynah) ... it's been _the_ rewarding experience of my life so far.

Let's hope this thing keeps going on =)