DevStart’s New CEO Speaks Out

January 13, 2005; 12:00 AM

It is my sincere pleasure to join the ranks of DevStart.  This dynamic company has been creating great resources for web developers since 1998 and has been in my bookmarks for years.  I'm excited by the opportunity to work with such veterans and to help them realize the enormous potential of the network.

I'm no stranger to web development myself, as you might imagine.  My first website hit the Internet in late 1996.  It was a fan site for a popular PC game, which was a great editorial departure for an attorney.  The Internet quickly devoured more and more of my free time until I eventually moved to California to work for a small Dot.Com full-time.  If you've been to GameSpy or FilePlanet in the past half a decade, you've already seen websites heavily smudged with my fingerprints.

So, how will a hard-core gamer / lawyer change things at DevStart?  My first goal is to make the great resources at DevStart a little easier to find and to use.  There are so many great editorials and powerful tools on the network that it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees.  To extend this analogy further, we are going to trim some of the deadwood to make sure we have healthy, vibrant branches.  I want you to find something new and exciting every time you visit one of our network sites.  You can see what I mean in this mock-up of the new PromotionWorld homepage. 

The features of this design will eventually be used on all of the sites in the DevStart network.  These include:

- Fewer ads
- Simplified navigation
- More original editorial
- Greater focus on forums
- Spotlight on online businesses
- Wide-ranging improvements to tools

All of these changes are exciting, but my favorite has to be the increased focus on YOU.  This is YOUR network, after all.  We write articles, gather news, and build tools for your benefit.  It only makes sense that we should also give you a say in how things are run.  The new forum section will highlight a new, interesting discussion from the DevStart bulletin boards.  And the new business spotlight will profile businesses run by visitors to PromotionWorld.   

I think you will enjoy the changes.  If you have ideas on other things you would like to see on the DevStart Network, feel free to send me an e-mail.  Drop me a line if you'd like to get more involved in the forums, would like to have your businesses featured on the network, or if you'd just like to chew the fat.

Darren Tabor
darren@devstart.com
CEO
DevStart, Inc.