About a year ago I began adding some additional accounts to the mix, but never really promoted them all that heavily. For a time our Sports Editor was manning the @GunaxinSports account, but currently that position is open. About 2 weeks ago, I spent some time making sure that we had an account for each of our subsites. Each of these accounts has content automatically sent to them via their corresponding site, and their corresponding category on our Links site, Gunaxin Links :

• @Gunaxin
• @GunaxinSports
• @GunaxinGirls
• @GunaxinHumor
• @GunaxinMedia
• @GunaxinGadgets
• @GunaxinGrub
• @GunaxinPodcasts
• @GunaxinLinks

The hope is that eventually we’ll have an Associate Editor manning each one of those accounts (thus making them more useful and personal), however that is not currently the case. The idea though is that you can follow the account that interests you, and get content related to the interest. So for example, on @GunaxinHumor, we automatically tweet links to any content that we publish on our page in the Humor Category (http://humor.gunaxin.com), however we also tweet links from other sites, that have gone popular under that category on Gunaxin Links (http://links.gunaxin.com/category/humor). If you are going to follow the individual category accounts, I would suggest that you NOT follow @GunaxinLinks, as it would be providing duplicate tweets.

In addition, I have tried to be more active recently on my personal Twitter account, @PVanderVossen. Here I will be sharing links from this blog, along with my own personal tweets and interactions with people in the industry. The hope is to move some of my more personal tweets to that account, and off of the main @Gunaxin account. In addition, you may have noticed over the past few months, that links to the Author’s twitter account are now provided at the tops of all of our content. So feel free to follow your favorite writers as well.

So there you go, if you ever wanted more Gunaxin in your Twitter feed (doubtful eh?), we’ve satisfied that need.

As you can see, in general we did horribly. Of course much of the nation can say that. So congratulations to Mike Gogel who was obviously the only one who was even close to making the right picks. We expect his winnings to be donated to charity when UCONN has to vacate the title in a few years.

1. Mike Gogel – $25
2. Stew Miller – $15
3. Zach Tropf – $10

My original site, now dormant.

I was relatively successful with this site, in a short period of time. I was encouraged by that success to look to expand, so I began coming up with additional ideas for sites that I could start. I learned early on that networking and cross linking between sites had been key to my quick start with Cheat or Beat, so I thought if I could bring on some other people, we could make an entire network of sites that worked together.

With that in mind, I brought together two of my former roommates, Zach and Fred, along with my neighbor Rick. He brought along his cousin Andy, and the 5 of us met one evening in October together to discuss this idea I had. I showed them what I had created, how it all worked, and discussed my idea to create an entire series of sites. We started brainstorming the possibilities, with each of us having our own specific niches or interests areas.

In my preparations for the meeting, I had already decided that I would call this network, “Gunaxin.” It’s a brand name that I had used for my personal endeavors for about 10 years. It comes from a Delaware Indian dialect, and means “to be tall, rich, big, or grand.” The word is actually part of the Indian name I was given when I became a Vigil Honor member in the Order of the Arrow (Scouts), that I mentioned in my introduction.

Finally a few hours into the meeting, Rick spoke up and stating something to the effect of, “Why would we all put so much effort into creating individual sites, when we could just work together and create one big site?” Immediately we realized how much sense that really made, as we would avoid the hassles of creating and maintaining multiple sites. So we began looking at our lists of ideas, and grouping them together.

That is when we came up with the Six Categories of content, Sports, Girls, Humor, Media, Gadgets (originally Gear), and Beer (ultimately changed to Grub 1.5 years later). Once we had the concept for the site decided upon, it came time to name it. I strongly fought for Gunaxin, mainly because it had personal meaning for myself, but also because it was a unique name that actually meant something relevant to the site. The others didn’t really have any strong candidates, so ultimately my idea won.

Very early version of Gunaxin, before modifications to theme.

Within days of the meeting, we had registered the domain (which I had previously owned many years earlier), setup the software, selected a theme, and began creating the site. Each of us had committed to creating at least one piece of content on each week day. At the beginning this worked relatively well, as a couple of us were doing much more. Having such broad areas of content really allowed us to hit anything and everything that interested us. We established e-mail accounts for everyone, and tried to stay in close contact via a group e-mail list.

The main benefit of starting a site from scratch with five people was that we had plenty of content, and plenty of people who were able to promote that content. A few of us quickly got up to speed with Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. We utilized networking partners that I had established while working on Cheat or Beat, and worked our butts off promoting. In our first full month online, November 2008, we nearly reached 1 Million pageviews.

Server issues, redesigns, new ideas, departing partners, and much much more are part of the full story of Gunaxin. However those tales will have to wait till future posts.

My name is Philip Van der Vossen, and I was born and raised in Columbia, MD between Baltimore and Washington. I’ve lived my entire life in the same general area, and am the youngest of 5 kids. Our family never really had much money, but my parents were resourceful and worked hard, so I had a childhood that built character.

I did relatively well in school with minimal effort, enjoyed art and computers, and was very active in Boy Scouts. I never played organized sports as a kid, but loved organizing neighborhood games. All of the time that other kids were putting into their soccer teams, I guess I was putting into Scouts, as I earned the rank of Eagle, led training courses, worked on camp staff, and became a Vigil honor member of the Order of the Arrow. If you aren’t familiar with Scouts at all, I pretty much did everything you could possible do as a youth in that organization, and it has helped me immensely in my life.

In High School I began working as a Promotions Assistant for the local Shopping Mall. This was a job of much variety which mainly included events logistics and merchandising. Around this time I also began experimenting with online message boards, and even hosted a couple of my own. This was before the Internet really took off, but it gave me my first taste of running an online service. Through High School I was always interested in Computer Programming and Art. I was that guy who could program his calculator to do stupid shit. So for College I attended UMBC and was enrolled in their Imaging and Digital Arts program.

In college the Internet really began to emerge, and since I was living in a dorm, we had some of the best connectivity that existed at the time. This is when I discovered online games, which is probably the main reason I never finished my degree, but also taught me more than any of the classes I attended. The love of gaming forced me to learn more about computers, build my own, setup our own internal network in the dorm, create my own website to organize my “Clan”, and much more. I created graphics, 3d worlds to play in, hosted events, and then even began to handle PR for a game that I joined the dev team for.

At this time I also was working to pay for college, first at the mall, then at a couple of print shops. There I handled digital printing, graphic design, scanning, plotting, and some minor tech support. Between my work that paid me, and my work that didn’t (gaming), I ended up not having enough time for school and dropped out. I think ultimately what did in my college career is the same thing that happens to many students. I spent the first 2.5 years trying to knock out my general requirements and low level degree classes. It was mostly stuff I didn’t care about, and it really didn’t keep me interested.

I wanted to create Digital Animations like Toy Story, and they wanted to teach me about Geography, Economics, Philosophy, and Art History. When I finally did get started with some Digital Art classes, the teacher seemed to hold me to a higher standard, just because I already knew the software. I had two different professors tell me that my work was too commercial, and needed to be more expressive. I couldn’t handle the avant garde art hippies they had instructing me, and ultimately became frustrated and quit.

It was around this time that I was hired by an engineering company to be their Systems Administrator. My brother had been working there for several years, but really both of us were given the opportunity due to a connection we had with a former Scout leader. At the time that I was hired, I didn’t even really know if I could do the job. I hadn’t really worked with any of the systems that they were using, but my ability to problem solve and adapt was enough to get me in the door. In rather short order I was handling the Network, Servers, Desktops, Printers, Phones, and pretty much everything else that plugged in for a 100 person firm. I began taking classes again, this time in Information Systems, but focused specifically on courses that I thought would help me with my job, Project Management, Business Writing, and Finance.

I also handled Graphic Design, Websites, Databases, Presentations, and the list kept on growing. I took on every challenge that was presented to me, and grabbed many others that nobody even knew I was working on until they were done. Eventually I became involved with measurements, business processes, running meetings and even Human Resources. I had made myself indispensable by working my ass off, and handling a variety of different roles. I had two employees working under me, I was leading multiple improvement teams in the organization, and was honestly getting burnt out.

I had been with the organization for 9 years, handling everything and anything that came my way, and probably doing the work of 3 people. At this point I was looking to advance, and essentially created a new position for myself, Continuous Improvement Manager. I was excited by this new role, and had grand plans for what I could do with it, but unfortunately things didn’t go as I intended. I’ll spare you the details, but within 6 months I began thinking about how I could go into business for myself.

It was then that Gunaxin was formed as a side project. I continued working my day job for a very unhappy and frustrating two years, longing for the day that I would have the balls to quit, and make a go at this. That day came last fall, when I decided to go into business for myself, and cut my pay by 2/3. I don’t really know where this is going to lead me, but I believe in myself, and at 32, I think it’s time that I take my experience and make a go of it. If you’re reading this blog, then I guess you’ll be taking this journey with me.

I consider Gunaxin an online men’s magazine. It’s just a website, not a blog. People call it a blog, and myself a blogger. That’s not really true, but I suppose it’s just semantics. I prefer to consider myself a Web Publisher.While I have produced a shit-ton of content for Gunaxin, that isn’t where my passion lies. I enjoy the projects, the creation, the collaboration, and the business. All of the things that go into running the site, that many writers would prefer to just avoid, that’s the stuff that makes me happy: Servers, Software, Graphics, Advertising, Marketing, Promotion, Networking, Learning, and Leading. That is where my experience, talent, and passion really lies.

So I’ve started this blog, to give myself a place to share that passion, with whoever wants to read it. I tend to be a very open and honest person, so I plan on sharing some things here that most other websites would never share. I don’t believe in secrets. I believe in sharing my experience and my knowledge, what has worked for me, and what hasn’t worked for me. I believe that everything that I give is returned to me many times over, so I hope to make this blog a gift to whoever reads it.

My plan is to write something daily. If you are reading this, and noticed that I don’t keep to my word, and I fall behind, please kick me in the ass.

At the moment I am working on bringing in some old content, but have some fairly substantial plans with the types of information I will share here in the future.

Apparently we're the Bear in this Scenario.

Jake the Intern over at The Smoking Jacket recently asked us for a bit of help with his Fantasy Football team. Apparently he has been involved in a weekly tournament with two playmates, where he has to pick a roster each week, and the ladies have soundly stomped him repeatedly. So he asked us first to submit a little bit of smack talk, to which our competitors, Deanna Brooks and Pilar Lastra would respond :

Continued at Gunaxin…

Continued at Gunaxin…