By Old Tom
This will be painful.
That is, I need to hit you with an extremely boring definition before I can move on to the exciting stuff. But you really do need to plow through and understand what I mean by Functional Interface Specification before I can lay out a blueprint for empire. In fact, I was going use Blueprint for Empire as the title of this essay... but who would believe me? Hang in there while I explain, and you can judge for yourself.
Functional Interface Specification
In the software design world, there's something known as a Functional Interface Specification. It's so that you can use somebody else's modules without actually knowing what's inside the module. For example, suppose you needed to add up a bunch of numbers and compute their average. You have a module to perform this function. What you need to know is this:
- What goes in
- What comes back out
- What the module does
In this case, we feed the module the list of numbers, and how many numbers are in the list. What we expect back out, is a single number - the computed average. What the module does, is compute the arithmetic mean for that list of numbers.
Okay, so what? It's a powerful concept. Let me explain the concept's power first, and then I'll show how it relates to the way we build sites. And then, finally, we can put together that Blueprint for Empire.
Thanks to the defined interface (the functional interface specification), we don't care about the inner workings of that computed-average module. In other words, we could rewrite the module, move it to a different computer, do anything we want - so long as the interface remains the same.
When you build a site, and expect to get it listed on a linklist, it's the same idea. I'll be oversimplifying linklist philosophy in what follows... my focus is on the Functional Interface Specification. Your site's functional interface specification looks something like this:
- Title
- Url
- Description
- Category/niche (In other words, the site's function, and what
type of site it is)
- Recip
From this, we know what goes in (i.e., what to put in the linklist listing), what comes back out (surfers, via the recip link), and what the site does. So long as the site continues to function as described, and the listed url does not change, we can do anything we want with the site, without having to update the linklist. That is, the site could move around, get reorganized, get updated content, and so on - and the interface remains the same. I know I've oversimplified how linklists work - my point is that once you nail down the interface and stick to it, the rest becomes completely flexible. That's the importance, and power, of the Functional Interface Specification.
The Triple Newbie Project
Now, then. Let's take a look at The Triple Newbie Project. Every entity in the project has the same interface - it is completely consistent.
Whether the entity is an individual site, a hub, or a hub of hubs, you always get to that entity via a full page ad. Look at the graphic towards the bottom of the first page. There's a circle (the full page ad) leading to Niche A; a circle leading to Niche B; and a circle leading to Niche C. Now look through the illustrations for the Triple Triple, and the Triple Triple Triple. Do you see that every entity has that same circle (or triangle, in the last illustration) leading into the entity?
When you build an entity, build a full page ad leading into what you're building. For example, when you build a site called Sexy Sluts, you'll have the usual warning/entrance page, and it's that warning page that you submit to the link lists. But you also build a full page ad, leading into that warning page. It is that full page ad which you use, as your Functional Interface Specification.
Let's get back to that first illustration, showing the Triple. I know I'm getting bogged down here... we will get to that blueprint in a moment, I promise! Using Voltar's example, we have three sites, A, B, and C. Each site is an individual entity unto itself.... each will be getting a linklist listing, mirrored entrances, and so on. But how does those entities fit in with the rest of your empire?
They drop right in, thanks to your defined interface.
Your entrance to each of those sites, is that full page ad. So long as you build that full page ad every time you create an entity, your entity drops right into the rest of your empire. When you build a tgp gallery, build that full page ad leading into it - keep that interface the same. You'll see why, in a moment.
In addition to the entity's function (its purpose in life), we need to define both what's going in (surfers, via that full page ad), and what's coming back out (surfers, via the reciprocal link). In other words, site A needs a link to Site B and Site C's full page ads; B links to A and C; C links to A and B. The full page ad is always there, so you always know where to link. By staying absolutely consistent, there's no more guesswork involved.
Why do I keep saying entity rather than site? Because the entity can be anything - and this is the power behind the blueprint. The entity can be a hub, an avs matrix, an entire separate empire. So long as you know the entry point, the type of entity, and what comes back out, you're set.
For the Triple Triple, that entity is the Hub. Each site links back to the Hub, and the Hub links back to each site. In every case what you link to, of course, is that full page ad you built before you ever even built the entity itself.
For the Triple Triple Triple, it's precisely the same thing. The Mother Hub is entered via the full page ad, and links to each of the other hubs via their full page ad. The interface is the same in every case. Who cares if the entity is actually a hub leading to other hubs leading finally to actual sites? The structure is the same.
All of the above, then, is the freesite area. You can also have an avs area, a filter area, a trap area, and so on. You'll be wanting to tune and optimize your avs area differently from your freesite area. You can do this, because you have that defined interface, and it doesn't matter what goes on inside. What if I have built a targeted full page ad for every tgp gallery? I can link them all together with a hub. That hub, in turn, has its own entry point via its own full page ad - and thus I can send traffic there from the freesite hub, or anywhere else.
Until now, I've had my avs area and my hub and my filter pages and my freesites all jumbled together. Obviously, I can do better. By knowing input, output, and purpose, for every entity I build, I know how and where to place it in my empire. By considering its interface, its placement is obvious. I have my Blueprint for Empire.
But there's more. Many of us here at VNWR are building Triples, and Triple Triples, and Triple Triple Triples. Have you noticed that we are all using the same Functional Interface Specification? Why not link all the Asian hubs together into a multi-webmaster hub of hubs? And do the same for each of the other niches? Whenever a new hub gets built, we just drop it into Voltar's Grandmother Hub, and we all benefit from the targeted traffic circulation. We can do this for any area.... trap, filter, tgp, etc., because we have all defined the same interface. We now have our Blueprint for Empire.
Last modified: Wed Oct 11 10:27:50 CDT 2000