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18 Comments

How's this landing page, for a blogging platform?

Not trying to have the page be fancy at this point, but do you understand how this platform works? Is there something I should be more clear about?

https://yemi.blog

Thanks so much!

  1. 2

    I get it, and I like it!

    The tagline is clear to me.

    If it came linked by default to a really beautiful, simple template, that would be a great sell.

    One thing I wonder about with a model like this is: what about images? Such hassle to upload images somewhere else to get a link and then put that into the Markdown.

    1. 1

      Thanks!

      So question, what do you mean by a template? Like a markdown template for placement of headings, paragraphs, and whatnot?

      You're right, images are a bit tricky here. If someone doesn't mind having their blog in a public repo (you're making the content publicly available anyway), then you can upload your images to the same repo as your articles and link to them that way.

      1. 1

        Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant an existing static site a bit like a Gatsby/Jekyll/Hugo starter template. In other words, the finished product blog where all the articles are going to neatly drop in. So that you can show users the end product they can get immediately. Then you can obviously tell them they'll be able to customise from that point on.

        You could e.g. build this in Next.js using a Next.js blog template.

        1. 1

          Here is an example article. Nothing fancy.

          https://the.yemi.blog/hello-world

          1. 1

            OK sweet, yeah that's pretty much what I was thinking of - have somewhere to point at where you can say 'this is what you get when you use Yemi'.

        2. 1

          ah, so it seems like I may not be communicating what Yemi is and what it is not.

          With Yemi, you can't create a whole site/page however you want. The customization is more along the lines of Substack I guess?? I'm not sure if Substack has SEO options for each article, but Yemi does.

          Am I understanding you?

          Pretty soon I'll be recording a 'getting started video'. I may do another one to go a bit more in-depth with features.

          1. 2

            Awesome, got it. So I think I'm clear now. You will always get as an end-product a Yemi blog in Yemi-style which you'll be able to customise to an extent, like Substack.

            I think before I believed that this would be the backend for any chosen static site of the user's choice, and that it would link into there somehow.

  2. 1

    Yes, I understand what it is!

    I think you've missed a trick - you could say "Built on Yemi", or point to an example page that was built by your tool, to make it really clear.

    1. 1

      Thanks! I def need to add this.

  3. 1

    mmm... so is this only core Markdown or do you add anything?
    How would structure and features work? how do I make a menu? how do I add/change meta tags? js?.. how do I see it rendered with images and other styling?

    So I'm not sure where the magic goes into...
    if there is no magic, why do I need you and not just use like github pages or even github wiki (uses markdown) and such?...

    I'm just finding it hard on where to put you against alternatives

    1. 1

      To answer a few of your questions:

      You'd change meta tags in the front-matter of the markdown file. Looks like the below snippet - which is what the npm tool will scaffold out for you. I need to record a video explaining some of them. Some of this info automatically comes from GitHub, but you can override them. For instance, we'll use the date from the 'head_commit' as the published date. If you update the file afterwards, the date of the latest head_commit will be used as the updated date. Or you can hardcode them into the metadata. The only required fields here are 'title' and 'subtitle'.

      ---
      {
        "author": "",
        "avatar_url": "",
        "link_preview_url": "",
        "title": "Introducing Yemi",
        "subtitle": "A blogging platform designed for lovers of git and markdown",
        "published": "",
        "updated": "",
        "seo_canonical": "",
        "seo_description": "No need to setup a static site generator or server. We take care of the hosting, so you can start writing.",
        "seo_title": "A blogging platform designed for lovers of git and markdown"
      }
      ---
      

      There are no menus to create. No javascript or css to add (at this point anyway). And there is currently no way to see it rendered before you publish, since you're writing from your laptop/desktop.

      1. 1

        So how do I own my own data regarding analytics for example? As you market I'll own my own data, sounds like I don't even get an option to plugin my own counters

        How do integrate anything like even a simple contact me thingy or some registration?

        I think your over reducing to the point of removing too many valuable things
        And your target audience would be really hard to find

        Your making it too hard

        1. 1

          Data... so here is another place I'm not being clear. When I say 'data', I meant the content you're creating - the articles. I'll clarify this on the LP.

          I haven't started integrating Plausible Analytics yet, so I'm not sure yet how to allow them to own that data - if that's what someone wants. And if I can't do that, I will do my best to be clear about it upfront. That way someone can use third-party analytics so they can own the data. I haven't yet put thought into adding support for third-party analytics, but it shouldn't be too hard to do.

          As far as contacts and registrations, I haven't gotten that far. I've thought about adding support for subscriptions at some point, like a newsletter. I'll toy around with someone being able to add their own bit of javascript as well. Perhaps this should have been one of my "need this" features, but I've been focused on getting the GitHub integration and customization features working.

          I think your over reducing to the point of removing too many valuable things

          ^ It seems you're assuming I'm trying to say this product is finished.
          If so, I didn't mean to imply that - so I apologize. I should have clearly stated in my original post where this project is at - still in development, and still formulating ideas.

          1. 1

            I think you should itterate the idea in your head and on paper before you build it.
            While you can say this is a blogging thingy if you want to only publish text as if you would a book without anything interactive, the next question is who is it for...
            You need to itterate the cycle of product-problem-customer to the point you can see that before you code it

    2. 1

      It's CommonMark.

      And you are correct, those who don't mind doing things themselves will find zero value in this platform.

      My target audience are those who don't want to mess with what you've mentioned. They pretty much just want to start writing. And perhaps those folks are few and far between.

      1. 1

        well, you are niching down between the cracks... markdown is only known by programmers and you do require git if I get it and than I'm still unsure what's the value add you'r describing, just the deploy part premade?

        1. 1

          Yeah I'm trying to reach a specific audience - even among the coders and networking people who know git and markdown. Ones who don't want to setup hugo, jekyll, etc. Ones who don't want/care-for a highly customized blog site. They wanna write, but not on some website they need to login to. They wanna write in a place they're familiar with - their code editor. They want their data stored in a place "they control" (technically Microsoft, but you know what I mean) - their git repos.

          They want familiarity, but also the convenience of getting started (not having to setup generators, mess with site/page templates, etc)

          Hopefully that makes more sense.

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