How did you get started on the web?

Dabbledoo Media: In 2005, Doug Berger, while at Indiana University, founded Dabbledoo Media as an online t-shirt company. In October of that year, Doug switched gears, from t-shirts to blogs, and launched Dabbledoo Media with Gadgetell.com, an online consumer electronics/technology blog, as an energetic web company that would be a source of information for web savvy people. In November 2005, Adam Berger came on as a writer for Gadgetell and soon became a Dabbledoo partner (though we are not related). Since then the team has launched Appletell.com and Gamertell.com, expanding our reach into two more consumer electronic niches.

What is Dabbledoo Media?

Dabbledoo Media: Our mission is to be a part of and start, online and offline conversations: by providing people with with information, in a relatable manner, which fulfills their cravings and appeals to their hobbies/passions; new ways of interacting; and products that cause buzz. “Get out there and speak their mind.”

Why did you choose ExpressionEngine for your sites?

Dabbledoo Media: When Gadgetell launched in 2005 we launched with a traditional blog tool. The software was great, the plug-ins were endless and the release cycles were super short, with a new version in what seemed like, every other day. It did everything we needed for our single site. As 2007 rolled around and we began to seriously consider adding on more sites we knew that we had to find a more scalable solution, in every which way.

We had a few requirements as we searched out a new CMS. The various sites had to share a single login. Editors and writers needed to be able to edit/publish on all sites (or groups of sites). Templates needed to be nested and able to be used across multiple sites. We needed something with a more advanced workflow engine than what we were currently using. “Draft” and “Published” were not cutting it for us anymore. Likewise we wanted/needed lots of custom fields organized nicely on the publish page and through the rest of the CP. Most importantly, we needed the ability to manage everything for all three sites from one place.

Which of the sites is your personal favorite? I’m partial to Gamertell simply because of the 8-bit styling.

Adam: Ooo this is a tough one. From a content perspective I believe they are all great. Personally I’m not a gamer nor a die-hard mac-addict so I would choose Gadgetell, but it was also our launch site and I had contributed over 2500+ articles too it, so it’s sort of in my blood. From a design perspective, I absolutely love the new Gamertell logo which was just redesigned last week. I am also very happy with the Appletell logo/look, which too a very long time for us to land.

Doug I’m going to have to agree with Adam.  After contributing over 1,000 posts to Gadgetell, it makes it difficult for me to choose another site.  Gadgetell will always hold a special place in my heart.  That aside, I really enjoy keeping up with the Apple news and rumors on Appletell.  Things like our live streaming coverage of the Macworld 2007 Steve Jobs keynote allow us to differentiate from the other Apple sites out there.  Oh, and thanks for the kind words on the Gamertell logo!

Which site is the most challenging in terms of breaking into the market?

 
Dabbledoo Media: Appletell and Gamertell were both launched in May 2007. Gamertell has had the slowest growth but since the beginning of 2008 it has been on fire—like absolute crazy growth rates. Appletell, as you can imagine, is very cyclical based on the current stage of the Apple rumor-mill. Gadgetell has been strong and consistent since launch, but we are now working on a few things to heat it up.

What are you most proud of, in terms of technical accomplishment, about the sites?

Dabbledoo Media: Most of the technical accomplishments that we’re proud of are in the back-end of our site.  We have built up a set of tools/utilities/resources which we’ve dubbed “Dabbledoo Tools”.  Among them are a photo gallery uploader tool (which integrates into the gallery on the site and embeds into posts), a Live Blog tool that allows for rapid-fire posting, an internal blog, writer post and impression tracking, an article “Claim Me” system allowing editors to post topics into a grab-bag for writers to claim (which once claimed go into their account as drafts), and a writer/editor dashboard that allows them to see a quick snap-shot of their posts (published, not-publishable, ready, and drafts) on a single screen for each site—much easier than using the edit page filters.

It’s these custom tools that make our lives a lot easier when we’re doing fast pace coverage at events like the Consumer Electronics Show, Macworld, and E3.

Are you using any EE plugins, customizations?

Dabbledoo Media: The better question is what aren’t we using. Our key modules are: Tag 2.0 Module from Solspace, Photo Gallery (and Photo Gallery Extended from Solspace), and Freeform.  Extensions: Filter By Author.  Plugins: Allow EE Code, Word Limiter, HTML Stripper, Form Helper,  and Character Limiter.  For spam reduction, we’re using Akismet Module/Extension Bundle, Blacklist/Whitelist, and the Comment Spam Prevention Extension.

One customization that Doug is proud of is our custom Writer Registration / Agreement Form that we send out to writers wishing to join our staff.  The form is similar to a standard EE registration form, but has certain other fields to capture contractual information upon submission, including acceptance of our Terms and Conditions.

Another notable customization is our use of the Photo Gallery / Photo Gallery Extended modules.  We needed to tailor the Gallery Module for our 100 not-necessarily-tech-savvy writers and for our specific security and usability requirements.  Because of our huge need for a Photo Gallery on each site, we created a custom submission form in Dabbledoo Tools (mentioned above) that allows writers to create their own “Albums” on the fly, by putting a common URL title into a designated custom field, and attaching multiple photos at a time.  From there, we can tie “Albums” together with that custom field.  After much deliberation on the forums, we decided not to use the Category feature in the Photo Gallery Module since there is no way to create them on the fly. It could still use more work but we are very proud of what we’ve accomplished.