Shawn Hogan Interview

Glen Allsopp / One Comment / December 27th, 2006 / Subscribe via RSS

Shawn Hogan is the owner of DigitalPoint, a hugely popular webmaster forum with millions of posts, and a place where I spend quite a lot of my time. From basic info to some new advanced techniques, you can find quite a few goodies over there.

I asked Shawn if he would be interested in an interview and sure enough he obliged, so here you have it!

You are widely known due to the success of your digitalpoint website, how did it all start?

Just needed a way to put our products on the Internet, so our website was started in 1996.

Is there anything you would of done differently along the way when administering digitalpoint? (Servers, Moderators, Spam Issues etc)

Not really to be honest… Things seem to work out pretty well the way we do things.

Does Digitalpoint Forums ads earn you enough money so that you could stop developing software?

I suppose some could live on it, but if you are asking if we make more from AdSense than we do from software, no…

It’s reported you once said you dislike it when your site (DigitalPoint) gets major traffic attention from the likes of digg. Is this true, and if so, why?

Not sure where you heard that, because I don’t recall saying that. I don’t care either way if we get Digg traffic, but I don’t necessarily dislike (or like) it. The best thing about Digg traffic is it’s a good stress test for servers if something is on the front page, beyond that the traffic is relatively useless IMO (it’s not like Digg users are buying something from you).

Do you own any other community websites?

Nope.

When starting community based websites, what tips would you have for getting users motivated…

Do it after you already have a user base. It’s much easier then.

We know you are a keen software developer, what do your other interests include?

Traveling, snowboarding, golf and frisbee golf.

Favourite Search Engine?

Google

Which PPC/Affiliate programs have worked the best for you and your sites in the past and presently?

I messed around with AdWords a little bit a few years ago… that PPC seemed to work pretty well. I just don’t have anything to advertise anymore.

Any Personal “Enemies” that we may know?

If I do, they haven’t told me.

If you could work for any company in the world, which would you choose?

I don’t want to work for any company, but if I *had* to, it would be Google or Apple. They seem to always be working on interesting things.

DigitalPoint is growing enormously, new house, whats next?

No idea… but based on my history, probably something completely different in a year or two.

Thanks for answering our questions, much appreciated and Good luck in the future

Thanks and no prob…

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