theFreshScent

So far, the responses have been great. We’ve gotten some funny ones, some weird ones and some reassuring ones. Turns out we’re doing a thing or two right as it stands, but we can definitely improve in other areas.

Let’s start off with something simple that I doubt will surprise anyone…

Yep, mind blowing right? A nice, round 100% of you think it is Ok to use marijuana for recreational use, with a slight caveat of 13% choosing the ‘It Depends’ option. Exactly zero people chose ‘No’ on this one. A real eye-opener right?

The next mixture of questions was designed to get your opinions on both features and content.

Let’s start with features, we created two major parts of the site - the tFS Headshop Locator and Feed Valley. We called them ‘Feature Elements’ and put them right below categories in the sidebar.

Turns out we either didn’t build them well enough or no one can find them, because the majority of responses were on the negative side. A whopping 14% of people use Feed Valley to grab news from other sites and an equally massive 22% of viewers used the tFS Headshop Locator (when it was still functional and not mangled by our hosting providers).

The amount of ‘Don’t Know What It Is‘ responses (54% for Feed Valley and 38% for tFSHL) really opened our eyes to how important navigation is and making it easy for all of you to spot the larger projects that we work on. You can bet the next featured aspects of tFS aren’t going to be as easy to miss. Count on it.

Next we wanted to get some ideas about our content. Asking which category you read the most was a no-brainer and the responses pretty much followed what our site stats show - you all love looking at Medical Marijuana. The MMJ category posted a 46% total, which is an impressive 20% difference between the next closest choice, News, clocking in at 20% of our responses.

Funnily enough, those responses totally contradicted how you felt about the next question - Marc Emery or Tommy Chong? Marc Emery is heavily involved with the legalization movement and seed cultivation. This would translate into readers being more interested with the deeper aspects of marijuana, both legal and structural. Tommy Chong, well known from his comedy movies, represents the lighter side of pot. Jokes, taking life easy and making fun of a few people or places along the way.

You guys favored Tommy by a pretty sizable margin - 65% to 35% - over Marc Emery. What does this mean to us? We’ll keep the news and strain info coming, but you also want to see some more humor and things to make you laugh. No problem, we can handle that.

There were some questions hard for us to put into graph form, but don’t worry, we’re paying attention to every one equally. The one consistent, major complaint has been over the lack of updates since the site last went down. We know you want to see more from us on the content front, and that won’t be an issue when we re-launch. Until then we have to keep quiet on the details.

So sit tight, know that we’re on top of it, and we look forward to dropping some development news in the coming week.

I hope you can all tell, but we’re starting to ramp things up here @ tFS. The v3 blog is under active development, and we’re really excited about the new features and technical set-up that’s being put together.

That said, our website is only as strong as the content on it. We want to know what you think about the current version of tFS and what you would like to see in Version 3. Nowhere in our About page does it say that we’re mind readers, so it’s time for you guys to step up and give us the news.

This quick survey, linked below, will go a long way in helping us map out and design posts and content that appeal to YOU. If you think something blows, let us know. If you think something rocked and you want to see more of it, let us know that too.

Take the survey! Take the survey! Take the survey!

So, bottom line, the more people who help us by filling this out, the better our content is going to be. I hope that it’s a good trade-off, 2 minutes of time for some killer articles to read & pictures/videos look at.

As always, if there’s anything missing, hit us up via the Contact page or via email.

Oh yea, fill out the survey!

It’s an exciting day here at tFS because we finally get to give you a quick glimpse into what we’ve been working on for the past few months. Let’s dive right in…

First, we’re happy to announce theFreshScent Twitter account. If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s a microblogging service that uses instant messaging, SMS or the web to send people 140-character bites about what you’re doing.

Even if you aren’t seeing a lot of posts on tFS, we’re very busy working on some of the stuff that I’m about to show below. By checking up on our Twitter feed, you’ll be able to see what’s keeping us busy and away from writing.

We thought this would be a cool way to keep in contact with our audience, even when we aren’t able to post as much as we’d like. Also, expect some links to videos, images or news stories that we find funny or interesting to check out. You know, so you don’t get too bored with us.

It’s a great service that has really taken off, so head on over to the page and follow us, or sign-up, or just grab our RSS feed and you’ll be good to go.

On to the next news…

As everyone knows, the site has been really choppy, quality wise, and we find that unacceptable. We also find it a bit stale to be honest. This design has been live since September 20th, 2006. That’s almost two years, and it’s time for a face lift.

Above you is a quick look at theFreshScent v3. Our new take on what we want to deliver to the Counter-Culture world. You might wonder why it’s taken so long to put this together, but we’ve re-thought this site from the ground up and made changes accordingly.

I can’t spill all the beans just yet, but expect plenty of new features when launch day is announced. There is a lot of exciting news on the horizon for tFS readers and it’ll be here before you know it. Who knows, we might even have another sneak peek for you.

As always, if you have any feedback for us we’d love to hear it. Oh, and Happy 4/20!

Well, well, well. It looks like our friends over at Attack of the Show have forgotten a certain green-friendly blog during their 4/20 blog roundup.

No worries. We’ve been flying under the radar lately, but just wait until this time next year and tFS is going to be at the top of that list.

Also, 3 links? That’s all they could find?

I think these guys need to step up their game a bit and respect the tech-head smokers out there. We do exist (unless magic elf men created this site and I’m just too stoned to tell), so it’s time to put a voice to the movement.

Hey Everyone!

Didn’t expect to see something new here did you? Well, we’re here to change all that. I know it’s been almost year since we last dropped anything of significance, and we’re sorry about the all time it’s taken. We’ve definitely been off-the-job longer than we’d hoped, but there’s always tomorrow to look forward to and we’re working to bring it closer each day. Now, let’s get past the intro and on to the good news…

First, we’ve fixed most of the outstanding issues with the site. It ended up being the combination of old plugins and an out-of-date main database that really screwed everything up. With the introduction of WP2.5, some serious house cleaning and a bit of re-programming here and there - the current incarnation of tFS is back and ready to go.

The footer is currently being worked on, and there is still a hiccup with the tFS Headshop Locator, but other than that everything is in working order. Feed Valley is back and in full effect. If you have any suggestions for new feeds to add there, shoot us an email. Expect improvements on the site to be ongoing during the upcoming few weeks.

Next, we’re going to start updating a bit more frequently. Not just the tFS Debris, but also some comments on an article and a quick review here and there. We have plenty going on in the background (yes, I know you’ve heard that line before), but now everything is running smoothly we’ll be able to drop some news and updates along the way.

Last, we’re just looking forward to getting everything moving again. We’ve been away from the game for too long and copycats have tried to take our place.

Not happening.

Expect tFS to be the center of innovation in the Counter-Culture industry and stay tuned for the coming attractions!

+ the tFS Team

By all appearances, you’d think that tFS has dropped off the face of the planet. Luckily for everyone, we know a couple of things you don’t. Like? Well, a good place to start is the fact that new content will be dropping once again.

We’re excited to come back with some positive news. Starting next Wednesday, once a week, we’ll be dropping some recaps, keeping everyone up-to-date on counter-culture news and highlighting anything else that catches our eye.

We’re keeping our mouths shut about what exactly the future holds for tFS, but if you look real close, things may just begin to surface.

It’s been a long time coming, both Tim and I want to thank all of you readers for the constant visits and great comments. Your continued support is a huge factor to the re-emergence of this project. Thank you.

In the meantime, sit tight, you’ll be hearing from us soon.

So without further adieu, we welcome you back to theFreshScent.

Without making any lame references to deja vu, zombies, returning from the dead or any other cliche a writer can throw out there - we’d like to let everyone know the pilot light is on and tFS still has a heartbeat.

It’s feint, it’s slowly building up steam and until the head gasket blows, we’re going to keep a lid on the haps behind the scenes.

We’d also like to point out that today is effectively the 1 year anniversary of tFS. No, we haven’t taken the most common path down the road to a 1 year, but screw it, we want to celebrate anyway.

So, while we go buy some Stone IPA, everyone sit tight and we’ll do our next update when there’s some positives to drop.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that tFS has been stale for the better part of a month. We’ve been experiencing some issues out of the public spotlight that have affected development on this site now, and into the future.

For my part, I can’t devote the same amount of time and resources that I have been spending for the past year. Running a site like this takes complete devotion and it deserves nothing less. That said, Tim is fully dedicated and more than skilled enough to take tFS to the next level.

For now, unfortunately, we’re going to continue to keep the site in its ‘frozen’ state. Either that, or take it down entirely, which I doubt anyone wants. So, thanks goes out to you for all the great comments and contributions. tFS wouldn’t be the destination it is without your support.

We hope when things get a little less complicated we can spend more time building this site into what it really should be.

We’ll try and keep everyone informed on the backend progress and maybe throw out some content that’s been in hibernation.

For any questions or comments, good or bad, please email us and either Tim or I shall get back to you personally or leave your farewells in the comments below.

Thanks again everyone.

+ Alex & Tim