Sorry for the recent downtime, I've been messing about with databases and passwords.

I've just been thinking about Web Design as an art form rather than just it being about something that looks good. I've decided that there are several ways to divide different styles of designs into existing categories of art.

What I mean by that is that the almost 100% CSS websites could be considered as sculptures whereas websites that are heavy on images could be considered as big canvases of paint. The balance in the middle therefore is the type of piece of art that is going to be remembered by everyone. For example 'The Mona Lisa'. Everyone knows what that is and who painted it.

It's actually a very interesting concept, comparing design to art. The part that I don't get is that I've asked many other designers the same question - "Are you good at art?" and the single word response I usually got was "no".

It's interesting that some of them aren't any good at art yet there job is all about colour schemes, making things look , designing things that work well together etc. It's all creative work. So, there's a lesson for you, if you don't think you're good enough to be a web designer because you have no creativity then ignore that and become a web designer anyway.

Another point is that in order to make me post more I'm actually design the admin panel so that it looks good and is functional, right now it's just forms and a submit button. Not conventionally attractive.

I've spent the last few days pondering over how Pownce has become so successful in a short space of time. Lets be honest, the features aren't revolutionary and the whole concept isn't rocket science. I.E. You have friends, you send me messages and pictures etc. There's loads of websites where you can send stuff to your friends, or is there?

Everyone is so absorbed in the whole idea of social networking and web 2.0 that they just expected this kind of application to be there, so much so that nobody noticed that there was a gap. It's obvious that Pownce is needed on the internet because 100,000 sign ups in 3 months isn't bad going.

Before Pownce was released there was loads of photo sharing/sending websites, Twitter ruled the micro post land, Digg was/is king of news sharing and Upcoming.org did event notification. You had to have a different account to use each service but everyone was fine with that and nobody complained.

People would still but fine with that today even with Pownce but there is just one key factor that makes it all better. The developers of Pownce.

Kevin Rose, the host of the Screen Savers, founder of Digg and co-founded Revision3. Daniel Burka, part of SilverOrange and Genius designer of Digg amongst other things. Then we have Leah Culver, that person who got herself a free Macbook Pro, not forgetting Shawn from Stamen.

My point is each member of the Pownce Crew is known for something other than Pownce and it's that what makes Pownce good, each member has a lot of influence throughout the web community. If some average programmer Joe had developed Pownce then I'd probably use it but it wouldn't have been that good and I wouldn't have upgraded my account for $20 for something I don't really need. My point is people with experience and influence in a community can have all the difference on a project.

I was reading an article over at A List Apart about how to design a homepage. One of the things the author spoke about was building momentum and to do this you should start designing one of the less important features/whatever on one of the less important pages of the website i.e. the links page.

I don't agree with that theory straight up but I do think the principals are right. Taking a section of the website and focusing on one area of the website spending time on it can give you an idea of how the overall site is going to end up and it'll give you the confidence to design a quality homepage.

Well It's been a while since I've posted. This is one of those posts telling you that I'm a live. I've been busy the best couple of months, lots of stuff going on behind the scenes at ratedpixel and some other stuff that I can't tell you about...

Anyways, I'm back and want to get through lots of stuff here. I plan a lot of stuff with the blog and I also plan to use this place as a test centre for some of the new development stuff that is being worked on.

If you have Pownce Add me as a friend and tell me you found me through the blog.

I've just launched a new site, it's called kalabashmail.cn. The idea behind it is to make silly and random comments on the top and most bizarre tech stories and the great thing is, the domain has nothing to do with it! Check it out - Kalabashmail.