Interview with Juanjo Navarro

For the meaning of the word 'planet' in this context, see  Planet (disambiguation) and  hybrid news aggregator.

We are talking with Juanjo Navarro, creator of the commercial blog, versióncero and the 'planet', planetacódigo.

Q: Where did you get your passion for programming from, did it start in your profession or as a hobby?

A: The truth is that I have been programming since I was 12 when my parents bought me a superb Spectrum with 16Kb. At that time the most interesting thing you could do with a computer was to program it. My love of programming started to grow and the profession came afterwards.

Q: Can you tell us how you decided to undertake projects related to programming and the Internet?

A: The Internet is in my blood. Even before the Internet started to become popular in Spain, I was already a user of Fidonet BBS. Past history. Now no one remembers those systems. My first full time job was as an administrator for a small ISP.

It was logical that I would start projects related to programming sooner or later given my love for the subject. Personally I believe that programming is too much divided into technological ghettos. There are good sites about Java, about .NET about PHP, but very few that present a unified vision of programming. The projects that I have undertaken so far have been orientated towards a unified vision.

Q: With regards to planeta código, in what way do 'planets' improve on 'blogs'?

A: They bring several benefits:

- For the readers. It's an easy way for the readers to follow a number of web logs with related subject matter on one site. We know that RSS feeds and readers exist but they continue to be a technology used only by a minority. Many people haven't heard of them and others may have heard of them but are not interested in using them. A 'planet' is a 'one stop shop' for interesting information.

- For the writers. Obviously for a writer, publishing a feed in a 'planet' implies increasing its circulation, so potentially more people can read the posts. You only have to think that the planetacódigo feed has more subscribers in Bloglines than many of the individual web logs that are syndicated in planetacódigo to realize that more people access the posts in this way.

But apart from this, I believe that a 'planet' has another very important benefit.

- Community. The planet becomes a sort of community. Often the bloggers syndicated in a 'planet' read the 'planet' because they are interested in the subject and this encourages inter-blog discussions. A web log may publish a post about a methodology and on the next day another web log publishes a contrary view, making a reference to the first web log. And so it goes on. A dialog starts. This has happened in planetacódigo and is very interesting.

Q: Do you think that the 'planets' help increase the readership of the participating web logs?

A: Of course. As I said before, you only have to look in Bloglines at the numbers of subscribers to planetacódigo and to the individual web logs that participate. In addition, in planetacódigo I place a lot of importance on being able to access each participating author's web log.

Q: Can you give us some idea of the steps needed to establish a 'planet'?

A: The steps are the same as for any web site: hosting, domain, page design etc. In addition it is necessary to install software to periodically download the syndicated feeds and generate the pages of the 'planet'. I used the software planetplanet, a system developed using Python and popular with other 'planets', but there are many other systems that perform the same function (see Planetas for a list).

Q: With regard to versión cero, how did you get the idea of creating a blog that specializes in programming?

A: The idea came to me after looking at a number of current web sites about programming. It seemed to me that these sites covered the technological side very well with tutorials, etc., but news about programming (events, conferences, new publications, new development environments) was scarce. With the exception of JavaHispano that fulfills this role very well in the world of Java, for other technologies there was very little news, and much less for generic topics like analysis and design, safe programming, etc.

There was, therefore, an interesting niche left open. I think that we have succeeded in filling it. Versióncero has generated a lot of interest in the development community and we have received a lot of messages of support.

Q: Do you believe that the blog can generate sufficient revenue to be a sustainable project?

A: It depends on what you mean by sustainable. If you mean will the blog be capable of paying for its hosting and other infrastructure costs, then I think it is sustainable. It has been from the first day.

If you mean will the blog provide some economic benefit to its editors, then the answer is not yet clear. It's too early to say. For me this is also an experiment. In theory a web site with very specialist content can generate some revenue if it becomes very popular. The formula is this: relevant advertising with Adsense (this is the simplest and can start on day one) or publicity agreements with specialist sectors like technical book editors, conference and symposium organizers and the companies that make development tools.

Q: What steps need to be taken to start a blog of this type?

A: Today it is very simple. There are many content management systems that are easy to install, that consume few resources and with platform requirements that can be met by the most basic hosting account. I'm thinking of Textpattern, Wordpress or MovableType as examples. You create a simple template, or personalize an existing one and you can launch in 2 days, the time it takes to contract the domain and the hosting.

But in my opinion the really difficult step is to find a subject that you believe you can commit to, one to which you can and are willing to devote your time. Then you need collaborators. I was very lucky with versióncero because all the editors were fully committed to the project.

But I also have an experience of failure. More than a year ago I launched a web log called, "cosas de niños" (baby things). It was well planned in that the subject was good, it had a certain potential for publicity (companies making baby food, etc.), but neither did I find enough content nor were my collaborators very enthusiastic about the idea. Clearly, in a web log, like any other page, content is king, and you have to be sure that this is not going to run dry.

Q: Do you feel that the Spanish market is ready for projects of this sort?

A: Yes, I believe it is ready. You aren't restricted to just the Spanish market, but to the Spanish speaking world. It is a market with potentially millions of users.

Q: Finally, do you have any ideas that you can share with the readers of Loogic?

A: My latest ideas were to create a service for online presentations and a system for meeting up with your school friends.

I'm still turning these ideas over in my mind, checking their viability. Actually these are larger programming projects than the creation of a web log and I have to research them more.

Lastly, I have an idea for a non technical web log. The idea would be to publish photos of the family (those that we keep in a box with the photos of our parents and grandparents in the 40's and 50's etc.) together with a short explanation. The idea is that people would upload their photos and their mini-texts. It would be a good way to 'air' a lot of pictures that would otherwise be lost in the boxes under the stairs. What do you think of the idea?