Tag Archive

New Spark Schwag

By Steve Shanafelt

Now that we have a spiffy new logo (courtesy of local designer Stephen Long), it’s high time we starting showing it off. And what better way to do that than to suggest you buy some stuff with the logo on it from our online store. Although we’ve had an online store for a year... »

SparkCast: A Camera, A Resolution, And An Abandoned Couch

By Steve Shanafelt

Thought we’d given up on video-blogging? Hardly! Dazzle in delight as this blindingly white person who looks like he last saw the sun during the Clinton administration talks to you about new cameras, New Year’s resolutions and abandoned furniture. Again, please bear in mind that this whole video-making thing is still in its infancy here... »

New Year, New Logo

By Steve Shanafelt

As many of you will have noticed, SpartanburgSpark.com has a spiffy new logo created by local artist/designer/mastermind Stephen Long. What’s awesome about this is that he decided to create this entirely on his own initiative, just because he thought it would be a good addition to the site. And boy, was he right. This is... »

Spark Specific: New Year Reboot

By Steve Shanafelt

For the next few days, the Spartanburg Spark will be inactive as we take advantage of the post holiday-lull to update the software that runs the site, revamp our design and make a few much-needed changes. This isn’t a major update, thankfully, but rather involves a bunch of little updates and changes. We expect... »

SparkCast: An Introduction, Thanks And An Otherwise Awkward Start

By Steve Shanafelt

Thanks to donations from our wonderful supporters, the Spark is finally able to experiment video blogging. We’re still figuring it out, though, so keep your expectations realistic until we wrap our heads around this whole “not writing” thing. Thanks again to all of you who chipped in come cash to help us move into this... »

Blog Report: Recommend Changes To SparkleCityBlogs.com

By Steve Shanafelt

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on updating and reorganizing the Spark’s local blog-centric sister site, SparkleCityBlogs.com. All of the blogs are now arranged by category, and (unlike before) all of the active blogs are now part of the central blog feed. This means that there’s a great deal more content being... »

WARNING: Spark Down Tomorrow Morning

By Steve Shanafelt

Just to let you all know, I’ll be performing system upgrades on the Spark tomorrow morning, and chances are the site will be down for at least an hour. I’ve been waiting until after the election to do anything risky, lest we lose existing content. But, assuming all goes according to plan, there will be... »

New Spark Paid Membership Option: Secret Gold

By Steve Shanafelt

Love the idea of getting access to members-only areas of the Spark? Hate the idea of alerting anyone and everyone who reads the site that you’re actually chipping in a few bucks? Are you humble, shy or just not keen on people knowing how you spend your money? Well, as of today, you can... »

As Goes Week, So Goes The Weekend

By Steve Shanafelt

Each Thursday, the Spark likes to ask our readers a vital, burning question that simply cannot be ignored. It’s too important, too impactful, to ever go unanswered. That question? “Hey, whatcha doin’ this weekend?” It’s not as silly as it may sound. We’re all part of the same community, but we’re also part of different... »

Big Idea: The Inevitable Return Of The Free Ad Initiative

By Steve Shanafelt

Several months ago, after reading a blog post on TechCrunch about why internet advertising is failing, I decided to try an experiment. What if, instead of charging local businesses for ads, I just gave them away? After all, the site wasn’t generating enough traffic at the time to justify charging anyone to advertise (it arguably... »

Donations, And The Benefits of Membership

By Steve Shanafelt

Now that the Spark has officially turned a year old, we’re faced with that most wonderful of annual online headaches: Domain name renewal. While this isn’t a big deal — the domain names are like $8 each, and include the .com and .net variants of this site, UpstateSpark (which redirects here) and SparkleCityBlogs.com... »

Spark In-House: New Comment Rating System

By Steve Shanafelt

In an attempt to address a point raised by one of the site’s visitors, I’ve decided to try out an additional level of comment moderation. As most of you already know, the Spark isn’t really “moderated” in a traditional sense, and we’ll allow pretty much any comment that’s not SPAM or blatant hate... »

Hello Spartanburg Spark Community: I am your new intern!

By Petre'se Kennedy

A few weeks ago, Lucas Patterson of Root Magazine called me to see if we could use an intern, since Root itself is in hiatus at the moment, and he’d been approached by a USC-Upstate professor about taking one on. At first, I thought he was kidding, because the Spark is, at this point... »

Spark Anniversary Addendum: Graph And Analytics

By Steve Shanafelt

On a lark, I decided to take a look at the Google Analytics information for SpartanburgSpark.com in the past year we’ve “officially” been online. The results are actually pretty interesting. The graph is for Absolute Unique Visitors (counting each visitor only once in the selected date range of one year). There are other metrics... »

Big Idea: Spartanburg Spark’s Second Year

By Steve Shanafelt

Now that the Spark has managed to survive a whole year without much in the way of calamity, and appears to be actually serving some kind of need in the community with our admittedly humble efforts, it’s probably time to start thinking about how to grow the project in a sensible, organic way. While... »