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It's very plausible that this is the first step of migrating CSS-Tricks to DigitalOcean Tutorials. They've had enough time to see how well CSS-Tricks traffic is

It's very plausible that this is the first step of migrating CSS-Tricks to DigitalOcean Tutorials. They've had enough time to see how well CSS-Tricks traffic is converting into customers, and perhaps there is a strong decline for the past couple of months, but this is entirely my own speculation. Also, in their Q4 Report [0] they are using this wording, "Added thousands of tutorials, guides and educational content through the acquisition of CSS-Tricks and JournalDev." Back when DO acquired Scotch.io, they only migrated the best / most popular tutorials, and I wouldn't be surprised this is the fate for CSS-Tricks also. I think there are thousands of published pages on CSS-Tricks, many of which already overlap with what DO has written over the years, and on top of that - it would involve some serious work to migrate everything. Again, these are just my thoughts on it, but why else would they just kick Geoff off the team like that? [0]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230215005423/en/DigitalOcean-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-and-Fiscal-Year-2022-Financial-Results https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230215005423/en/Dig...

petercooper 4y ago
They've had enough time to see how well CSS-Tricks traffic is converting into customers, and perhaps there is a strong decline for the past couple of months, but this is entirely my own speculation. You might be right, but I'd hope they weren't looking at it that way. Content sites like that are a long play. I've encountered lots of people who seem to have extra trust for DigitalOcean because of their (admittedly good) content and while they might not have directly "converted" from a specific article, it has hugely helped DO's brand. A site like CSS Tricks is so valuable in the long term rather than for short term conversions.
- logifail 4y ago
  > I've encountered lots of people who seem to have extra trust for DigitalOcean because of their (admittedly good) content and while they might not have directly "converted" from a specific article, it has hugely helped DO's brand Umm, I am a customer of DigitalOcean, have several production workloads with them, yet until reading this article today I had no idea they had "content" of this type.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    Okay, that makes one of you? I am exactly the person GP is describing — I ended up reading a lot of their tutorials and when I needed a VPS, I decided to go with DigitalOcean because I already trusted the brand.
  - petercooper 4y ago
    That's fair enough, but also why any larger company should have a broad strategy for marketing and sales as there are a lot of routes that customers take. I once ended up in a multi year contract with a company because I ended up in their IRC channel and I liked it. Did they get most of their customers that way? I imagine not. That said, DO is pretty well known in developer circles for its thousands of tutorials (less so for its ownership of CSS Tricks which is very recent) but that is certainly not universal.
mmegger 4y ago
This is not the case here. The teams responsible for DigitalOcean’s tutorials were completely removed in this round of layoffs. Not only is is unlikely CSS Tricks won’t be migrated, there may never be another new tutorial again.
- duckmysick 4y ago
  Does that mean their Write for DOnations program is canned?
  - MannyOps 4y ago
    If this is true then I really am screwed. I have an article due for publication under that program, it had already passed the tech test, just a review of the actual text was needed. Angry because my article was with them for over 60 days tch. I sent them emails asking for updates 4days ago and yesterday, no response. I've mostly given up now, but I still kind of hold out hope, that $300 payout would've changed this Nigerian's life...even if only for just a while
    - pabs3 4y ago
      A couple of places you can get paid for FOSS tech documentation work btw: https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ https://lwn.net/op/AuthorGuide.lwn https://lwn.net/op/AuthorGuide.lwn The FOSSjobs site has a category for editors/writers too, not all of them seem to be related to the category though. https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs/editors/ https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs/editors/
      - MannyOps 4y ago
        Thank you, I will check them out.
        pabs3 4y ago
        Also the FOSSjobs resources page might have links to FOSS employers that have documentation jobs. https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

petercooper 4y ago

They've had enough time to see how well CSS-Tricks traffic is converting into customers, and perhaps there is a strong decline for the past couple of months, but this is entirely my own speculation. You might be right, but I'd hope they weren't looking at it that way. Content sites like that are a long play. I've encountered lots of people who seem to have extra trust for DigitalOcean because of their (admittedly good) content and while they might not have directly "converted" from a specific article, it has hugely helped DO's brand. A site like CSS Tricks is so valuable in the long term rather than for short term conversions.

logifail 4y ago
> I've encountered lots of people who seem to have extra trust for DigitalOcean because of their (admittedly good) content and while they might not have directly "converted" from a specific article, it has hugely helped DO's brand Umm, I am a customer of DigitalOcean, have several production workloads with them, yet until reading this article today I had no idea they had "content" of this type.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  Okay, that makes one of you? I am exactly the person GP is describing — I ended up reading a lot of their tutorials and when I needed a VPS, I decided to go with DigitalOcean because I already trusted the brand.
- petercooper 4y ago
  That's fair enough, but also why any larger company should have a broad strategy for marketing and sales as there are a lot of routes that customers take. I once ended up in a multi year contract with a company because I ended up in their IRC channel and I liked it. Did they get most of their customers that way? I imagine not. That said, DO is pretty well known in developer circles for its thousands of tutorials (less so for its ownership of CSS Tricks which is very recent) but that is certainly not universal.

mmegger 4y ago

This is not the case here. The teams responsible for DigitalOcean’s tutorials were completely removed in this round of layoffs. Not only is is unlikely CSS Tricks won’t be migrated, there may never be another new tutorial again.

duckmysick 4y ago
Does that mean their Write for DOnations program is canned?
- MannyOps 4y ago
  If this is true then I really am screwed. I have an article due for publication under that program, it had already passed the tech test, just a review of the actual text was needed. Angry because my article was with them for over 60 days tch. I sent them emails asking for updates 4days ago and yesterday, no response. I've mostly given up now, but I still kind of hold out hope, that $300 payout would've changed this Nigerian's life...even if only for just a while
  - pabs3 4y ago
    A couple of places you can get paid for FOSS tech documentation work btw: https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ https://lwn.net/op/AuthorGuide.lwn https://lwn.net/op/AuthorGuide.lwn The FOSSjobs site has a category for editors/writers too, not all of them seem to be related to the category though. https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs/editors/ https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs/editors/
    - MannyOps 4y ago
      Thank you, I will check them out.
      - pabs3 4y ago
        Also the FOSSjobs resources page might have links to FOSS employers that have documentation jobs. https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources