It’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally ready to share some of what we’ve been working on with everyone. The Tutorial9 Preview is just that—a preview—but it already feels like a lot has changed. If you want the inside scoop of what’s new, read on.
New Mission
The new Tutorial9 has been built around one central idea: We want to share only the best resources for designers, every day.
Our new site combines our own frequent original content, and aggregates outstanding content from other publishers. We are not another digg-clone though—all of the links submitted to Tutorial9 are manually approved by very picky editors. By putting our reputation on the line in our cooperative selection of links, we know our readers can trust that they’re being served only the best of the best.
A Change in Philosophy
But the new Tutorial9 isn’t just about a user submitted links system. We are very much an entirely new Tutorial9. One of the biggest changes that we’re making may come as a shock to some of our older viewers: We’re moving on from being a completely “free” experience.
Up until now, we’ve depended entirely on ad revenue to power one of the largest tutorial publications online. We constantly were going over our monthly budget that for paying contributors. The only answer for us in the past has been: “Well, guess we better create some new ad positions and hope they sell.”
Truthfully, we think this model could probably keep up for several more years just fine. Long term however, we’re not sure this model is sustainable. If ad inventory is limitless, the value is… well, awful. Not to mention, ads start to look messy very quickly when there are too many of them. The long-term sustainability of low-end advertising online is iffy at best for medium to large publishers.
As explained though, it’s very difficult to constantly publish top-notch tutorials and downloads when limited by ad revenue. For this reason, we’re developing a “Club” program that will grant members access to extra materials (and a very powerful license) for a small monthly fee. More details on this program will be available soon.
New Membership System
One of the most obvious new features on Tutorial9 is our new membership system. With the new Tutorial9, we’re attempting to build an engaging community around the best design resources available online. Our membership system provides a few really neat metrics for seeing your status in the community:
Stickers
Stickers are collectable items that can be earned by performing certain actions around Tutorial9. They keep a historical account of your accomplishments in the community, and provide users with fun-to-achieve goals.
Did you submit your first link to Tutorial9? Have a sticker. Was one of your comments especially insightful or helpful? Yup.
Each sticker is documented in your own personal Sticker Collection (example) where you can see your achievements, or share them with others. When a member unlocks a sticker, they’re also awarded with a certain number of Cloud Points, which brings us to…
Cloud Points
Cloud Points are the currency for your actions in the Tutorial9 community. Points are earned whenever somebody upvotes a comment you posted, whenever you unlock a sticker, and whenever you perform a variety of other tasks on the site. At the moment, they’re a great way to see how much value you’ve added to the Tutorial9 community, but in the future they might just be worth something a bit more tangible…
Progress of the Preview
The Tutorial9 Preview will be updated in iterations as we’re ready to reveal new features. If you find something out of place, please send us a quick email telling us about the problem. We’ll be posting regular updates here detailing fixes and changes as we make them.
This is only a preview. We wanted to share the new experience with our readers before the final product is ready, and hopefully let our community share in the creation of the completed website. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and we look forward to having you participate in this preview with us.
Thierry: This is a jquery plugin that moves labels on focus, I released it 2 months ago. Be free to test it, and fork it on github
Jack: Working on the second beta of http://howcode.com we’re getting ready for the second round of invites in a week or two!
Benjamin Alijagic: I’m working on my new (and first) web app for designers http://www.geteval.com. You can see some details on Dribbble http://dribbble.com/players/benpixel
Zach: YourProFolio.com is a web application that allows artists, photographers, designers and any other visual artist to have their own professional, elegant website instantly.
@phoenixq: Been working on the new portfolio.
@antoineguedes: I’m currently working on an octopus illustration for my girlfriend’s new personal project: http://ow.ly/2ilhx 
@zanmushi: Hello, I just finished working on my new portfolio site.
@UmarIrshad: Here’s mine.
@mattlawless82: hey check out what I’ve made during experiment 2D graphics class.
Thomas Hardy: I am working on my new website http://www.design-heaven.com which I launched this week!
adam: One of my projects is a new website for my friend currently transforming from ps to html/css some work is done.
Andrew Cairns:I’m working on the next release of http://www.wecreatemedia.com. The next release will include pagination for articles/news sections and a new tutorial section.
Stefan: I’m currently working on a site for a small hair-dresser chain from Germany: http://www.dunowell-coiffeur.com/
Franco: Hi guys, Im working on a new print company wensite, the idea is to make a modern style site, to show the clients they are a new, young and modern company.
Identity: I’m currently working on a e-commerce website, selling french goods. Have a look and tell me what you think.
Cheers
digibomb: We just release Vanilla 2! We are currently working on some cool stuff with SSO and WordPress integration.
Tanshin: I’m working on a graphics community (currently called Uusi) right now. We haven’t finished the layout yet, but it’s a wip.
Robert Wagstaff: Created this graphic as a promo for my fanfiction story being featured on another website: http://bit.ly/ck2sIP
Nicole Foster: I’m working on a minimal, easy to use website for a motivational speaker, Jeff Gaines.
Peter Brazier: I have just finished a website for a client the address is http://www.hnpersonaltraining.co.uk