Kosovo
56 posts on Kosovo.
Nearly everything I have built started in Kosovo, so this is the widest topic on the site. Living and working there gave me a satirical political party, a how-to site that reached most of the country and was eventually acquired, local SEO for businesses nobody could find, a panel on what brain drain does to a country after a pandemic, translation work seen more than four billion times, and, in the middle of all of it, getting engaged after more than ten years together. Here are the articles from that.
- What I Learned Building Qysh Me September 1, 2021
Lessons from launching an Albanian-language educational platform in 2011, before edtech was even a word people used in Kosovo.
- The Graduation Ceremony of JuniorGeeks 2 June 20, 2021
Watching young Kosovars graduate from a STEAM program gave me genuine hope about where the country is heading.
- Brain Drain and Its Effects After the Pandemic June 30, 2020
Notes from a STIKK panel on brain drain after the pandemic and how Kosovo can prepare its market and talent for the future. I joined from abroad.
- Hackathon in Times of Corona March 26, 2020
Hack the Crisis Kosova brought together researchers, startups, and tech enthusiasts to build solutions during the pandemic.
- Qysh Me Has Been Acquired by DUA November 30, 2019
Qysh Me has been acquired by Dua, a network that aims to connect Albanians around the globe. We believe in Dua's mission and its leadership.
- What a Satirical Party's Ending Taught Me May 20, 2019
Partia e Fortë dissolved in 2019. On why a joke that worked so well eventually stopped, and why that ending may be its most honest part.
- Salesforce Training for Pardot June 22, 2018
Taking the next step toward becoming a certified Salesforce Trailblazer with hands-on Pardot marketing-automation training. Notes from the sessions.
- Finally we got engaged! - Valon & Eldita June 8, 2018
Engaged! - Having never been together for more than 10 years, this was just formality but looking back two weeks later I think we had was a blast.
- Google's Image Analysis: Detecting Objects in Images May 9, 2018
I ran a few images through Google's Cloud Vision API. The objects and labels it detected show how easily your images can undermine your site's content quality.
- 3 Local-SEO Lessons My Blown Tire Taught Me April 26, 2018
My tire blew out on I-880, and while stranded I found three real local-SEO business cases: map-pack ranking, off-hours demand, and shops with no web presence.
- Translations have been seen 4B times. December 1, 2017
Your Albanian translations have been seen over 3B times this month. Which is so cool to know that you might help your community with something like this.
- Keeping a Growing WordPress Site Secure and Updated March 8, 2016
A popular WordPress site is a target. The unglamorous maintenance discipline that kept Qysh Me safe and online as its traffic and reputation grew.
- We Told Everyone to Steal Our Work September 8, 2015
Ripost invited readers to copy and repost everything we made, including the sentence saying so. What that position cost, and what it bought.
- SEO for a Site That Wants to Be Copied July 7, 2015
Ripost invited people to copy everything we published. Notes on canonicals, speed and structure when duplication is the strategy, not the problem.
- Ripostime: The River That Replaced the Front Page May 26, 2015
Below the featured mosaic, Ripost ran an endless river of items labelled by format, not section. On designing a homepage for scrolling.
- PunPun: A Show Made for the Internet, Not for TV April 14, 2015
Producing PunPun at Ripost meant unlearning television. On short formats, cutting for the phone, and losing the broadcast slot.
- The User Journey Was a Hashtag March 10, 2015
Ripost replaced the category menu with a row of live hashtags across every page. What that changed about how people moved through the site.
- 100,000 Facebook Likes: Qysh Me's First Big Milestone March 5, 2015
Four years after launching Qysh Me, our Facebook page crossed 100,000 likes. What that number really meant, and the slow, unglamorous work that got us there.
- Designed to Be Reposted January 27, 2015
If your platform's name is a verb, the interface has to let people do it. UX notes from Ripost on building for sharing and screenshots.
- Shipping Ripost in Beta and Leaving It There December 15, 2014
Ripost carried a BETA label next to the logo on purpose. Notes on running formats as experiments, and what the label bought us.
- Ripost Is Not a Portal November 18, 2014
We founded Ripost as an internet platform, not a news portal. What that distinction meant in practice for a newsroom of misfits.
- The Drone That Flew Across Zeri October 24, 2014
When a drone stopped a Serbia vs Albania match, we put one on Zeri's pages within minutes. What a fast team and a willing partner can do while a story is still alive.
- How We Grew Qysh Me's Facebook Page August 19, 2014
Facebook was where our audience already lived. How Qysh Me turned useful how-to content into a growing, engaged page, and why we shared value instead of links.
- What Partia e Fortë Taught Me About Social Media Strategy June 16, 2014
No one handed us a manual. In the middle of this strange experiment, here is what I think I am learning about how attention actually works.
- 71 Votes: What Running as a Satirical Candidate Taught Me June 11, 2014
When the June 2014 results came in, my name had 71 votes next to it. A small number with a lot to say about audience versus electorate.
- Sometimes You Have to Step In Front of the Camera June 2, 2014
Years of running a party's social media from behind the feed, and then a live national TV debate. What changes when the person making it happen has to be the person on screen.
- My 454-Person Facebook Survey Before the 2014 Election June 2, 2014
Before Kosovo's June 2014 vote I surveyed my own network on where the parties stood. What it found, and what it honestly could not tell us.
- Manual për Burra: When the Satire Had a Sharp Point May 25, 2014
Not all of Partia e Fortë's work was light. How 'Manual për Burra' used an absurdist voice to poke hard at gender roles in Kosovo.
- Taking Qysh Me Mobile: The First Albanian How-To App May 20, 2014
By 2014 most of our readers were on phones, so we built Qysh Me an app and billed it, half-jokingly, as the first Albanian how-to app.
- The Poster Campaign: My Own Face on the Billboard May 20, 2014
For 2014, Partia e Fortë turned its candidates into the ad. I was number 28, and my poster made a joke at my own expense.
- Candidate Number 10: Standing for Partia e Fortë in 2014 May 16, 2014
In May 2014 Partia e Fortë registered 64 candidates for parliament and I was number ten. On putting your real name behind the joke.
- Designing Qysh Me for Phones First January 28, 2014
Long before mobile-first was standard, most of Qysh Me's readers were on phones. How the small screen made the whole product better.
- When the World Noticed Partia e Fortë January 22, 2014
A satirical party from a small Balkan country ended up in the international press. On watching a local joke become a story told abroad.
- Why a Joke Party Was Serious Civic Work December 10, 2013
Partia e Fortë was funny on purpose but never only a joke. On what it meant that young Kosovars found their political voice through satire.
- From Likes to Votes: The 2013 Local Elections November 5, 2013
An online following is not the same as a result. How Partia e Fortë turned an internet audience into an actual seat in the Pristina municipal assembly.
- Baklava, Millionaires, and the Art of the Satirical Spot October 30, 2013
Partia e Fortë did not just post, it produced: campaign songs, absurd video spots, a plate of baklava as a political broadcast.
- 'Do të bëhem milioner': The Song That Became Our Anthem October 28, 2013
In October 2013 Partia e Fortë launched a campaign song, 'I Will Become a Millionaire.' I helped present it, and it still holds up.
- Measuring What Mattered on Partia e Fortë's Channels October 15, 2013
Vanity metrics are a trap, and a satirical party is easy to fool with them. How I decided what was worth measuring when the goal was impact.
- Doscus About the Gray Area with Peter Sunde October 3, 2013
Mentoring at Startup Grind Prishtina, where a co-founder of The Pirate Bay presented and we spent the evening arguing about sharing, distribution, and everything in between.
- Building the Digital Team Behind Partia e Fortë September 24, 2013
A satirical party with no budget cannot buy reach. It has to be built by volunteers who find the work fun. On organizing the people who made the campaign run.
- The Youngest List in Prishtina Was the Argument September 4, 2013
For the 2013 Pristina assembly election, Partia e Fortë fielded the city's youngest candidate list, average age 25.9. That was the point.
- Design as a Weapon: The Look of Partia e Fortë August 13, 2013
The satire lived in the writing but traveled on the design. On Trembelat's identity and why a joke party had to look more serious than real ones.
- Timing the Jokes: Reacting to Kosovo's Politics in Real Time July 2, 2013
The difference between a satirical page that grows and one that dies is timing. How I ran Partia e Fortë's channels as a real-time operation.
- Building a Writer Community Around Qysh Me June 11, 2013
Qysh Me could not scale on two people alone. How we brought in contributors, kept quality high, and turned readers into writers.
- We Always Promise: Turning a Slogan Into a Movement May 7, 2013
Every campaign wants a slogan that sticks. Ours worked because it was also an accusation. A look at how 'We always promise' carried Partia e Fortë.
- The Voice: Writing Satire People Actually Shared March 19, 2013
The hardest part of running social for Partia e Fortë was keeping a voice so consistent people knew a line was ours before they saw the name.
- Why We Built Partia e Fortë on Facebook First February 11, 2013
Before we had an office, a recognizable logo, or a single vote, we had a Facebook page. Why the platform choice was the strategy.
- Burrat me Musteqe: A Moustache March for the Centenary November 26, 2012
A 2012 poster calling Prishtina to a moustache walk two days before Albania's independence centenary, and why the print run mattered.
- How We Started Partia e Fortë November 20, 2012
In November 2012 a group of us in Pristina started a party that promised everything and meant none of it. This is how it began.
- SEO in a Language Google Barely Knew November 20, 2012
SEO for Qysh Me meant ranking in Albanian, a language with almost no digital content at the time. Why that emptiness was an advantage.
- Qysh Me Gatu: When the Recipes Became Their Own Thing August 25, 2012
How Qysh Me's cooking section grew into a vertical with its own identity, its own audience, and the first ads we ever sold.
- Our Content Engine: How We Planned Qysh Me's Articles May 16, 2012
The editorial system behind Qysh Me. How real questions people were already asking became a repeatable how-to content engine.
- 54 Hours to Elexoj: Winning the First Startup Weekend Prishtina April 23, 2012
We built an Albanian audiobook platform over a weekend and won. What actually decided it was not the product, it was the letters we got signed.
- The Numbers Behind Qysh Me, One Month in 2011 November 5, 2011
A single month of Google Analytics from Qysh Me's early days: 44,111 visits, 163,950 pageviews, and a traffic mix that quietly explained the whole business.
- Making WordPress Fast on Kosovo's Internet October 8, 2011
How we optimized Qysh Me's WordPress site for slow connections and cheap phones, and why performance doubled as an SEO strategy.
- Why We Built Qysh Me on WordPress April 12, 2011
Why a two-person team building Albania's first how-to portal chose WordPress over a custom build, and what that choice let us do.