KriT: How would you describe the aim of K10k and how did it all begin?

K10k: The earliest emails I have about K10k date back to somewhere around August 98 - i think token & I had spoken about the project earlier than that, but it was during that period we started doing serious work on the project, getting the idea sorted out, the first few design sketches were created, etc.

Our main reason for doing K10k in the first place was because there weren't any sites like it out there - there were places like DigitalThread, which featured new sites on a monthly basis, and SHIFT, the godfather of webdesign, but they didn't really have that fresh community flavor we were looking for. So we spent a long time looking for a site that was completely design-driven, with regular news updates, based around some sort of scheduled issue/experiment concept - but as we couldn't find any, we just thought, hey, let's do one ourselves. Which we did - and K10k was launched in the beginning of 99.

One of the cornerstones or aims of K10k is, and always has been, that it's a site that we ourselves like to visit - it fulfills *our* needs for design news, design inspiration, design goodies. And the moment it stops doing that, we'll close the site down. We're very happy that a lot of other people like the site, and visit it on a daily basis, but ... the most important thing to us is that we love the site ourselves.

KriT: Some time ago the server of your hosting company crashed & the viewers were suddenly unable to access your site. Please tell us what has happened ...

K10k: Jesus, that was a totally fucked-up sitution. It turned out that our old hosting company was constricting the bandwidth of the K10k.net site without telling us about it (they only allowed about 20% of our users on to the site at any given time, and also slowed the site down on purpose). When we then switched to our new hosting company, as part of our relaunch of the site, the traffic went through the roof, because this company did not monitor nor try to constrict the traffic This actually caused a large number of their servers to fail, so not only was K10k.net put out of business immediately, but a number of their other customers suffered about 2 days of downtime as well :/

"We were told that we needed a dedicated server solution to handle the siteload - and until we got one, our site would be offline."

Being non-profit & all, there was no way we could afford the kind of money this system would cost - and for a while we actually thought that the only thing to do was close the site for good. Fortunately, after putting an ad on K10k, saying that we needed a sponsor for our hosting needs, the good people over at MediaTemple came to our rescue, and immediately helped us get the site back up & running. Thanks to them, K10k is now faster and better than it ever was before.

KriT: How did you become so popular? *envy* *gg*

K10k: Luck has played a major part in our success ­ we were at the right time, with the right project, that had the right kind of content. But, on the other hand, we also feel that we are a bit different than a lot of the other sites that we get compared with.

The idea behind K10k is extremely simple, because everything is built up around the weekly issue. K10k is basically just a graphic shell ­ a pretty face for these issues. So the idea is extremely tight ­ and very easy to understand. When users visit the K10k site they know what they are going to get ­ the issue. The fact that we also have daily-updated news, the [on] display exhibition, special features, etc. at the site is really just an added bonus ­ and are just layers added on top of the whole issue thing. This has been our intention all the way ­ and will continue to be in the future.

Another thing that has really helped the site, is that wešve had so many extremely talented people do issues for us ­ which is the cheapest form of advertising one can find on the net. I remember that, right after Joshua from Praystation did his issue, we saw a massive surge in both traffic at the site ­ and the number of people who were actually willing to do issues for us. It is kind of a nasty spiral ­ you need the big names to attract people, but the big names are usually too busy to do stuff for the really small sites.

KriT: Any ideas, if something different happens to K10k in future? How will you continue?

K10k: The day we get bored with the K10k site is the day we close it down. Our main goal with the site has always been to have a website that me & toke would want to visit every day ­ and we would rather just pull the plug, than feel the website deteriorating between our hands. Right now wešre just walking steadily along, taking one day at a time, but at the same time making sure that K10k is really all we want it to be. Therešs no point in doing it otherwise, right?

We're working on some major new projects - nothing I can talk about, unfortunately, as they're all very top-secret hush-hush, but we hope that we'll be able to launch a couple new sites in the big 2001. We love doing K10k - but we have a lot of different ideas, and not all of them can be incorporated into the K10k site.

KriT: You've got a newsletter, too. How many readers and what are you writing about?

K10k: I think we have about 25.000 people on our mailing list - but I don't know for sure. It's a weekly newsletter, that basically tells people about what's happening at K10k, describes the newest issue, informs them of our selected "Link of the Week" and is filled with the same kind of whimsical nonsense that we also do on the site. It's not a really serious newsletter - sometimes we write little stories, sometimes we sing sad songs of long-lost loved ones & such, sometimes we bitch, and whine, and moan - we'll write pretty much anything in there, actually :)

KriT: In your newsletter as on your website you write witty, sarcastic, cheeky texts. What makes a good text in the internet? Are there special attributes, which have to be complied in your opinion?

K10k: If a text is personal, written by someone who actually feels strongly about the subject, it's automatically a good text in my book. Take Jeffrey Zeldman zeldman.com, for instance - the things that he write on his website are always brilliant, always interesting, and that's because the topics of his writings are usually very personal, very intimate. When it comes to the things we write at K10k, they tend to display the fact that me & token are not that serious by nature - we like having fun, we like sex (we are Danish, after all), and we don't take ourselves too seriously.

I can't stand it when people use their writings to inflate their egos - a good text should always help emphasize the content, not how gifted the writer thinks he/she is.

KriT: More about you: How would you describe yourself in a few sentences? Some notes: affectations, job, visions and dreams, everyday life ...

K10k: My days are spent in front of a computer screen - either at the office, or at home. It sounds a bit sad, but that's the way it is when you have a fulltime job in the web industry + you run a site like K10k. Fortunately, my girlfriend, who's also a designer, is very understanding. I dream, like most of us, to be able to do what I love for a living, to play, to not be bound by clients or what other people say / want / think - it's probably not going to happen with K10k, as it's going to stay non-profit, but perhaps with some of our other projects this dream might come true someday...

KriT: Where do you work?

I work as a creative director at Adcore in London - a huuuuuge multi-national e-business consultancy. Token has a similar role at the London office of OVEN Digital - who are a bit smaller, but more creatively-focused.

KriT: At least - you've got some surftips for our readers which are an absolutely must for webdesigners or writers?

K10k: For writers I'd recommend zeldman.com, fray.org and jezebel.com - the people responsible for these sites are all brilliant storytellers, and pioneers within the art of personal publishing.

For designers there are the usual suspects - praystation.com, industries.de, netbabyworld.com, ndroid.com - even though there are hundreds of sites being opened to the public every day, i still find myself returning to these "old" favorites because they're just so damn well made.

KriT: Thank you for spending time on this interview, it's brilliant. Have a great christmas :)

K10k.net