Not sure if I've had exactly 5 different iterations of this website, but it sounds about right. I started this site back in 2008 as a sort of experiment. I was originally interested in a few things:
Would anyone watch my videos? - A resounding yes, to that one. As of writing this, my most watched video has over 938,000 views. I'm not going to be invited to VidCon anytime soon, but 10 years ago I wasn't sure if anyone would care about these videos.
Could I use my videos to help people learn informally? - A big yes, to that one as well. I've gotten so many positive comments, email, and other feedback over the years. I've also gotten a fair amount of criticisms too - such is YouTube. So I think I have enough feedback now, and I'll be turning off comments on YouTube and also on this new version of the site. I'll be doing some stuff on Instagram, so if you have comments, or want to get in touch, try that.
Could I make money from my videos? A yes to this final question. I won't go into specifics, but I do make a little money from these videos. At the moment, I make just enough to pay for the web hosting and a few other expenses related to the website. At its peak, the site paid for some new hardware, but nowhere close to letting me quit my day job or anything like that. Making money was never a real goal, but a curiosity.
So why am I making a new version of this site when my last post was in 2013? In short, the site had some malicious code on it (i.e. it was hacked), and my web host dumped me. I didn't make a back up of the site so it was either - let the site fade away, or rebuild it. I had all of the pictures and videos on third party sites so I figured it would be a good project to rebuild it and see if I could revitalize it in some ways. I'm toying with remaking some of the videos or possibly making some other new content. At least with this site up and running I'll have some options.
I'll be using this blog area to talk about future intentions for this site and my videos as that becomes more clear. I'll also make some posts about different origami folds that might be seasonally relevant or otherwise timely.