facelift for sticks
tommyThe agreement with TampaGold.com goes into effect this weekend. There may be some glitches as we clean up a few things, but hopefully we will have them all worked out by Tuesday morning.
In the meantime, you may see some wacky changes on this homepage. Some of the changes are intentional (check out the new design by Brett and his Ten Million Monkeys), some will be unintentional, I am sure.
A quick thank you is in order for a bunch of people who have helped and are continuing to work behind the scenes. Lots of love to Brett mentioned above, as well as John, and the Tampagold team of Bill, Dale, and Sean.
Please be patient as we try to cross all the I’s and dot the T’s. But most importantly:
Please let me know if you see things that are not right, things that are good, things you don’t like - anything you want to tell us. I look forward to all your comments…
Tags: partners, redesign, tampa
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September 1st, 2006 at 6:51 pm
is my resolution set right. I have, from left to right, and inch of border, four inches of text, and then six inches of mostly ads.
September 1st, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Indeed, using fluid columns would improve things immensely.
September 1st, 2006 at 7:58 pm
More Cowbell!!
September 1st, 2006 at 10:14 pm
My refresh icon is spinning in Firefox for some reason - at least 10 minutes after loading the main site. Great look and feel though!
September 1st, 2006 at 10:47 pm
i agree with dp, page looks great, but the refresh is running FO EVA in firefox. plus the comments page is not sized correctly when it pops out. Otherwise, this KICKS ASS.
September 1st, 2006 at 11:35 pm
K, I had some time to look at it and this is what I see. Running Firefox at 1024×768 from left to right is two inches of border, six inches of content, three inches of ads, the poll, the features box and the flickr pics nearly in the middle of the screen, three inches of nothing but ads and then another inch of border.
I find it odd that I have to confine my attention to the left side of the screen.
If you scroll down to older posts the right side of the screen becomes blank as the ads and features end and you are left with nothing at all on that half of the monitor.
Can the borders simply be eliminated? give the extra few width inches to content so it dominates the screen for the entire length of the page? I feel like I am going to the Yoemans road site right now.
I think Boingboing is a good model for the type of group blog w/ad support that sof is trying to be here.
http://boingboing.net/
notice that the ads are more obnoxious but they still don’t distract from the content.
IMO only, it seems like I am in the minority here.
September 2nd, 2006 at 10:48 am
yeah, boingboing is part of the gawker network. they’ve done studies that show that their advertising is more effective on the left, because that’s where your eyes naturally go. i agree with jason though, i think restricting the content to that narrow a width doesn’t serve the site very well. although i don’t find the ads annoying at all.
September 2nd, 2006 at 11:06 am
Thank You All for your input as we go through the transition. Please provide us with more !!!! WE DO LISTEN.
September 3rd, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Love the new look, especially the header. The two right columns are neat and organized; I really can’t stand ads that distract from the text, but that isn’t the case here.
I wasn’t crazy about the size of the left and right orange (or apricot?) colored columns. any way to make them narrower?
I’m not a web page designer, just my first impressions. Over all, I like it alot. Great job!
September 3rd, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Just got done digesting the new design..
This Eyetrack study is from a few years ago, but I still find it very useful:
http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/index.htm
Helpful for homepage design- how readers actually digest the content, ads, where their eyes go first on the page etc.
I am all for making the new format more conducive to ads/sponsorship opportunities, but this feels a little “top heavy” on the right hand side. I think you’d get better click thrus with taking the blue or green column and running it down the far left hand side (since folks read/scan left to right on pages) with the content anchored more in the middle.
I am probably in the minority, but I’m not crazy about the orange (apricot) borders either. Eliminate those on both sides and broaden the white content column to help offset the blue/green right side dimensions.
Just my 2 cents. Overall, I think the new site is really sharp looking!
matt
September 3rd, 2006 at 5:45 pm
I do like the colors, much easier on the eyes than stark white which is also something I lied about the old design. It just feels so lopsided, especially when you scroll down a bit.