I am now working with my programmers and designers on The Big Picture, version 3.0.
This is going to be a substantial reworking, with a lot of upgrades in terms of both content and functionality.
Before I start the serious design work, now is the time to ask you, the readers, for what else you might like to see happen in terms of those two design elements.
So – what’s on your wish list? What would like to see in terms of content? What options should be added to the site? What additional functions are you interested in?
No idea is too out there for this process.
The sky is the limit — I want to hear everything you would like to see happen with the Big Picture, including moving to its own domain, and perhaps going to WordPress.
~~~
Whay say ye ?
naked pictures of mr bernanke?……..
larger font size……….
Best advice I can offer is to NOT f*ck it up! Keep it simple. It’s all about the quality of content and our experience being fast & easy & so clean that there’s no friction whatsoever. Too many “upgrades” get stuck on trying to wow visitors with “design” rather than ease. Look at Google: one logo graphic and nothing else but text and look at their value!
Great blog,
Faster load,
Faster than springtime showers comes thought on thought.
– William Shakespeare
Would love the ability to “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” comments (similar to youtube), and then “collapse” comments that get too many thumbs down. This is a great feature for culling the pearls from the waste.
I have three brief comments:
1. Following your own path has taken you to where you are today; therefore, continuing in that path will do well for you going forward.
2. Your sense of humor, in my humble opinion, is one of your greatest strengths. How about a few new categories of posts, such as “Rant of the Week” or “Asshat of the Month?”
3. Hold on to your music posts, such as Friday Night Jazz.
Above all, thanks. I’m sure whatever you do will be strong, especially if you listen to yourself above everyone else…
“There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them.” ~ Plato, The Republic
i second the faster load time request
then – a “chat box” complete with scroll bar (for a quick read) – though you should apply careful consideration here, could be a bit risky given the trolls.
When it is done and they take you a test drive make sure you look for exceptions not taken away with the smooth ride and widgets.
The only question in your mind should be “would this invite meaningful comments that is helpful to me and to others?” (aka the famous “so what?” question)…
For example the launch manager goes:
– …and Barry you can see here we have enabled and leveraged user-friendly commenting environment through the utilization of 3rd-gen emoticon and superpoke environments. Cool, huh?
To be sure, I would publish couple of topics, add some comments (30 with some nesting) before going live and do a check. One of those topics should be very valuable and 2 comments in that topic should also be very valuable..Once all topics and comments entered, invite your friends to review it for 5 minutes. then shut down the screen and ask them what they remember. if all they remember is the widgets and graphics, tell your development team to go back to work.
Search function for your website.
Keep the light/white background with dark/black text. It’s clean and helps old farts like me read everyone’s snide comments with ease.
I sometimes look for follow up comments to the ones I have made and can’t find my original comment. Maybe there should be a way to register that would allow you to access comments you have made and follow replies to your comment but still show the comments consecutively….
I also endorse the faster upload request although that has not been a problem recently.
To summarize better interaction ability between commentators would be good. It is possible there is already a facility for this that I am not using …such as feeds…
Mac compatible. Videos are always a problem.
also, very slow load times when making comments
can you fix the format so it doesnt get all messed up when you run 1280/1024 and use big type.
dukeb says, “It’s all about the quality of content” and I wholeheartedly agree.
Guard the quality of the content and find ways to deliver more of it. That’s the way to get more clicks. I don’t care about the design, personally.
Interesting charts get me out of the RSS feed reader and onto the actual site…
-More white space
-Wider layout
-Larger font/font choice
-Images take excessive amounts of time to load.
-There are huge performance enhancements to be done:
–There is so much tracking and avertising technology on the page. There is a lot of wait time for doubleclick/google/typepad/quantserve/sitemeter. You don’t need that overhead and get overlapping services between all of them.
–Related: you have too many http requests (9 javascript and 26 css)
–Add an expires header (caching)
–gzip your components (3 aren’t)
–You DNS lookups are obscene. This is related to sub-bullet 1 (doubleclick etc al.) Bring them server side so you don’t have to wait for other people’s goo or dump them
–Google Anayltics appears to not be put in correctly. Not only is the Javascript not minified, it’s duplicated 4 times.
–Put in etags (caching again)
-You site is not accessible to the differently abled – at least have alt text for images.
-The CSS is lovely, but the HTML is very non-standard. Consider w3 standards
-You atom feeds need to be validated. They’re out of date.
List of recent comments. Ability to correct speeling errrors in comments after they post.
Barry,
No real complaints, great on all levels. I would prefer the comments to open in another window instead of on a new page, however.
keep the design simple, don’t go crazy with a thousand links, banners, ads, extras, etc.
and keep a focus on the content.
Faster loads
spellcheck or chance to edit post(I dont care about spelling, but there are some real anal people on this blog)
Even though I check this out 5-6 times a day. I have never explored past your post and the comment section. Keep it simple.
the spam verification is ridiculous, cant read it and sometimes even when correct word put in, it needs a re-try
Great blog, you cant beat the price! thanks
– It would be nice if you can have a spin-tracker of the bull-spewing managers, media pundits, Realtors, and CEOs (what they said 3 months ago and how they are spinning it now). It can be a great indicator.
– Weekly sentiment indicator.
– Economic Calendar for key domestic and international data releases.
Def. go to wordpress, if u want some ideas for layout, check out my new design:
http://timothysykes.com/destiny/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/tim_beta.jpg
Why Change it? The best thing about the Big Picture is that is is not like every other economic information blog.
Keep it simple, concise and truthful.
Best Rafferty
Hosting the site on a third party domain seems much like building a business with a month to month lease. You really need your own domain.
Barry,
Thank you for a great blog. Your time is too valuable to spend with programmers and designer. Please save your time and energy to help all of us make money.
TT
More Euro Dollar Porn,
oh! umn… Sometimes less is more. I was looking at a blog today, someone had, and it looked as cluttered as a newspaper, a newspaper I didn’t want to read.
Embedded music….
1. Wider width for widescreen monitors. If you look at the google analytics stats you will be able to find the most common monitors that view your page. However, you can set it up so that people who still have not migrated to over 17+ inch widescreens can still view the content without scrolling to the right.
2. Less crowded left and right margins. Seems too busy. I like the light and simple idea.
3. More videos of you sticking it to Kudlow and crackheads (sorry company).
Barry would you look @the FRB h.3 #s and explain it ? Thanks http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h3/Current/
Yeah, I would definitely go to WordPress.
Barry-
Great work on TV and the blog.
You might consider the concept of Live Blogging. This would let you get participation from those of us who read your blogs, in real-time. You could also live-blog-interview with other folks you think are worthwhile (i.e. a blog version of what happens with you on CNBC). This would also let us throw in a few questions too. You can record the live blog and people can can watch it later.
Here is an example: http://www.tuaw.com/tag/Live+Chat/
Good luck with the redesign.
-Josh
There’s a lot of smart people on this site, I think a discussion board might be a nice thing. Where music, economics and finance can mix and mingle. And I can figure out what I can do with my money.
I’d cut your blog-roll by 1/2 or organize it better, the guys you read every day, once a week, etc…
Currently it’s so cartoony and pastel. Let’s have the design hold some credibility..
keep it clean.. like: http://gigaom.com/category/web/
I like the current look. I think it’s one of the most pleasant layouts there is and that’s one of the strongest points.
Do a Google search and then do a Yahoo and and MSN search. NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UGLY AND PLEASING and make a mental note of what that means to the bottom line.
Look at Huffington Post and take some cues from them. Look at Minyanville too. I don’t like the cartoons but the overall look is pleasing. An email to either of them might get you a recommendation on a platform to use.
Realmoney is an example of the ugly and annoying and what to avoid.
The big buttons at the top of your page are wasted space. I doubt very many people ever click on them. Replace them with tabs.
Move to your own domain for sure. That’s easy and cheap and there are plenty of blog platforms out there. Your developer can recommend one. Use a platoform your develper knows or choose a developer that knows the platform you want.
I can get you the name of some guys from San Diego if you’re interested who know a very powerful popular platform used by lots of newspapers including San Diego Union. Send me an email if you want their names.
Importing the archives might take a little work. An alternative to that is just keep the old site active and link to it for archives.
GOOD LUCK
oh… let people edit their comments for spell checking etc. and possibly delete duplicates. when you enter the spam code wrong, that seems to result in duplicates sometimes. you could maybe keep the comment open for editing for a limited time.
Instead of only having content on the middle 1/3, please try to include all the books/CD’s/links as options to be expanded/shrunk as desired. Your musical taste is unique and irreplaceable.. but sweet jesus it’s annoying to have to hit the down button 3x as much because the left and right sides of the screen are taken up with things I just won’t look at until I’m good and ready.
Great blog.
Favorite content themes
1. Media/Tech
2. Macro Economic
3. Markets commentary
Strengths: Relevance of subject matter in posts and interactive comments and contributors.
Negative: Useful subject matter posted just a day or so earlier is easily lost as newer information is published. Navigation to previous posts could be easier. List of past posts is somewhat “cluttered”.
Suggestions:
1. Except for the title, general page layout for me works. Easy to navigate, intuitive, good colour scheme. Layout and colour of title looks “dated”.
2. I question the relevance of the subject tabs at the top of the page to the left of the title…. been eons since ever accessed them, wonder if anyone else does too. In my books, if people don’t use them, lose them.
3. widen the center frame of the page where content goes to reduce the length.
4. Do NOT change how the comments work except to auto-insert a serial ID number with the comment so participants in their replies to particular comments can reference a comment #, clarifying linkage.
5. Blow away favorite posts 2003 and 2004.
6. Numerical rating (1-5) of comments could be helpful-good reader feedback.
7. Include a measure of reader feedback of relevance or usefulness of the topic you post. Mish’s site has this type of feature and most find it quite useful (except when everyone just gives top marks regardless…)
8. Alluded to earlier by someone else, simplicity is key. Too many try to clutter up with junk jewelery.
9. Shorten the blogroll and re-group highlighted books and music under separate tabs/link to make home page less cluttered.
Your page loading is slow and slows up firefox browser on other tabs as well — noticeably worse than any other site i frequent. Basically, it eats up my processor capacity for some reason.
YES, YES move to WordPress v2.5, which just came out and get your own domain.
re: load speed. I’m on safari and it loads just fine. v 3.1
I agree about accessibility–there’s no reason not to have at least minimal accessibility for the vision-impaired (ALT tags, etc. Any good designer will know).
Also–you might think about having an intern proofread for you a few times a day. The occasional its/it’s error is part of the charm of blogging, but as you get quoted more and more often in the MSM, it turns into a toilet-paper-on-the-shoe thing.
Barry,
Thanks for all the time/effort you pour into TBP. It’s really become a wonderful online resource/watering hole for financial info.
One possible new feature for TBP: As a trader, I think it might be interesting to see some sort of community input on trading positions, long-term portfolios, or watch lists. I’m not sure how exactly it would function or even if the community would participate to make it worth your while, but the general level of top-down knowledge among your posters is (a few wingnuts not withstanding) pretty good.
Then again, perhaps you don’t want to turn your personal online backyard into Stockpickr. Yeah, nix that idea.
Best of luck with the upgrade!
I agree with the posters who say why redesign. When I think of a well done blog, I think of this blog. I also think of slashdot – they have a better commenting mechanism. However, you don’t get nearly as many posts as they do so it’s probably not necessary (yet).
I don’t really experience any significant speed issues, but speed is more important than fancy features. I like the size of the font. Please don’t spawn any external windows from your blog.
Perhaps it would be cool if you started doing a podcast, but it seems you’re already too busy.
1. Please auto spell-check your text before you post it. I’ve noticed quite a few typos lately, probably due to rushing to post; we all know you are one busy beaver. You should be able to customize the spell-check dictionary with financial terms that you use a lot.
2. Organize the non-financial stuff (music, food, etc.) so that it is less visible/prominent. Most of us are here to soak up your financial wisdom.
3. I agree with other comments that you should try to “rate” other prominent financial commentators, particularly the worse offenders (as you do the NAR and Ben Stein).
4. I’m not sure that you are often wrong in your posts, but if it happens, let us know why you got it wrong.
5. I’d like you to take on a long-term series on economic models (detailed economic models run on computers), who uses which model, how the major ones differ, how they are used in the real markets, what are their flaws and omissions, which ones you think are deadly wrong, and which ones if any, you trust.
Keep up the great work.
Yeah, what he said.
Choose a dark layout.
Thanks. ;)
You could make it a bit easier to navigate the site by adding links to older (or newer) posts at the bottom of the main blog pages and individual blog posts for those of us catching up by reading through in reverse chronological order.
Also, you dipped your toe into the water recently, why not take a bigger plunge and add more unique tools? The nice thing about them is that they can really capture the focus of someone using them to solve a particular problem or answer a question that they have. The trick though, is to do them right, which is a lot tougher to pull off than you might think.
Too much wasted space on screen with those purple sidebars. My main issue is that just when a good thread of comments develops, a new blog entry can appear and everybody drops the great discussion like a hot potato to jump on the new entry (which may be a funny cartoon). So how do we solve this? Maybe have two or three columns of threads at a time so the great threads stay alive longer. I assume Barry reads most of the comments, so since it is his blog, he could peg a thread as being really good and make it sticky in one of the columns until it runs its course. Maybe cartoons can have their own area, aside from financial commentary. Also should have the ability to rate comments and have threaded replies. Need better way to search past comments.
one more thing…some of us have figured out how to add URL links within comments…should be made easier for all.
Dear Barry,
Yes, go to WordPress, and control your own domain. Build your own brand. Tactical advice: wait for WP 2.5.1 to come out in 2-3 weeks. I avoid upgrading on the initial new version x.y, and wait for x.y.1 to come out, which is usually more stable. Let the bleeding edge do the testing. I will upgrade to WP 2.5.1 when it becomes available.
As for a redesign, I don’t think you need one. (That said, if you do change, simplicity is preferred over complexity.) Your site is distinct, and delivers quality commentary that attracts people. We as bloggers get tired of our design long before our readers do. Look for incremental improvements. There are many good ones in the comments already.
So, keep up the good work. You are breaking a trail for the rest of us lesser bloggers.
David
Think it’s pretty great as is.
To echo the above, maybe a “What we got right” (Bullseye!), “What we got less right” (and why). Maybe have these tabbed.
Comments in a separate box is okay by me. By and large, I don’t think you have to reinvent it.
Barry I would read your blog if it was scrawled on a piece of paper in doctor’s handwriting. Be yourself: voluminous quality content.
Add a ‘what stock should I long/short today’ button.
1) Archives posts with pull-down. See naked capitalism for the format. Very handy.
2) “Recommend this post” feature
3) Have the image with letters to type in within the same page where we write comments pleeeeeease. Why should we have to load a different page, type the chars, THEN get is posted on a 3rd one?
Otherwise, me very happy with what you got done so far. Excellent blog.
Barry,
1) Make it easier to browse the previous posts in a chronological fashion. Many years from now people may wonder how the bankers effed up so bad, and they will be able to read the site like a book and watch the entire debacle play out.
2) Have reader polls every so often where we can make or vote on predictions.
Maybe…
-more charts, comparison charts
-YTD on anything you can think of
-have a poll every-so-often
Just use KISS. (Keep It Simply Sophisticated) Really I like it just the way it is.
Create segmented RSS feeds based on tags or topics. For instance, a dedicated RSS feed for the linkfests would be awesome.
Love the blog, and I usually read it through an XML aggregator (bloglines.) For some reason, the lines don’t wrap on the feed. Otherwise, I love the content and love the simplicity and readability of the design, so please don’t change it. And please keep being the voice of reason on CNBC!
Multiple RSS feeds based on tags or topics. For instance, a dedicated RSS feed for the linkfests would be awesome.
Much less clutter in both margins. Focus the site on the content that we keep coming back to see. Most blog software encourages clutter and I think that’s bad design.
Also, I was thinking maybe adding a forum would be useful. Sometimes the signal-to-noise ratio is a little low in some blog comment threads, but a forum, once it becomes successful (which could happen by mentioning it now and then, with possible topics, and highlights from the best postings) could get the most intelligent investors to stick around and go off on their own discussions and start their own threads.
People often want to bring up their own topics, and the comments on various blog entries are really not the place for it…
Steve Barry (and I’m sure others) have alluded to the forum idea with “[you] could peg a thread as being really good and make it sticky in one of the columns until it runs its course.” This is exactly the job for forum software… let the hot topics stick around so people can run with them, rather than them falling by the wayside when a new blog entry is posted.
Post most stuff from the real insiders like this:
Michael Greenberger Our Confusing Economy – Explained (Audio)
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=4&islist=true&id=13&d=04-03-2008
*Own Domain
*Wordpress
*A better comments system, possibly threaded with comment ranking.
* Rss feeds from your top sources, see Calculated Risk’s right column
* Stock charts, even if they’re simple
* Updated blogroll with links to Shadow Government Statistics
*Top posts of all time (SilentPCReview.com has a good example)
* Tag your posts, allowed in WordPress, makes searching easier
* Fix captchas, they should be on the same page as the post.
Barry:
My 22 year old turtle, Big, now believes he has an entire blog devoted to his random thoughts on the capital markets. Big suggests you keep that up. He likes the Friday night music essays, as do I.
Brutally honest? Don’t change your site. It is why you get traffic.
Don’t be the New Coke.
Leave it be.
You are a breath of fresh air.
Cheers.
I know this is cowardly, but NO INDEX TICKERS please. Sometimes I’m bummed when there is a rally (I hold several short-ish positions) and I’d rather not know about it until the next day.
We love your writing but there’s often very valuable stuff in the comments. Make it more useful by enabling rating of comments (like Trigby said: thumbs up/down or Slashdot style + filtering of comments by this thumbs criteria).
Also, OpenID login. Think about coercing people a bit more to ID themselves to build a stronger community, make people more accountable.
Great site! Already looks good on my desktops and laptop.
* It would be SO COOL if I could read it using my new-model Blackberry and/or Palm!
I find myself at idle times wanting great content for my mobile, and Big Picture certainly foots the bill. But the layouts make it unreadable on my BB 8820 (and I imagine most mobile devices).
Keep up the great work!
As the above commenter said, keep it simple, focus on analysis and text, should be easy to read and follow. The semantic web (2.0) is social, what about a chatterbox, for realtime comments during special events i.e selected time. Your videos and media coverage should get their own section?
Reuters Calais looks interesting by the way.
Regards,
Sweden
Hi Barry,
1. as I have checked the comments for “load” I want to second that as well. Maybe you can only keep the 10 newest articles on the main page.
2. try to offer some kind of mobile version, which does also not have to load the whole page.
3. please use more links in new windows (internal and external links), e.g. articles, pictures and so on. When I click on a picture an get back the mainpage afterwards, the page gets a complete reload, which is often annoying. (I often shift-click the images therefore.)
Best regards from one of you true German readers.
Alex
Search function by topic, each post tagged by keywords that can be used to search.
I often read articles and want to go back digging through similar old posts to look for trends, old graphs that are pertinent, etc.
Solution #1: Misch does a good job of cross linking his old commentary (and you could have an intern do most of the work of adding relevant links).
Solution #2: Aggressive tagging plugged into search. Also allow delicious style browsing through cooccurance tags. For example, suppose you wrote an article about Option ARMs exploding. I wanted to look up the old article with the great charts from the Credit Suisse report from waaaay back. If you tagged the old post with “housing”, “ARM”, “charts” it would be pretty easy for me to scan through all of the old documents related to ARMs that had important charts. Click, click, click. I find my chart, you get a bunch of page views. Everyone wins.
I own and operate a truck dealership in Detroit. I discovered your blog after seeing it referanced in a NY Times or WSJ article a couple weeks ago. I’ve become an addict. Its great! Thnaks for this tremendous resource for those of out in the areas of the country who have been feeling the downturn for some time and work every day to keep the economy going. This is a great resource for us!
A link on the blogroll? http://www.lemondequivient.typepad.fr/
I think for every comment a large number on the upper left would be nice perhaps with a time signature so one could easily go back to where one left off.
I like the idea of a chat/forum but I think access should be limited to those who meet YOUR approval. One would have to apply. Or have an outer circle and inner circle forum one totally public so that the trolls can have their day until they are banned and another where the people are committed to a certain level of decorum (with you as the ultimate judge of what that means. I don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling CDO about swear words but I despise personel rudeness.
Built in spell check. Please.
I think you must understand that the format for BP is working so don’t muck it up too much.
Hire a spellchecker.
:-)
PRINT FUNCTION, please? Pretty please?
I get my content via RSS. So other than a plea to make sure you keep RSS feeds, a site redesign is a non-event to me.
I currently read 90% of your content. If you lose the RSS feed, you can count on me reading less than 10% of your content. My terrible memory requires that I use RSS or otherwise, I forget to check a given site for news.
Don’t add so much to the top of the blog that I have to scroll down to begin to read the post.
It’s really annoying when blogs do that. (Example- Brad Delong’s Blog)
Focus on the content!
The current version takes up a lot of real estate for little information. My advise…compact is better.
Blackberry compatibility; Blackberry compatibility; Blackberry compatibility.
I am able to load linked individual posts but never the entire page.
Barry, your brilliant blog boggles my brain. Where do you find time to do all this great stuff?
Applause for the elegant layout; most apparent when I bounce around in the Blogroll and see what others are up to.
But I’ve never cared for the head design area and its inevitable collision with a major ad spot (and colours here are on the icky side.)
Also, would appreciate some periodic arresting eye candy on the borders of that stats porn; book covers, album covers, great, but how about some art?
Your typos go with being a busy guy but there are a lot of them.
Blog on, Barry!
No real problem or complaint, however…
Although I now spend $50/mo for high speed internet since AT&T can’t/won’t provide DSL for many people in rural areas, I still find that videos take up a lot of bandwidth and are hard to print out for later reference. Thus
I prefer old fashioned text even though it isn’t glitzy. (Leave the special effects to the movies.)
Also, I’ll miss Herb Greenberg’s blog.
I am slightly turned off by your profanity.
Maybe you might have a way to post comments that are not intended for rebroadcast which would cut down on the trolls. I, for one, do not feel that what I have to say is brilliant enough for public dissemination.
Keep doing what you’re doing by continuing to decode the Fed bafflegab.
Good variety in content — no complaints.
I agree with Toady – Mobility capability, esp on Blackberry.
I second (third? fourth?) the requests for search and tagging implementation.
Barry, Your content is always solid, but sometimes intermittent. This is a site I return to daily for perspective on the markets.
As for the site design, I would revisit the home page sidebars. in general you should cut some of the least important items. A technical bug; there is an ad or sidebar item that cause safari on mac to get stuck while loading your site. Everything loads but something doesn’t finish.
I would scratch the whole premium content strata. I don’t think this model is appropriate but for the oldest publishing institutions.
I would think of your site as a personal magazine, design accordingly. I am working on this kind of thing on my own site, http://www.mmsullivan.com. Please feel free to email me with any questions regarding design.
Looking forward to the new site and thanks for doing this.
Move the recommended books and music to a separate “recommended books and music” page. Use thumbnails of the graphics with links to separate pages. That gets the kilobytes of the main page down, way, way down.
Get rid of the low-security active code, Java, “X” and the like. Users with security-controlled systems just HATE all of the security violation dialog boxes popping up on sites. The navigational conveniences of active codes is way, way oversold.
That said, the core content here is quite good.
I’ve said it before here, but I’ll say it again for the record. Content is king of course, but, readability is a close second for me. Iacono’s blog is still my favorite for readability, especially cool is the “read more” feature does not require a click back to read the next entry.
A number of commenters have said that TBP takes to long to load, but I’ve never had that problem, so I’m not sure how real it is — maybe they’re still on dial-up? In any case you might consider a mirrored text-only version of the site for those with this problem.
Other than that, just remember the KISS system and you’ll do fine.
Keep it simple. Faster load. Go to your own domain.
BLACKBERRY COMPATIBILITY FOR COMMENTS!!!
Maybe I’m just inept, but I have never been able to get a comment in via my bberry. I travel all day, so I get left out of the conversation until I get home, which is usually well after MS and cinefoz go to sleep.
SUGGESTION FOR UPGRADE: At the top of their front page(s) WSJ, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, etc. have quotes for S&P, Dow Ind, 10 yr. Treasury, Nikkie, etc. Could THE BIG PICTURE have more obscure quotes, from what’s in that day’s news…GOLD, CRUDE OIL, COPPER, RICE, M3(est.), SHIPPING RATES, AVERAGE (U.S)HOME PRICE, TV AD RATES (Fall ’08)…Quick pops, maybe with link(s) to more info/chart?
I noticed that I can never let the site fully load, the progress thingy just spins to no end.
I may be at fault running linux and mozilla, but I imagine it could be all the embedded adbots.
Nevertheless, BP ~content~ loads with all its goodness.
ROFL Barry, you had to ask!
An out there suggestion, but I’m not even sure it’s a good idea
Create a spin off sister web site for the jazz and music stuff. Would keep main site more focused and some experts say additional heavy linked web sites are good things. (not that you need the extra ranking and hits, however)
Would like a moderated Bullentin Board, sometimes I’ve got stuff that isnt’ relevant to whatever is top 5 posts of the blog.
Optional log in, can be nice, especially if I can better track all my posts and the responses to that post.
Which reminds me… What about the option to have future comments on a particular post forwarded to my email account. I’d really like that. This site http://www.reclinergm.com and many others offer that feature.
A “Where’s Barry” button that brings us to a calendar with upcoming TV, Radio interviews and calendar could also be backward filled in as well with links to past interviews, podcasts, and newspaper, etc interviews.
The email text lines do not wordwrap properly in Outlook. I’m always scrolling right and left to catch the end of one sentence and the start of the next.
Barry,
Thank you for your blog! And thanks for asking for input on your redesign.
Content is paramount, everything else is secondary.
This may be impossible to do, but some sort of credibility measure on the comments might be helpful. Would comment ratings work? How about requiring registration for the privilege of commenting, especially if one’s age is automatically listed with the comment (granted, some 22 year olds can provide good input and many 47 year olds need glass navels to see where they are walking, but age could hint at experience and credibility).
Best of luck to you!