I’ve been playing with the prototype for the redesign for the Big Picture — and I have to say, it totally kicks ass!
The entire site is much better organized and a lot more functional. Its a very clean, somewhat minimalist design — a little bit of flash on the home page, but other than that, all of the noisy distractions of the current design have been minimized. It is more professional looking, less candy colored.
The load times are enormously better, and the navigation is vastly improved. I took many of your prior suggestions and incorporated them into the new design.
A short list of Upgrades to the blog include:
-Moved to its own URL;
-New software is WordPress based;
–"Print This Page" function is on a clean white background (excellent design).
-2 column layout is much less busy;
-Larger size (730 main column, 300 right sidebar) uses more of your dual 20 inch monitor real estate;
-"Email This" is now an internal function
-All video has been moved to their own tab and off of the home page;
-Full support for De.li.cious, DIgg, Technorati, Reddit, Newsvine, Stumble Upon
-Non-Economic/Market content moved to separate tabs;
– Post Author Date and Time published at top of post;
-Related professional work stuff — Managed Assets, Institutional Research, Quantitative Software — have their own navigation bar and are more easily found.
-Print function automatically creates all URLS and sources into end notes (a waaay cool feature)
Any other requests . . . ?
Bravo on the move to WordPress and your own Domain. You need to go talk to Tanta and get CR off blogspot.
A most popular/read posts for the last week and month would be handy on the right hand side.
The only two WordPress anti spam tools worth a damn are Akismet and WP-SpamFree. Using both in combination wiped out all of my spam problems (and I had a lot).
It would also be interesting if you eventually had something like Digg for finance/econ. Reddit also has a good business page…
http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/
http://www.reddit.com/r/business/
http://digg.com/business_finance
You might also want your intern to submit your posts to those pages if you want more traffic.
If your intern is buying the server tell them to get a good Solid State Drive RAID array. Way better bang for buck than most other components in this day and age.
Please make your blog available on the kindle.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/html-forms-controller/Digital_Periodicals_Sign-up
thanks
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BR: Will do!
Is there anyway to make the blog load quicker via Blackberry?
a regular guy like me would like TBP to remember my last post read in each thread
Canopus video equipment site had this feature for signed up posters (Grass Valley now)
http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/forum/
“730 main column”
Beware : long lines are a readability blooper!
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BR: Its 30 pixels wider than is typical, and frees up a lot of room for more chart and photo stuff.
how does it look on an iphone? Don’t forget about us. I read on the go downloading before I get on the subway. You want to make the main reading page narrower for mobiles.
Barry-
Just wanted to say your approach to building your business has been unique and refreshing. I’m familiar w/ the trepidation in allowing others to scrutinize your “work-in-progress”, and so for your courage, I happily congratulate you.
It’s been a real treat to watch “The Big Picture” and FusionIQ develop in such an open and candid way. I might add it really enhances your credibility and (somewhat counter-intuitively) professionalism.
With that, I continue to enjoy your work and wish you all the best.
Make sure you don’t break old links!
Please make sure it works on Macs using Safari.
I sent something from the Wish List (2007) but I’d rather just send cash. On another site [The Carpetbagger Report] thru AMAZON they have the option of cash donations…A few times I have bailed-out of making donations here because of all the (granted interesting) choices.
Ditto on the Mac/Safari compatibility
Ditto on the Blackberry readability and loading!
And, of course, please make sure it works on Windows! You don’t want to shut out 90% of computer users :)
You really know how to bait the hook – do you have an official launch date for the new design?
Oh, and OpenID support would be nice for your tech savvy readers. There is a WordPress plugin for that as well.
Updated my LimeRock post by the way BR.
I read your blog on my iPhone most of the time.
It’s easy to read because it’s relatively narrow. You said you were going to expand the text field. Maybe you could have an extra mobile friendly page.
I recommend you write something next to the books you recommend on Amazon that this blog gets a few cents for everyone bought.
I think many people genuinely appreciate this service you provide to them and would like to get you back in some way. I know I do.
Or maybe you could skip amazon and start selling those intelligent books yourself… and add your critique of each one.
I think it could be useful to reserve a place for a poll, e.g. a sentiment poll. It would be interesting to see the relation between the markets and the sentiment of TBP-readers :-).
Barry,
Appreciate this site and all you do. Please though be sure the new site is Blackberry friendly. Not sure how to do this but certain sites recently have succeeded. Try loading the NY Post now on your Blackberry. It is obvious someone did something to recognize when a Blackberry is calling down the content and size/arrange/color it appropriately.
Thanks.
A giant flashing banner ad across the top that links to http://cnbcsucks.wordpress.com
Just kidding. I found your switch to 2-column layout interesting. I thought the busier you make a blog look, the better ;)
Printing: Make sure the links on the sides of the site dont show up when you go to print.
I print to PDF from your site and its 1.5MB!!!!
Talk to Mish Shedlock. Printing on his redesigned site is great.
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BR: The new print function is awesome!
Check this post: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/07/ecris-leading-i.html
And the print version:
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/files/ecris-leading-i.pdf
I appreciate any move to a clean less busy design. WordPress is best bloggins software in my opinion.
One suggestion: an ’email me’ function that works. Mine are always bounced back as undelivered.
I’ve never been able to get the email me button to work on your site. Occasionally, I come across something unrelated to your specific postings that I think you would enjoy. For example, look at the description on the Fannie/Freddie situation on the Iowahawk blog
I still have problems with commenting. The remember personal info button doesn’t seem to work for me.
Fortunately autofill takes care of the Name and email for me, but I have to cut and paste the URL every time
I would really like to see the sentances left justified instead of every line starting at a different indent. This is really hard to read.
A couple of suggestions:
1. change of font(nytimes has the most easily readable font)
2. support for tags
3. Link to next and prev posts below current post, in addition to being on top.
Maybe a bulletin board, a la Prudent Bear (disclaimer: I lurk there). I’ve not heard anything specific, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility for the change in mgt to result in unwelcome changes (perhaps discontinued existence) to the Prubear chatboard.
The populace there is a vibrant, generally rational bunch that would probably feel right at home at BP, were a den provided for them.
FYI – stay up on the patches.. WordPress is FULL of security holes. :-/
Barry-
Assuming this is the redesign: http://thebigpicture.dev.wilder.ca/blog – I love it but for the fact that those two bard of images at the top take up a lot of my screen space. I’d cut it down to one, especially as they seem to only be there for looks and don’t link to anywhere.
a category for cartoons!! all the funny stuff you find, we should be able to just flip through and laugh. or cry.
How about a WAP version of the site for mobile devices, like mobile2.wsj.com?
They use mdog.com mobile portal
open new window when linking to other material so that your webpage doesn’t have to reload each time one has finished reading the link and wants to return to TBP, just close new window.