Big Picture Redesign, part III
The third and final installment of our redesign saga, for those of you who find this stuff remotely interesting. Tonight, we look at final design, the goals behind the changes, and how the content is being re-organized.
There were a bunch of things I wanted to accomplish with the new site:
Clean Design: I wanted to make the site less busy, less colorful, and more content focused. A bit more professional. I think we accomplished that, with lots of white space, wider columns for bigger charts, and cleaner fonts.
Word Press: That's right, I made the big leap to Word Press. All the geeks insisted it had to be WP. There are all sorts of cool things you can do with plug ins, and we are going to make the site hum. I am open to any and all suggestions as to how to customize the many things WP can do.
Guest authors: I know all of these brilliant fund managers, great journalists, unique traders, and clever analysts -- none of whom have an outlet for their less formal work. They cannot be bothered running their own blogs. Hence, the Big Picture Cafe -- an instant platform for these voices. I already have a killer line up of guests, too. Lots of things I am not getting to -- more coverage of the financial media itself, various money management firms, people and personalities. And if this stuff doesn't interest you, well then, don't click that tab.
Book and Video Tabs: Some people don't want to bother with the video or book reviews. Well, now they are all in one locations. All of the videos, and all of the book discussions, each get their own area. Its fluid, but I may even set up a book discussion forum via some software (I hear Beast is pretty good).
Job Listings: I get quite a few resumes per week, none of which I can use. We went to JobThread to set up a financial/market/economics job board for us. Looking to hire someone? Looking for a job? You've come to the right place.
Advertising: I wanted to make the site more advertising friendly -- the main column is 710 wide, perfect for those banner ads. The right column is 300 wide, for the 250 X 300. There is room at the end of each post for an occasional advert.Traffic: I get a pathetic 1.2 page views per visitor (most sites get more). More of the content is going to be structure within the tabs, and less material will appear on the front page. Click people! Get used too it.
Monetize this: I haven't done much to let people use the blog to find our commercial services. Rather than beat people over the head with it, I kept it very subtle. You want to know about our Asset management? Click Nav bar button. Interested in our software tool? (click) Media looking for a quote? (click) Need to contact someone? (click) Want to advertise on the blog? (click).
The nice thing about actually monetizing the site is that I can plow alot more resources back into it: Hire a dedicated researcher, an intern, a person specifically working on X.
And the final design? Its after the jump. Launch is 6 am tomorrow . . .
The use of flash is only for the header -- these come in as snowy TV sets, which then focus:
(click for bigger graphic)
When they are done loading, they look like this (and they change eveyr 10 minutes or so):
(click for bigger graphic)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 | 07:30 PM | Permalink
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Excellent Mr. R. Your site is now as clean and cutting edge as your thinking. I look forwrd to more hours of BP pleasure on the new site.
Seriously, you have been an funky fount of edgy wisdom all year--a real antidote to Wall Street dreck-- and are much appreciated.
Posted by: Bob Markman | Oct 29, 2008 7:42:14 PM
If you are going to do the TV set thing on top with flash, please for the love of god please don't make it animated after it goes from snow to picture.
Also, for WordPress plugins, I'd like to encourage the OpenID plugin. If you haven't heard of OpenID, it lets people login with their Blogspot/LiveJournal/AOLInstantMessenger/Yahoo/WordpressWithOpenIDPlugin accounts. It provides better verification to other readers that the person is who they are claiming to be.
Posted by: josephcp | Oct 29, 2008 8:01:55 PM
Yep, Markman hit the Target, Content is the name of the Game.
With that, I'd rec'd that the other people sign their name to their works..
re: "The nice thing about actually monetizing the site is that I can plow alot more resources back into it: Hire a dedicated researcher, an intern, a person specifically working on X."--BR.
new site does look cool, though, just woderin' if you'll leave some of those screens snowy, on occasion, at least, as a 'shout out' to the 'Embargoed News' whose release times are always T+1..
Posted by: Mark E Hoffer | Oct 29, 2008 8:10:46 PM
Barry I would not suggest opening up a forum. We have one at stocktradingtogo.com and while they are great for chatting they are very tough to monetize and take a lot of time dedication to clean spam, manage, etc.
Must have plugins for Wordpress include All in One SEO Pack, Google XML Sitemaps, Related Posts, SHow Top Commentators, WP-PageNavi, amongst others.
If you need help with anything WordPress feel free to email me.
Also I would be careful with your flash header, might slow down refresh rates to a snail. Also think about looking at those boxes every time we view a page (which will hopefully be much more than 1.2 per visit!).
Posted by: Blain Reinkensmeyer | Oct 29, 2008 8:16:22 PM
Ad Astera Per Aspera.
Go for it.
Posted by: AGG | Oct 29, 2008 8:16:45 PM
Flash?!?!
Disappointed...
"If you are going to do the TV set thing on top with flash, please for the love of god please don't make it animated after it goes from snow to picture."
I agree.
I am not a big fan of ads that are unmutable in flash. Please only allow advertisers that behave. Pop-ups "click here to close," would make me sad.
This site is currently so neat, clean, informative and downright functional. I am hopeful that it remains so. I guess I will find out in the AM.
Posted by: Blackhalo | Oct 29, 2008 8:21:32 PM
..."I can plow alot more resources into it..."
You can indeed plow A LOT more resources into it. And you can hire a part-time copy editor...
(I gently rib. But if you're being read by hundreds of thousands, including media and high-level machers, you want your copy impeccable.)
Posted by: Jtil | Oct 29, 2008 8:21:45 PM
Great job! Will be camped out through the night with sleeping bag and cheetos awaiting the unveiling. First in line! Yay me! ~m
Posted by: Mikey W | Oct 29, 2008 8:22:10 PM
I love your thinking Barry, but I come here for your writing not to see the latest in flash wizardry (and yes, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a web designer). Note also that the actual content sits almost 3/4 of the way down on the front page. That's a lot of fluff!
Posted by: Scott Truitt | Oct 29, 2008 8:38:53 PM
Wow, that looks almost like Lotus Notes 95. I think your site is great, no matter how it looks. People come here for content. People come to my site for rants, stupid bra size polls, and some idiotic notion they will find a nude photo of Erin Burnett.
Now that I have paid the obligatory on-topic paragraph, I wanted to announce that I have decided to vote for Obama. I know I have been talking about being a registered Republican, but that half-hour commercial convinced me to vote early for Barack tomorrow. I am just glad he didn't mention that each American man, woman, child, and baby owes some foreign government or investor $8,500, based on US government debt alone.
Posted by: CNBC Sucks | Oct 29, 2008 8:39:20 PM
Very impressed; you're on the way to being the HuffPo of economic blogs. Very cool. I enjoy hanging out here more than anywhere, so to me you're doing it right.
Posted by: Dan | Oct 29, 2008 8:47:41 PM
"a person specifically working on X."
Technical infoporn, or Eliott Spitzer rumours?
Congrats for TBP's against-the-tide success-story!
Off-topic, but worth the click : a real cool disclosure/essay about internal banking practices from an analyst :
http://toxic-cafe.blogspot.com
Posted by: michange | Oct 29, 2008 8:49:40 PM
Nice design!
I'll never click on the ads, or support the commercial side of the new design (I don't now as it is), but the other features look great!
Barry, you can say and do more without risk of lawsuits without the ads. I'd rather have the Freedom and Liberty as a non-profit, but to each his own.
Congratulations!
--mf
Posted by: Monkeyfister | Oct 29, 2008 9:01:37 PM
Launch is 6 am tomorrow . . .
That's a little early for launch - how about I meet you here at 10:00 for braunch?
Posted by: Winston Munn | Oct 29, 2008 9:03:08 PM
Can't wait to see the new site! I've been a WordPress advocate for some time and run a bunch of sites with it. It's gone so far past being a blogging platform and is growing into a nice CMS setup for sites.
I agree OpenID is a nice idea (previous comment), but I found it was a major drag on site responsiveness and placed a big load on the database. This was back with v2 of the plugin. Haven't tried v3, so they may have improved it. And that's the key thing with plugins - beware what you install as some can significantly add to the load/responsiveness of the site. But one click and they are disabled - so easy to test. If you find your backend servers are straining during volatile market days/etc when traffic spikes, give WP Super Cache a look. If you find the TinyMCE editor doesn't have all the design features you want, there is a TinyMCE Advanced plugin which will let you add some cool editor buttons/features.
Good luck with the launch!
Posted by: Soccer Dad | Oct 29, 2008 9:13:23 PM
I'll reserve my judgment until I see the functionality. I think that's when the verdict from most of your people will come in and you'll know if you've done right from there. Ultimately, because this is a content site, there is really nothing to worry about going forward and because you are compounding your growth this can only be a speed bump at the very worst. The future is bright though, very bright.
A toast to the new era and the host
Posted by: DavidB | Oct 29, 2008 9:32:33 PM
Wow, looks like half the page is eaten up by the menus, tabs, ads, search bar etc. A little too busy, if you ask me! Will take a ton of time to load as well. Needs more work to clean up.
Posted by: Grumpy | Oct 29, 2008 9:40:55 PM
IMHO, the banner is too busy and has too much colour. I suggest that at leat the tabs be all grey instead of multi-coloured, which would reduce the clutter.
Posted by: philipat | Oct 29, 2008 9:51:10 PM
Interesting comments above from many folks like myself who have NEVER YET clicked on an internet ad. This has always made me wonder just how much of Google's advertising expenditure is well spent?
Posted by: philipat | Oct 29, 2008 9:54:34 PM
Interesting comments above from many folks like myself who have NEVER YET clicked on an internet ad. This has always made me wonder just how much of Google's advertising expenditure is well spent?
I betcha I could place some ads that you'd click (;
Posted by: DavidB | Oct 29, 2008 9:58:24 PM
I look forward to the new site. However, I do think the top is busy and not clean at all.
Posted by: Jeff | Oct 29, 2008 10:01:25 PM
whoa, the header is too tall. At 800x600 your actual content barely starts "above the fold" (I dislike that term, but its true)
Posted by: eric g | Oct 29, 2008 10:12:12 PM
Please, please, BR, don't butcher the RSS feed like so many sites do when they redesign.
Keep the feed, and keep it a full feed.
That is all.
Posted by: david | Oct 29, 2008 10:17:29 PM
For those of you concerned with "flash" or any other "plug ins" (or ASAs*, as they are called up at Microsoft security in Redmond), just deregister the enabling dlls or simply put all active codes on "prompt"
so that you can kill the high-KB crap that you do not want to distract you and the low-security "actives" that you do not want to endanger you.
Remember, enabling active codes (including scripts) gives the author(s) of the codes limitless access to your hard drives,
and do you really want to do that??
*Anti-Security Applications
Posted by: esb | Oct 29, 2008 10:22:53 PM
I use Outlook to read the rss feed. Will each tab have its own rss feed or just the main page?
Posted by: Bruce M | Oct 29, 2008 10:23:33 PM
