movingday

TeleRead’s move to a new site is still happening, but it’s okay now to post or repost comments.

In fact, as one of the improvements, we now have a community page with an easy-to-read list of comments. No longer is the list squeezed into a narrow sidebar.

Because of the quirks of the Internet, some images may be missing; and your may encounter other odd things for a bit. If they persist, we want to hear from you! And at any time we’ll value your suggestions and other feedback.

Many thanks to Josh Morley, the gifted developer of the new site, for all his hard work.

Image credit: Here.

15 COMMENTS

  1. Overall I like the new look of your site but there seems to be one major drawback. I usually check your site several times a day looking for something new and on the old site I could see if there was anything new at a glance. Now I can’t. I suspect when I make a quick check I’ll miss something now. And since I’ll have to spend more time to avoid that I’ll probably check less casually.

    Barry

  2. @Barry: Thanks very much for the feedback. One possibility would be to get rid of the section below the top tiles – the one highlighting tech-related posts. Then people would go directly to the updates section. The other side of the argument is that the tech items seem to be the main draw, and this way they don’t scroll off the homepage quite as quickly as they would otherwise. Another issue is the move of the comments rail to the community page. Our thinking was that the comments are important enough to deserve their own page, and the freed-up space on the homepage will make room for greater exposure to posts that people may have missed. Thanks. David

  3. I had somehow missed the Latest Articles header, which seems to give me exactly what I want. Scrolling down a bit to see that is no problem.

    All in all I like the look of the new layout. I’m not sure I prefer it to the simplicity of the older one, with new stuff at top and things below that in order by age. But this looks good and will work just fine for me.

    I’ve looked a bit at the comments page and I think I’ll find that handy. I’m used to finding comments below the articles they refer to but it seems I can still do that. The comment page might be easier for seeing if there are further comments, which I often do with articles that interest me.

    Tech articles are the ones that most interest me, as well. I hadn’t realized that’s what the cluster of articles at the top was about but it’s good to know. I like all kinds of other stuff, too.

    Barry

  4. @Barry: I very much appreciated the additional feedback. In a related vein, just so you’ll know, Josh (our Web developer) and I are aware of a bug in the comments system. It sends people to a comment entry box from the main community page rather than to a specific comment that people want to call up. We’re hoping for a fix very soon.

    Thanks,
    David

  5. What have you done to your lovely site?!?
    You have completely Verge-ified it!
    So, where is the backdoor that would let me see the list of articles with the newest one on the top how you used to have? Even BoingBoing has address http://boingboing.net/category/post for us – old geezers that want to have a simple list of articles in chronological order instead of that BLOODY mosaic.

    Until this is sorted out I will be coming *much* less often for my daily news fix. I know that everybody and his brother is using this new type of layout to present their site, but I find it noisy, ugly, cluttered, confusing, distracting, with increased number of ads *and* it looks bad once I increase the size of your font beyond certain threshold. I need to use larger font on most sites, because the DPI of monitors is going up and my eyes are getting older every single day.

    Do keep an eye on the number of visitors in the next few months.

    You might want to have a look what people said when BoingBoing did similar redesign some time ago:
    https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/boing-boing-zine-blog-and-back-again/30472

  6. One more thing …
    The new layout takes considerably longer time to render, despite my 70Mbit connection and powerful notebook. I do not want to imagine what it would be like on a slow connection on an older netbook with small display.

  7. @Name Required: Thanks for speaking up. All feedback cherished about the new look—pro and con! As you’ve seen from Emma’s comments, there’s room for different opinions here. Meanwhile, if you just want the bare basics, check out our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/teleread/KHnj . Speed? GTMetrix says we came in at around 4 second. I want it to be faster, but this is a good start. We’re faster than another major e-book blog and the Washington Post and almost as quick as the New York Times. Mind you, speeds may vary by location and time, but that is a snapshot.

    As for numbers, it’s too early to tell for sure, since some people may be dropping by just to check out out the new look, but we’ve enjoyed a nice bump in traffic for a weekend (aided by some great postings from Chris, Paul and Joanna).

  8. There is yet another thing I have found annoying with the new design. The animated panel with “MORE STORIES” that comes out of the right edge of the screen as I scroll down the post.
    Fortunately, that one can be remedied by disabling all scripts on your page using YesScript plugin.
    Even the new front-page looks much more readable with all scripts disabled 😉

  9. David.

    At this moment I am looking at the Teleread frontpage with all the scripts and adds enabled.
    I see article titled “What is the best USB charger for your $50 Kindle Fire?” as a first item in the mosaic.
    As I scroll down, I see the same article under the heading “E-READING TECH: APPS AND GADGETS”
    Third instance is under the heading “LATEST ARTICLES”
    Fourth is in the right sidebar under the heading “AMAZON”
    The fifth link is under the “MOST RECENT” heading at the bottom of the page.

    Is that a feature or a bug?

  10. @Name (Required): Continued thanks for the feedback. Most people like the changes. We’re doing our best to please as many people as we can. Point by point:

    –Like Slate, which helped inspire the current arrangement, we realize that not everyone will immediately discover the best articles for his or her reading. So, yes, there is overlap. But logical overlap. The mosaic at the top of the page uses text and images to give people an immediate feel the the latest and most important. The section underneath plays up e-reading tech, the main draw of our site. That way, if an important tech article is no longer in the mosaic, latecomers will still see it. The “most recent” section is just that and includes more detail than the mosaic does. Less important posts may end up there without making the moasic to begin with. Or they may be there jut a short time. As for the “most recent” head at the bottom, this is to give people yet another crack at finding what they want. Everything, of course, is subject to change. But that’s what we’re doing now. Think “feature,” not “bug.”

    –We’ll in time evaluate the widgets promoting individual stories and categories. If Web traffic patterns show that people are not clicking on them, we might disable them. Many large news sites use such widgets.

    –So happy you can disable all scripts. Whatever optimizes the site for you! It would be nice if you let ads through, as most visitors do, but that’s your choice. Just remember that ads are TeleRead’s big business model right now.

    –We still want to go after our own ads and sponsored-content arrangements and reduce reliance on the Google ads for privacy reasons and others. It’s not easy. We get requests all the time to run ads or content without Google and its tracking involved, but they’re nearly always unacceptable. Our selectivity has cost us hundreds and perhaps even thousands, but we really, really don’t want to carry an ad or other promo for, say, a term-paper ghosting service or run sponsored content not labelled as such. Those are actual enticements that have come our way. We also reject a wide variety of Google-distributed ads in areas ranging from Russian find-a-bride services to iffy medical cures.

    Thanks,
    David

    • David,
      I have not disabled adds on your page. Just the scripts. It just so happens, that when use the “Yes script” plugin to make your site bearable, the adds stop working somehow.
      I am sorry, but I find animated things, such as the “MORE STORIES” banner on the right far too annoying to leave the scripts switched on. Especially when I am coming from the front-page and that banner at the right has *SIXTH* instance of the “What is the best USB charger for your $50 Kindle Fire?” that I have seen recently. You seem to be more persistent than Microsoft with their “Upgrade to Windows 10” nagging ;-). (the seventh one is under the “Amazon” header in the right sidebar on this page, by the way 😉 )

      I am not against a site with a good, well written content – such as yours – making some money through adds, as long as they are not the blinking monsters. I even click on them occasionally.
      And I have looked at the adds on your site with a *very* critical eye for the last few months (before the redesign), so I could report ones that do not play nicely with your site. The vast majority of adds on your page do not disrupt my reading.

      —- warning, rant ahead —-
      I find adds that I see nowadays (in general, not talking specifically about your site now) very creepy. Perhaps it is caused the the fact that I haven’t really looked at adds until recently, when I started enabling them on some selected sites.
      Two months ago I was shopping for a vacuum cleaner. Got one through an on-line store. I still see the adds for that particular model that I purchased. I am not talking about that being stupid – if the vacuum cleaner works like previous one did I am not going to need a new one for the next fifteen years (same manufacturer, improved model). I am talking about creepiness level. Those guys out there are *stalking* me and, of course, all other visitors. This is not just that one instance. I am recognizing dozens of things, now that I pay attention, that I had a look at in on-line stores in previous months as they appear in adds, I am also talking about suggestions in youtube videos. They are offering me videos related to the stuff that I watched on a completely different computer.

The TeleRead community values your civil and thoughtful comments. We use a cache, so expect a delay. Problems? E-mail newteleread@gmail.com.