New site design

[logosmonkey]

Just noticed the new site design was up, it looks good. Way to go guys!

[joerules]

Thanks Steve. Other than bringing in a solid link on the main page for AVW, one of the new priorities was creating a place to build more content. Underneath the strip navigation you'll find links to things like cast pages, story breakdowns and other things over time.

[cooljammer00]

Thanks Steve. Other than bringing in a solid link on the main page for AVW, one of the new priorities was creating a place to build more content. Underneath the strip navigation you'll find links to things like cast pages, story breakdowns and other things over time.

at first, I thought maybe the HTML on this computer had broken, since the links to the boards and whatnot weren't the old bold cartoony typeface I was used to. I do like the new nav system though. And I like the little icons for each comic. That shot of Yeo leering at Joe is a great photo.

[Tom Brazelton]

I noticed you guys are running the AddThis! application for social bookmarking.

Have you considered using ShareThis? Very similar, but I find it to be a little more comprehensive.

Incidentally, we should really be helping each other bookmark each other's comics on a day-to-day basis. It'd be a really easy way for us to drive up traffic without a huge investment of time.

You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours?

[joerules]

I have no idea how this works but I suppose it's worth putting on the list of things to talk about at this week's meeting.

[Tom Brazelton]

By meeting, do you mean with the DP crew or you, me and Gordon?

[joerules]

I meant the DP crew.

[Tom Brazelton]

Well, hell - between the handful of ya', you already have a built-in team of social bookmarking promoters!

Everyone in the DP crew should be bookmarking everyone else's strips.

[joerules]

With the new streamlined web site it's like we don't even have to!!

I'm not to keen on derailing the thread but how exactly does it work? I know I could read it myself but what has been your experience with it?

[Tom Brazelton]

Basically, AddThis (or ShareThis) offers links to a myriad of social bookmarking sites. You pick the sites that you have accounts with and the application connects you to it. You bookmark the site (or the page / the comic in question) and with any luck, it gets picked up by other people.

Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit... the more people that find your links and give them a thumbs up, the more people will hopefully find the link and deliver more traffic to the site.

I think you would find it particularly useful considering how you post your updates to Facebook, MySpace and LiveJournal.

The only problem I see with your set up is if someone wants to bookmark the comic on the homepage, they're not really bookmarking that specific comic. They're bookmarking the homepage. They'd have to go back one page then forward one page through your navigation to get to the comic they want to add.

That's why ShareThis, Wordpress and Comicpress has been so handy for me. Because ShareThis bookmarks based on the blog entry and Comicpress aligns the comic image with the first blog entry for that day. No disconnect.

But in terms of traffic, I haven't seen a huge upswing yet. A lot of people post my comics to their Facebook profile pages (I know, because ShareThis keeps stats), but I've taken a more proactive approach in the last week or so.

In the past, I wouldn't bookmark my own stuff because I thought it was bad taste. It's also kind of annoying to remind people to bookmarks your stuff for you all the time. So I figured "fuck it." I busted out some shamelessness and I'm goin' for it. I'm bookmarking every new comic, plus a few in the archives that I think still have legs.

[LincM]

Gotta say, I love the new site, though I didn't quite get how the navbar worked until I waved the mouse over other tabs and realised the popped out. I like the smooth pop. It's... mesmerising... hehe

Anyway, I like that in redesigning, you haven't gone for an overhaul, but instead are seeking to improve the existing base.

Howevere, it's not all roses, as the nav system at the top is, while not buggy, a little bit of a dated scripting design and would be better served with a sleeker look. I'd suggest padding the drops a bit more, so they have more of an anchored appearance (a bit like the "Privacy features" tab, or whatever it is, at the top of Facebook).

For the most part, it's really good, though.

[Guest]

While the new site design looks cool, I find that I can't seem to always read the reviews on either JLCM or AVGWC (I'm using IE8). When you click in it I get this message:

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Timestamp: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:54:23 UTC


Message: 'guid' is null or not an object
Line: 1834
Char: 3
Code: 0
URI: http://digitalpimponline.com/jquery-1.2.6.js

I can see the comics no problem but the Reviews tab never loads and the Cast tab comes back with other errors. Thought you should know.

[chamber715]

While the new site design looks cool, I find that I can't seem to always read the reviews on either JLCM or AVGWC (I'm using IE8). When you click in it I get this message:

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Timestamp: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:54:23 UTC


Message: 'guid' is null or not an object
Line: 1834
Char: 3
Code: 0
URI: http://digitalpimponline.com/jquery-1.2.6.js

I can see the comics no problem but the Reviews tab never loads and the Cast tab comes back with other errors. Thought you should know.

You said you "can't always read the reviews", does that mean you can read the reviews sometimes?

[Guest]

Yeah. It looks like the most recent 2 on both comics I can't see anything below the comic images. Everything prior to that appears to be working properly.

[LincM]

I'm not sure, but I just guessed Joe hadn't written reviews for them.