Jeremiah Owyang discusses how web tools and social media enable companies to connect with customers

Blog Feedback

July 12th, 2006 | Category: Feedback

Before I launched this blog, I got some feedback from a small group, then a larger group of folks about improving the blog. I believe in involving your users during the design process when possible.

I was able to implement most of the changes. Recently, I’ve been trying to add some spice to the blog. Last night I added a blue BG, which is the same as my previous blog. Someone who I won’t name who (starts with M, ends with ark) teased me about my images in each blog post. I decided to really trick him and put some images on right –he wasn’t surprised by my willy tricks –whaaaateva.

I added the flickr badge too, and even made my face bigger, which may result in a loss of traffic. And no, that’s not my Viper or Lotus, it’s a friends.

The next thing I want to do is add ‘most recent posts’ however I’m struggling with implementing that, as it looks like it requires some knowledge of PHP. I visited the website of the template creator, and didn’t see any free ways to do this. I think he charges a development fee. Clint Ivy suggested via email that I added most recent comments like Avinash did –I’ll prob need to get the recent posts done first.
Anyways, I’m open to other suggestions for improving the website –and no honey, we won’t be using Bedizzle Nizzle. (see comments)

9 Comments so far

  1. Mark July 12th, 2006 8:18 am

    Very good usage, or I should say, non-usage of an image on this post. Well done, my friend. ;o)

  2. jeremiah_owyang July 12th, 2006 8:42 am

    Did I fool you? Meh, guess not.

  3. jeremiah_owyang July 12th, 2006 9:03 am

    Mark just gave me this feedback via IM:

    ” maybe you should change the old site a little
    maybe make the light blue background a light brown
    to signify it’s the “old” blog
    because I can’t tell the difference where I am
    just an idea”

  4. Avinash Kaushik July 12th, 2006 9:43 am

    Jeremiah: I think you are on wordpress now. If so go to your theme editor and you’ll find a file called sidebar in that file put this in:

    All that stuff after should get the recent posts on your blog listed out. Try that.

    For recent comments I have tried atleast 15 different plugins and in the end I like this one the best:

    http://blog.jodies.de/archiv/2004/11/13/recent-comments/

    I have modified it only slightly in my sidebar to get the look that I wanted.

    Hope this helps.

    -Avinash.

  5. Avinash Kaushik July 12th, 2006 9:44 am

    Ok so the code I put in the comment does not show up in your blog. Will email it to you.

    -Avinash.

  6. Juan July 12th, 2006 10:31 am

    i hate right-clicking links to have the page open in a new browser window. so how about making your links to external pages open in a new browser window? this goes for all blogs.

  7. jeremiah_owyang July 13th, 2006 3:40 am

    All great suggestions, I’ll give em a shot.

  8. Mark July 13th, 2006 9:08 am

    Juan,

    The great thing about the web is that you have control. You get to pick your browser, you get to adjust the font size, screen resolution, etc. Why would you want every link to open in a new window? I think it would irritate some people if all of a sudden they navigated through 5 blogs. Because you think it should be done across all blogs, that would mean I’d have 5 windows open. Yuck! Give people choice and give them control. If they want it in a new window, they’ll open it in a new window. I don’t think you’d like it if I gave you a Porsche to drive, but told you you could only drive it below 25mph.

  9. jeremiah_owyang July 16th, 2006 9:31 pm

    I think Mark’s response is worth considering –I may wait on doing ‘target_blank’ or ‘target_new’ for now.

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