Bokardo has been cowblogtipped
Did you know that February is Blogtipping month?
I didn’t, but Bokardoan Bill D’Alessandro, who writes the wonderfully-titled blog Ready, Fire, Aim, does. He wrote up Bokardo in his February is Blogtipping post, which from what I can tell is when you do a super quick review of a blog that you read and add a tip at the end (neat idea). Bill does exactly that, and points to probably the weakest part of my interface:
“I’m not sure I’m a fan of the excerpts on the front page. Some of them aren’t long enough to indicate the subject of the article. I’d suggest reducing the number of posts that appear on the frontpage, but including their full text.”
Bill’s right. I have to do something different with the excerpts. For starters, just yesterday (coincidentally enough just before I read Bill’s post) I updated all of the excerpts so that they’re not using the horrible default WordPress excerpts (which don’t include formatting or links). That should help some. I’ll also consider Bill’s suggestion of adding more full-text posts, which might work well.
In hindsight, I know why this happened. This happened because at the moment I post, I never see the excerpt as it will appear on the homepage, simply because I always include the full-text of the latest post. So the excerpt only shows up after I’ve posted the next one…this is probably why I got lazy and started leaving the excerpt field blank.
So, thanks for the feedback, Bill!
(note: Bill works on a groupware project called Groupvine. To help people understand what the software does, they’ve built a Features Page. Geez…if only more software did this…nice, helpful touch!)
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Comments
1. Brad Garland 11:00am, Sun 11th, 2007
I’d love to be blogtipped. Just finished a major redesign on my site but if it can be improved, I’d love a suggestion!
2. Bill D’Alessandro 12:34pm, Sun 11th, 2007
Hey Josh,
Glad you enjoyed my article, I certainly enjoy your blog!
If you want to know a little more about blogtipping, you can read up at Easton Ellsworth’s site, BusinessBlogWire. He’s been doing it for a while, and has tons of blogtipping posts. He tends to do it the first of every month, but I was a little late this time
I’m also glad you took the time to checkout Groupvine. We built that features page for exactly the reason that you mentioned – nobody ever does it, and a little manual would be so welcome in any Web 2.0 app!
Brad,
I love your site design, I always have a soft spot for Hemingway inspired/based designs. Well done! And the font you chose is beautiful.
3. Easton Ellsworth 12:41pm, Mon 12th, 2007
One of the fun things about blogtipping for me has been discovering blogs and people that I should have known about already – gems in the rough. Nice to discover another gem here, Joshua!
4. Michael Cavanaugh 8:44pm, Mon 12th, 2007
I like the excerpts the way you currently have them. It’s a kind of evolution of publishing, like a magazine or periodical. I agree with Bill D’Alessandro about the colophon – classy touch.
As for the Bokardo interface, well, I’d say it comes from the Jacob Nielsen school of design, i.e. it looks like it was designed by an engineer, not a designer.