Redesigns and Readerships
Many sites come out with a new design while still under the blanket of obscurity that truly launches them, and allows them to get their content out there. When the time comes to redesign again, it’s impossible to please everyone.
Problogger comes to mind with their recent redesign. I don’t know the history, but one is lead to assume their old design was what led them to success, or more like they found success with it. The old design wasn’t very good for now, and Darren realized this, as he said in of his pre-release posts. It served him well, and now it’s time for a fresh design.
The new design/identity came out, and it’s a simple, easy to read, and still blog focussed. Personally, I love the new design. There might be a few things that could improve it, but I expect to see new things as the get this one 110% sorted out.
The thing is, with nearly 30,000 readers, a simple design renders mixed responses. Though with a readership allegedly consisting of 91% bloggers, I think it’ll be fine and he’ll be up over 30k in a couple of days.
Then you have a site like John Chow’s, who’s built such an identity on a free theme. The time will come to upgrade, and his readership, I would not hesitate to say, isn’t exactly packing the IQ that Problogger’s is. The JC copycats (JC3?) are more of a ICanHasCheesBurger kind of bunch, especially now that John has stopped posting useful online business information (yes, I said it).
In intertwined news, John Chow says the new Problogger home page is more portal than blog. I have to disagree on this, because the PB homepage is recent blog posts, a vlog, and the most popular blog posts. It’s still 100% blog, but makes it easier to navigate and read.
That’s it for now, I’m out for the weekend actually (WP auto posting) so don’t email me ’till Monday 
Leave a comment
Glen Allsopp
August 11th, 2007 at 1:37 PM
I don’t know how John does it to be honest. He gets so many links and so much traffic yet he posts nothing useful these days (Yes, I said it aswell!)
Freebies
August 13th, 2007 at 1:00 PM
Was PR’s old design really all that great? I’m not saying the new one is a huge upgrade, but I always thought the previous one was a bit crappy.
As for John, I tried getting into his site. I commented regularly, read everything he posted for a month or so, and then decided that everything he posts is semi-shady ideas for getting more traffic to his site. I don’t know how he managed to build up so much buzz about his site, but kudos to him for being able to not only do it, but make it stick around.
Webd360
August 13th, 2007 at 7:50 PM
I like Problogger’s new theme, but I thought the old one was nice too. Its still an upgrade, so thats good and the homepage is pretty unique because of format (and the vlog; hopefully he can keep that updated).
As for John Chow, about a month ago he just stopped posting useful content, so I don’t really go by there much any more. He is making money so he is just trying to live off the fact that he does make money, without providing content.
Connor Wilson
August 13th, 2007 at 11:03 PM
That’s hitting the nail on the head there. He did write quality content at one time, but now he grows on the fact that… he’s grown.
It’s like if Paris Hilton worked to get where she was and then started coasting on past greatness… kinda
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