BetaTalk gets a redesign
12.26.07 | Filed under Blogging.
After a few weeks of hard work, I am proud to announce that the new BetaTalk, generation 5 to be specific, is now live. And permanently. As you can read from my last post, I was only expecting to have it ready in the new year, possibly as late as February. But when I took some time over Christmas break to work on it some more and analyze the situation, I found there really wasn’t much more to do.
The coding and interface testing wrapped up this morning, and my complete overhaul of the backend is close enough to completion that the site can run smoothly. All told I worked on this over 7 hours in the last 3 days to get it done. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when it’s Christmas and there are turkeys to eat, 7 hours turns out to be a huge chunk of time.
Everything is different from the previous edition of BetaTalk. Obviously I’ve gone with a dark color scheme. That in itself means I’m taking a great personal risk, because the last time I did so, the result was a hideious design of BetaTalk that lasted for less than a month.
I’ve chosen to remove the Live in Stereo and Featured Links modules from my homepage. The reasons for this is simple. First, I could not get into the habit of updating them, no matter how much time I spent working on the website. Second, almost nobody paid any attention to them. In 9 months of operation, I recieved one email thanking me for a link and one forum post compimenting my choice of music. That was it. So those sections are gone.
My “blogroll” is no longer on the homepage, or any single post pages. I decided it would be most appropriate to keep it in a strategic position on my About page. Many other bloggers have done this, too. I may upgrade the importance of the blogroll at a later date, depending on how many linkbacks I can get from others.
In this new version of BetaTalk, I’m including my latest Twitter updates into the sidebar. I’d signed up with a Twitter account a few months back but never bothered to expand the potential of this tool. Until now, of course.
As you can see, I’ve switched back from to Flickr, after a 5-month separation in which I used Zooomr to take care of my photosharing needs. Unfortunately, Zooomr didn’t have some features that I was used to with Flickr; so while I enjoyed the unlimited uploading, it wasn’t going to work out in the long run. As long as I’m careful about my usage of Flickr, there shouldn’t be any more glitches or complaints.
When planning out this new edition of BetaTalk I knew I wanted it to be less personal and much more professional, specifically in the content that I would be writing after it went live. The new design compliments this decision, as you can see. I’m going to make a conscious effort in the new year to focus my writing on important internet and design ideas and trends. In doing this I’m hoping to boost my traffic, and increase my standing in the blogging community.
As always, I welcome your compliments, criticism, and suggestions, and I look forward to working with you all to improve the world of design.
Stephan Miller
01.6.08
4:05 pm
I like the color scheme. Usually a darker scheme is hard to read, but I like the look of this one.
Anti
01.6.08
4:46 pm
This is a very nice design. One of the nicest I have seen in a while. It is a bit hard to read - RSS will solve that.
Zach Thibeau
01.10.08
10:59 pm
Yes Ron keep up the great work, It’s been a little while since I last visited this site but your designs have flurished (So has your web programming). I taught you well and I will admit you’ve surpassed me in the area of theme design and coding (the old man is catching up though :P)