Core i7 Giveaway Winner, AT on Kindle, Site Redesign Preview and More

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• Mr Alpha - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link

  There are a few things I don't like:
  
  1. At the top you have three levels of link. The middle one, starting with motherboards and then IT computing, doesn't make sense. I assume IT computing is a link to it.anandtech.com and it doesn't really fit with the others. And why you need to elevate a few of the hardware categories over the others I don't understand.
  
  2. Under the menu links you have a horizontal strip of three articles, and under them you have three more articles with under the title Featured Articles. What is the difference between them, and why do you need both? Seems like a horrible waste of space.
  
  3. The Customize This view link: Is it for the whole site or only for the Featured Articles section? From where it is placed and the way the link is phrased it seems to be only for the Featured Articles section, and that seems pretty useless.
  
  4. The ratings on articles is a horrible idea. Sure, that the authors get some kind of feedback can be nice, but I am not sure a number is very useful for them versus real feedback. As for exposing the rating to everybody, that's a can of worms you do not want to open and will only make your site seem tacky.
  
  5. The Follow Anandtech is too big. This is a feature most people only need once, and spending all that screen real-estate on it is overdone.
  
  6. In the long list of articles you have info on how long ago it was posted, while in the Featured Articles section you have the date on which it was posted. This is inconsistent. Either do one or the other.
  
  7. In the long list of articles you also waste a lot of space on the +Share link. A smaller link and more test about the article would definitely be a better use of the space.
  
  8. On the side you have the More from Anandtech section. That title isn't really clear. It is in the same sidebar as Twitter and the other social and web 2.0 stuff. Is it more Twittery like stuff? If it is more articles then why are these articles more, but the long list of articles to the left of it not more?
  
  9. You have Most Popular as a tab title in the more section, but the Shared tab titles isn't "Most". Does this mean that the Shared isn't a list of the most shared, but ordered by some other mean? This is confusing.
  
  10. What is the contributor tab in the More Anandtech section? Authors, commentators, sponsors? Why is this list interesting? Why does it need exposure?
  
  11. At the bottom you have the Other Discussion section. Other than what? What is different about this discussion? More importantly, what discussion is this?.
  
  As a conclusion I might add that this seems very much like me-too redesign. Just doing what everybody else is doing regardless of whether it is a good or bad idea or whether it fits Anandtech.
  
  Also, I seriously hope that you will make a better commenting system than what you have now.

• SpatulaCity - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link

  It would be helpful to have the most recent articles, reviews and analysis on top and listed in descneding order from publish date. Avid readers, like myself, often check the site multiple times a day to see what is new. I would hate to miss an important article because it wasn't displayed on the front page. Perhaps, create a cookie that keeps track of last visits and mark which ones are new, like Dailytech does.
  
  Also, please don't set the big 3 carousel to auto rotate on some predefined timer. Different people have different attention spans and different reading speeds. I hate websites that have a carousel and rotate the top 3 automatically example: jpl.nasa.gov It pisses me off when the page changes before I am finished reading the blurb.

• fiftysixtius - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link

  I appreciate the DailyTech headlines in the margin, and would miss them if they were gone. I guess I always assumed that DailyTech was part of the Anand "empire" but perhaps the association is not as strong as I thought.

• Lezmaka - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link

  The first thing I noticed before even looking at anything specific is that there is A LOT of bluegreen/teal color going on. When looking at the full size screenshot, when I'm at the top (sections/3 articles) and the bottom (Other Discussions), it just doesn't look right. I think it reminds me of the default Vista colors too much or something. Or maybe it seems like almost everything is a variation of the same color, making it look kinda stale?
  
  Maybe use more of the blue and orange in the new logo?
  Like this (please forgive the shoddy quality of the changes, just made quick changes to get my idea across)
  http://www.searchbarpro.com/images/anandtech.jpg">http://www.searchbarpro.com/images/anandtech.jpg
  
  Just my opinion

• ilkhan - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link

  Am I the only one who hates even the concept of featured stories? I want a simple chrono view of stories so that when something new comes out I can easily see it at the top of the list. Yes, new are almost always featured, and yes anand does it right (as opposed to xbit, who seems to think putting a 2 week old story up top AND removing it from the chrono listing is a good idea), but its still a little annoying.
  
  But the rest looks decent enough. No option to keep the current layout?

• Spivonious - Monday, November 16, 2009 - link

  Meh, that's what RSS is for.

• Mk4ever - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link

  Totally unrelated to this article, but I thought I should say something about it.
  
  SSD prices are going up for indilinx and samsung drives. Intel prices are going down, but still nowhere near MSRP prices (esp the 160GB G2). Many drives are out of stock. Newegg eliminated a lot of SSD vendors from its site, including SuperTalent and G.Skill. Problems at the 32nm chips. New sata 6Gbps. New Sandforce deal with OCZ.
  
  What's going on?
  
  I would really appreciate a new article addressing the current situation of SSDs and manufacturers for the end of the year, the first few months of the next year, and throughout the whole next year.
  
  This would give us an idea why prices are going up. It would also shed a light to know if we should get it over with and get SSDs soon, or if we are better off waiting the start of next year.
  
  A general article covering all aspects of SSD availability, pricing, new/upcoming technologies and which manufactorurers plan/are committed to update firmwares would be really nice.
  
  Thank you for your time.
  
  
  

• gss4w - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link

  The main thing I care about on this site is the content, so I think that is good already. Also I don't really have many complaints about the current site layout, but the new one looks good too.
  
  The main criticism I have about the current site is the comments. It's annoying to try to read through a large number of comments on an article. So that is the area I hope is improved the most. I can't really tell anything from the preview you have, but I hope things are improved on the new site.
  

• Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, November 14, 2009 - link

  The comments section will be improved! You'll get a listing of a certain number of comments at the bottom of every page, but if you click more you'll get a huge listing of them (at least 50 per page) :)
  
  Thanks for the feedback guys, keep it coming.
  
  Take care,
  Anand

• imaheadcase - Friday, November 13, 2009 - link

  Why is it that even "new" sites don't scale on monitors. Take a look at CNN, its so small i can't even read it..so much wasted screen space.