A new look? Of course! (Update: “No new look”)
Posted: September 19th, 2008 | Filed under: Media | 45 Comments »
UPDATE: I’m leaving this post up even though … yeah, we went back to the old look. Too many people seemed to hate the new look, even though it was easier on me. Yeah, really, don’t worry about me. No, it’s fine. I like this look better too.
* * *
Well, we set a personal record with the last look … I think I had it up for like four or five months. I still love the last look. But to be honest it was getting to be a hassle to maintain, and anyway what’s the fun of even HAVING a blog if you don’t switch up things?
So, this time we’re going simple — I believe this look is clean, and it should make things a lot easier on me. At least until the next change. Which, everyone knows, could come at any time.
Personal note: While we’re doing a little blog maintenance, I read a few comments asking about the deal with Sports Illustrated. So here’s how it goes: I am now writing a column exclusively for Sports Illustrated every Wednesday. In addition to that, SI.com is picking up certain blog items. But it’s the Wednesday column that is different from what’s on this site here.
And finally, since we’re getting all personal and stuff, let me also say thank you to all of you who have taken the time to come over to this goofy little site. Over the weekend, this site should get its 5 millionth hit, which I realize is like 20 minutes for Deadspin, but it still amazes me to no end. Of course, it also means that if every time someone hit this site they bought this book (only $5.99!) I would be rich and famous and probably not headed to Atlanta to watch the Chiefs and Falcons play perhaps the least anticipated game in NFL history. But that’s whole other story.*
*And anyway … I’m writing another book now. Did I mention that? Start putting those quarters away in piggy banks, kids.**
**Oh, one last thing: Saw Jerry Seinfeld perform tonight. He was great, as expected. He had an unbelievable bit on the fake doctor from one of the drug commercials who holds a pad that has three checkboxes for “Itching, Redness, Burning.” I can’t do it justice other than to say that laugh a lot in my life, but rarely do I laugh uncontrollably, and he got me. He also had a great line about golf that is worth passing along while the Ryder Cup Rages: “If millions of people play a sport, and only one person is good at it, that’s a stupid sport.”
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Congratulations on the five million, Joe. Well deserved. Here’s to another five and five more after that.
PS… the new look is keen.
I don’t care what the site looks like as long as you keep writing. You make my life a little better every time you post something.
Ugh. The last look was bold, somewhat unique, and I found over time for it to be pretty cool.
This one … has a threw-this-up-in-fifteen-minutes look to it that a brand new blogger would create.
Still love the writing, of course, and I’ll visit no matter the look. But I hope you eventually find a look that you’ll keep for the long haul.
Ah, but I am not a fan of change, so just ignore me.
It looks awful on my computer, especially the bold print that appears when you have voted on a poll, but maybe that’s just me?
Anyway, you could change the design into a 13 year old’s website circa 1996 with a bright pink background (with lime green text), lots of trendy animated GIFs and scrolling text all over the page and I’d still come here every day.
Please don’t ever do that, though. I promise I’ll buy your next book if you don’t.
This new look is gross. The previous one was the probably the coolest look I’ve ever seen on a blog.
I’m a big fan of the new look. It’s cleaner, and it’s easier to get to the substance of your posts, and that’s really why we’re here.
Congrats on the 5M.
Um, you guys know Tina Fey plays for the other team, right?
No, she only plays for the other team if her husband is a Steelers fan. (She was wearing an Eagles t-shirt at the end of an SNL show a few years ago, can’t remember which one, but it may have been around SB XXXIX.)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0275486/bio
Like the look but the previous one was much better.
the falcons are getting completely underrated this year. i predict a possible 8-8 or (gasp!) even a winning season
Joe, can you post a link to you SI coloumn each week, here on the blog?
Also, I would argue that the main reason why Steve Young has the career QB rating record is that he wasn’t throwing passes (in the NFL) during his learning years. Only once did he thrown more than 140 passes before his age 30 season. He threw more NFL passes in any two consecutive years* in his 30’s than he totalled in his entire 20’s (825).
* Well, not any two. He didn’t play enough games each season for that. But make it 30 or 32 consecutive games played, and it’s the entire span.
How many great QBs sat like he did? I’m not a big Montana guy, but he is one of the all-time top 10 QBs, right? Young could’t beat him out. In this day and age, his team couldn’t afford to keep him, Back then, he say, and waited.
Then, on the back end, he didn’t play in his decline years. The concussions knocked him out of the league before his abilities withered away.
So, it’s his freak playing patten that gets him the record, not JUST his style of play. Show me another QB with less than 1000 attemps in his 20’s (Young had 825), more than 3000 in his 30’s (Young had 3324) and who left out of fear of the next injury, and we can check out his career rating.
So, here’s a problem with the current sight design: double returns don’t show up.
See, right there? There should be a blank line before this one. I need to add html by hand to get that, now. Only it doesn’t work, I don’t think.
Italics
bold
I tried p, br, i and b. But do they work?
I’m with Alex…can you link to your SI column every Wednesday? I really want to read it, but there’s no way I’m going to remember to check the SI site every week.
A couple of items. On the home page when you have columns listed under heading like “Bruce” or “People” could you list them by date rather than alphabetically?
Also, are you able to link to your columns from the KC Star? It appears those links stopped being updated over the summer so none of your Olympic articles are listed.
Knowing when things are written and posted makes it a little easier to be sure if I missed something.
Thanks for all the great writing.
“Until” has one L.
Those asking for SI links — his columns are now linked to on the right, just above the archive link.
Joe, will your SI columns also be posted here or are they exclusive to SI.com ?
Sorry, should have read the comments – please ignore my question (but count it towards your next 5million visits
Preferred the old look, but then no one ever complained about newspaper design, it’s the content that matters.
Joe, long time reader, first time poster. Just went and picked up your book today from Barnes and Nobel for 14.95. Yea, I know, I could have saved 10 bucks, but I don’t like to wait.
Anyways, just wanted to tell you that you’re a huge inspiration for me. I love your stuff, and I think you’ve officially replaced Verducci as my favorite active writer. I’m a journalism student at Penn State, so maybe someday we’ll meet up in the press box and I can run up to you like a completely unprofessional fan boy and tell you this to your face.
Alright, I’ll stop my fawning now. Take care, and congrats on the SI deal. I just got linked up in an article there, and it was pretty much the proudest moment of my life, I can’t imagine how good it feels to write for them. I know you’re a highly decorated writer, but they’re pretty much the icon of sports journalism. Way to go.
It’s good to hear you say Seinfeld was funny. I was starting to think that the success of his series was wholly because of Larry David and the incredible ensemble cast. You’re the first person I’ve heard say something positive about the man since the series ended.
I’m not a huge fan of the new look. But, can’t complain about free. Now, if you ever get crazy and start charging. I’ll complain about everything. Just a warning Joe.
I understand what you’re saying about the old site being difficult to keep up, but this one seems to have gone to the polar opposite. My big issue here is that it is difficult to see all of your content. If you’re going to have the content pane go down as long as it does, then have more than five stories per topic appear in the right rail (especially when some of them don’t have five yet). The new design just doesn’t seem to do the entire body of work justice, and a little archive dropdown to get to the rest of it is, I think, not quite sufficient.
but, that’s just me.
Looks like no one makes the Hall of Fame in the Joe poll. Santo comes close at 66%.
Since this post is written in such a way to invite randomness, I want to say—to Joe—that I loved this KC Star column: http://www.kansascity.com/180/story/806616.html. It sums up a great deal of my frustration with the Chiefs during the Peterson era.
We’ve passed on SO MANY chances to draft good rookie QBs since 1989 that it just sickens me. In fact, I’m on the verge of a resolution: Unless they trade for very good, relatively young existing NFL quarterback (Quinn or otherwise), I’m giving up my Chiefs fandom until they draft a very, very promising rookie. It has to be one or the other. I just…can’t…take it…any…more. It’s going on 20 years of band-aid solutions at the quarterback position. 20 years. Sigh.
I think my resolution has just been made. – TL
Johnny, lots of people complain about newspoaper design. They are lumped into three categories:
– advertisers
– little old ladies
– newspaper people
I DID buy the book (for more than $5.99) and loved it to death Joe!
Terrible look. Please go back. At least in doesn’t impact the fantastic writing. But it is hard to look at.
I’m curious as to why the last look was a hassle to maintain.
Look … if not that look, definitely not this look, so looking forward to the next look.
Just had to pitch in my $.02 that Seinfeld, as a standup, is really funny. Saw him at Caesars a couple of years ago and have rarely laughed so hard…
Curb is fine, but all the people who say it’s as good as Seinfeld just don’t make any sense to me–I think it’s much more repetitive and meanspirited than Seinfeld ever was (not to say Seinfeld didn’t have plenty of meanspiritedness).
Anyway, I didn’t like the old look (too busy). This one’s fine, but I’ll be annoying and say I don’t like the colors.
Good point, Sam. It might just be the color scheme that’s hurting this look.
Can’t believe nobody is going to get 75% in the Hall of Fame poll.
LOVED the last look, but the look is less important than the content which is always spot on.
The chiefs are horrible. If they play the Rams (didn’t check) that will be the worst game ever. Ever.
Gah, what did you do to the font? It’s unreadable now.
Weighing in on “the look:” I read the blog exclusively on my phone, so I have no idea what this version or the last one look like – but this one seems to load without my having to hit stop and reload, so I’m all for the current design.
And, yeah, the content is what matters, so much so I didn’t really mind jumping through hoops to get posts to appear.
Good idea going back to the former look — the new one was too generic and terrible
One nice feature of the new look was a timestamp on each comment.
Glad to see the old look back. Maybe the “old” look isn’t the look you should keep forever, but the “new” look looked too simple.
But Joe, stick to your guns, if you like the new look and it’s easier, keep it, people will get used to it.
The Wall Street Journal has changed their look like 3 times in the past two year, with a major change a week ago. It’s still the same to mee.
Maybe you could keep the old look, but remove the featured story at the top. Wither way, this place is great.
Ahhhh, much better. I just didn’t like how everything was gigantic on the main page. I like being able to scroll down and briefly see what’s going on in all your recent posts.
Not that it matters, I’m going to read them all anyway. Thanks Joe!
I prefered the “new” look.
I liked the “old” look, the one that was white, centered, and had the pictures of the books at the top.
I also liked that I could easily read that old one from my phone. The current one is nice and fancy, but my phone can’t deal.
Poll?
Good decision, Joe. Your writing distinguishes this blog, but so does the format (admittedly, to a lesser degree). I’m happy to see the old format is back after a brief hiatus.
I like this one better, but I can’t blame you for changing it. Sometimes it becomes a PIA to have to find pictures, format them to fit, enter the custom fields, etc. etc.