I am putting it on my site. Only thing I could think of needing improvement was maybe a variety of color schemes to choose from. I did ask Kevin to make the rounded corners have transparent backgrounds as well. Which I must add he did within minutes. I also added a small text link at the bottom that says "Provided by Sitepoint"
I think the only change that could be made to truly make it more useful is to allow it to be slightly customizable...I know this might be tough, but there must be some way...
For example...it looks pretty good on Wayne's site and all, but it stands out a little more than I would like if I ran the site...if there were someway to let the white there become clear, or something like that, I think it'd help...people are more likely to implement it if they can customize it to truly fit their site...
I agree with Chris. Something like iSyndicate provides or NewsHub or something, where everything is customizable. I think it would be even better if you did that, 'cause people wouldn't mistake it for an advertisement, and would more likely click on it...
He nailed it...it looks a little too much like an advertisement...because it tends to stick out, and the only things that stand out on most websites are advertisements and the like...not usually any normal part of the page.
I don't put it on my website...because my site isn't for webmasters. However, it should not be difficult for a site such as sitepoint.com to use a system similiar to articlecentral.com's news ticker. If not, sitepoint.com should have abetter one.
Richard
P.S. the curent one looks nice, but it is ment for the sitepoint.com design, and not others...
I guess this SitePoint thingy would be a bit out of place on my site. Just take a look at my site and you'll see that it wouldn't fit there. Sorry guys!
"Marketing by providing 'tip feeds' for other sites is
quite effective for generating traffic. For example, we're
doing that with the 'SitePoint Tip Feed' and it works
great. We have a nice online administration interface,
which shows us the number of incoming clickthroughs by week
coming from the tip feeds displayed on other sites -- and
it's growing every week. It's a great strategy."
I'm Curious: How do you make the graphic? Is it an automated program? (I'm pretty sure it is...) If so, what program? (I know it is probably heavily modified.) I'd be interested in a similar (but not webmaster related) thing for my site.
If I had a webmaster site I'd put it up - it's pretty cool! (Maybe give longer tips in the box...)
Owen
[This message has been edited by Owen (edited July 06, 2000).]
I assume you're talking about the graphic borders around it. I can bet you a lot of *traded items* that they made it by hand in Photoshop or possibly the GIMP, maybe even Fireworks.
There's now a second version of the Tip Feed Available that just feeds the text -- this means that you can put it in your own design so that it doesn't look like an "advertisement".
It looks exceedingly similar except theirs is a graphic... I imagine there has to be a Perl script out there somewhere which does this kind of thing. I know there are graphic libraries, but they are hard to use...
/font><HR>4. NEW! SITE OF THE WEEK: SitePoint.com's Website Tip Feed
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