spemanig said:
Oh, I see. I've always been curious of the function that points serve. I definitely agree tha having an automated system would be better, but is there any intrinsic in having a higher point total, or is it more of just an ego thing. Also, thank you for clarifying. I wasn't aware that the game DB used to be as deep as that. This is definitely important to get sorted out. - Here's another question. You mentioned that one major thing that needs to be addressed is the mobile version of the website. Since I have suggested before that the site should take it a step further and have its own dedicated mobile app, I definitely agree with the urgency of fixing this mobile presence issue, but I think that brings another thing, which is the actual layout of the website itself. If you plan on working on the mobile site, then that brings up one of two conclusions. 1. The first is that the goal is simply to get the mobile site functioning period. Like you said, the mobile version if horrible, so I'm sure its fair to just want a working version of the web site reformatted for mobile. I consider this a very short term goal, because the primary focus is on getting the mobile site pleasent, but largely made to replicate the experience found on the regular site. 2. The other, seemingly less likely conclusion would be that the mobile version of the site would be made to reflect a new layout for the site. The reason I bring this up even though I don't think this will be the case, I kind of think it should be. I understand the need and desire to simply get the mobile site up and running as soon as possible, but I think that a major hurdle for the growth of the site is that, as I've mentioned before, that 40% of the front page is designated to information that is only relevant to a relatively small amount of people who are already members of this community - the forums. That means that if the first conclusion is to be believed, then the mobile version will likely have a significant amount of front page real estate dedicated to an aspect of the site that will be largely irrellevant to new comers. I know as little about programing as Machina, but I can imagine that it would be a pain in the ass to have to go back and revamp the mobile site later if the site layout ever had another major revamp, so it's probably the best idea long term to build the mobile site with any plans for the future of the main site in mind. The reason people check websites like these is because they regularly update with new information. The page refresh is that hook. That's difficult to do with a site that focuses on providing sales information, because that information can never be updated frequently enough to satisfy that refresh hook. It's just not feasable. This means that this hook needs to come from somewhere else, while still keeping that focus on the sales. I think that that hook should come from the articles, and that those should be the primary reason to refresh the site, but currently that hook is coming from the forums. Like I've implied, I don't think this is very sustainable, because it is by its nature inaccessable. Most of the hits any big website will get will come from people who are not members. Most people who read IGN probably aren't members, etc. This is because the format is so accessable and inclusive. The threads here are great, but they are not meant to be inclusive to outsiders, they are meant to be self serving to members. And that's fine, because that's how a forum absolutely should be, but I don't think that makes for a compelling reason for anyone who isn't part of that community to frequent the website. The hook primerally only works on people who are already members of the site, which is why it makes little sense to me why it gets such a dominant amount of screen real-estate, nearly half if you include the members only VGC Buddy, on the layout of the site. I can imagine that for anyone who isn't a member of VGC, navagating the site is a very alienating experience because so much of what is displayed is not relevant to them. Now obviously, I do think that members should have layout perks, so I don't really mind the idea of a VGC buddy, but when sites like Youtube incorperates that kind of functionality into the natural layout of the website already, I don't see why this can't be the case for VGC too. I think NintendoLife in particular has an extremely elegant layout, and I think that VGC would benefit astronimically from following a similar layout, but that would seem to make working on a mobile version of the site now almost counter intuitive, since that would almost certainly be based of the, in my opinion flawed, layout that is current VGC. As I've made clear in many posts here, I think that the front page layout shout almost exclusively focus on articles and sales numbers, with the forums being accessable through some sort of tab. This way the forums get a section where they have 100% Gaf-like screen real-estate, and the articles that are written for the site get the hits that they deserve, because they will become the primary focus. If it were up to me, 60% of the front page would be the articles, and 40% of the front page would be dedicated to the more static weekly hardware/software/preorder numbers. I would also have a small part of the header dedicated to the VGC subscription program thing, as that is definitely the kind of thing that won't be known about after the initial forum post other wise. This maximixes the amount of hits the articles get while keeping the site's focus on sales. This would become especially true since many of the articles written are written to interpret those more static sales numbers. Hopefully, as the site's traffic picked up due to this change, the revenue would naturally pick up, and that VGC would be able to afford more help in the form of writers and coders. That went on to become a big tangent, but the original questioned I planned to pose was this: What to you actually plan to achieve in making the mobile site? What layout, and maybe when do you plan to update/revamp the current VGC layout, if ever? Do you even think it needs to be revamped at all? What do you find to be the strengths of the layout the site currently has over a more traditional "games journalism" website layout? Maybe you do infact view VGC as more of a sales Neogaf with news articles on the side. Maybe you disagree with me and feel that this is the best format for the kind of information and engagement a sales site like this trives on. Or maybe you think that a full revamp of the site layout would be so far in the future that it isn't really worth setting up for and exploring right now when there are other more pressing matters to attend to first. I'd like to heat your thoughts. |
I haven't read the whole thing (I'm at work) but if I develop a mobile version, there's no way I'm adapting what is currently here to "make it work". It would be a mess and the end result would be disappointing for the amount of work involved. What I would do would be a brand new layout designed solely with mobile devices in mind.
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