Since VeloNews.com editor Steve Frothingham let the cat out of the bag on Twitter, I’ll follow his lead and post a link to the latest iteration of the website, velonews.competitor.com.
The latest redesign is a WordPress model, like my own humble site, only much more complex. And frankly, it’s gonna be something of a pain in the ass to administer until we get comfortable with the additional steps it demands of an editor trying to post a story with pictures. But that was the case with the changeover to the present site, too. We got used to it. Kinda. Sorta.
The new site remains a work in progress, but it’s nearly ready to launch. So if you have any thoughts, please send them to me and I’ll pass ’em along to Steve.
Mad Blog Media 
The first thing I saw was the headline “O’Grady leaves hospital after collapse scare”, and I thought, HUH? Just made me jump a little, but of course the most important O’Grady is just fine, as usual.
I had the same reaction when I saw the Stuart O’Grady story. Sent a spoof version to Patrick and Charles Pelkey regarding our own O’G. Now I’m watching my mailbox for pipe bombs…
Patrick,
Checked out the new site. Comments:
1. Like the place of honor accorded the rotating photo. Nice.
2. No left hand nav? WTF? VN site visitors aren’t your usual short-attention-span ADHD web cruisers, and your photo plan (see #1 above) takes care of them. I want to find what I want to find and the navigation on this site fails to deliver on “easy to find”. This is all the more important because of all the content VN is trying to shove in to the site. The current site has the same failing, and I wrote to you about it when it went live. Go back two revs and look at that structure.
3. Still no Rant. Is Frothingham really in touch with what readers want? Apparnently not.
4. Overall. Looks like you let some geek college programmer loose. The new site layout is a result of him saying “Wanna see what I can do?” Only a slight improvement in look and feel over the current site, and that only because of the prominent rotating photo.
Patrick,
I think it’s good. I didn’t have any difficulty surfing the site. However, I am just not into triathlon/marathon (really anything thon or ultra). Seeing the other publications on the VeloNews site reminds me that the folks at Competitor Group aren’t really into bike racing. Cycling is just one part of their business model. At least with the old site, the triathlon/marathon stuff is kind of discreet.
When it comes to marketing, I’m a huge proponent of helping the consumer ignore the man behind the curtain. Help the consumer believe there is a specific/deep connection. Don’t give the consumer an opportunity to lose focus or think the publication doesn’t have focus.
It’s great if a business successfully manages lots of different niches. However, from a marketing standpoint, don’t put it out there. Keep things separate and focused.
First, some dead links for “cleat position” and “saddle height” over on the right hand side under “Tech Answers”. The “more…” link worked, and I liked how the topics were presented, but it would nice if “Technical FAQ” itself could be searched without searching the whole site.
Second, I see Velonews.com going down a slippery slope that many other sites have long since gone down, which involves the complexity of their site. Being self employed, and having a lazy employee, means that I’m not loaded, and high speed internet is expensive while my dial up (yes, I said “dial up”) is free. The more a site relies on complicated graphics or video, the less I’m able to use it. Eventually I just give up and get my news elsewhere. I don’t have all day (literally, sometimes) to wait for a page to load. Maybe I’m in the minority here, or maybe the advertisers would just as soon not advertise to someone who doesn’t have the disposable income (I save my money for bike stuff!), but whatever the reason many sites seem to focus on flashy features that require lots and lots of ones and zeros.
WordPress eh? Let’s see. Subtle look changes, still familiar. Like the top banner, it’s placed tastefully and is a good size for selling. Like the top left photo thing & like the “Veloquote”, maybe find room for 2 or 3 of them?
Are youse guys going for any social network ties? Might as well harvest the clicks before Lands End, Pepsi, and Proctor & Gamble take over Facebook and Twitter.
Don’t care for the Competitor thing on the top, but it’s discreet & easy to ignore. Needs an weekly light editorial. I’m done.
Things been quiet here lately, Patrick. Everything OK up in Bibleburg?
Thanks for the feedback guys ! We wanted to keep Velo as close to the existing site as possible, but bring it on our WordPress platform our other sites are hosted on. Helps consolidate the effort our editors are putting in. Plus it also allows easy syndication to competitor.com, where you can customize the content well with stories from different sites, regions and topics. For those into several participation sports, we’d like competitor.com to be your one stop destination to find out all the news and results from the sports we do. The new platform also allows us to do some really cool stuff in the future, so stay tuned 😉
Thanks for all the feedback ! Things are still a work in progress, but we’re getting close to launch. Keep checking back, and sending us your feedback !
I like the site – not sure what Jon Paulos is talking about re: left hand nav bar -there wasn’t one on the previous iteration of vn.com? Too much nav just convolutes a site anyways. Like what they’ve done – a slight departure but maintained their core content offering with a couple of cool new features like the scrollable (word?) race calendar widget. Nice job boyz…