Comments on: The Accidental CEO’s Tale

By: Vulgorilla

Vulgorilla — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:20:08 +0000

Congrats, Roger – Well deserved recognition!!

By: JFarreast

JFarreast — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 23:06:47 +0000

Funny. When I looked at the site for the first time yesterday my first thought was Thats a great site” so just now I looked at it again and felt the same way. Then went to Debka and found it to be too busy – I find all that movement to be distracting. But then, who am I. . .

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:21:42 +0000

Just to make my suggestion clearer regarding redesigning the vertical navigation bar to appear horizontally instead. You simply have the same main menu items, with the sub-items in a pull down menu that appears as you roll over the main item. For example, in your horizontal navigation bar, you would have an item called News, and when the user rolled over it with the mouse, the sub-items for that menu would appear (United States, World, Politics,etc). This is the norm, and what users expect. You can rip off the code from Front Page, or just gin this kind of navigation bar up with javascript. Charles is a wiz with web programming, he should be able to do this easy.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:08:42 +0000

In line with dougf’s comment, I have some specific suggestions. Number one, it is the content that is supposed to be innovative, NOT the appearance. The site is wasting valuable real estate with the vertical naviagation bar on the left hand side. That space could be used for advertising, or something more content oriented. I suggest you redesign that section, and put the links in a horizontal navigation bar, like most professional websites do. You guys need to get a book on best GUI practices. I know Microsoft puts one out. Or just emulate a tried and proven site. A very good model to emulate, imo, is Debka. Debka’s newpaper format is appealing visually, and it is what former newspaper readers are used to. The beauty, however, is that for the rest of the story, one doesn’t have to physically flip to some back page, but just click to see the rest of the story. I want you guys to suceed. The visual right now is a bomb. Get charles hot and get that appearance fixed.

By: Orson2

Orson2 — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 19:35:25 +0000

Congratulations, exhausted accidental CEO – Roger Simon!

It’s been a long time coming, and it’s well ddeserved. You’ve got our eyeballs. But we know you’ve got so much to attend to…

so we’ll let you go.

-Orson

By: dougf

dougf — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 19:31:52 +0000

One suggestion, though: The main page is *way* too cluttered…

I don’t know if that is exactly what is jarring about the new site, but I do think it is not well formatted. It falls into the category of ” I don’t know much about art but I know what I like”. What exactly is the home page supposed to do when the unsuspecting viewer happens upon it?

Just for me ,it needs to jump out and grab the viewer and it does not. It just lays there and extends a rather indifferent invitation to the casual interloper to maybe drop in, for some unexplained reason. The whole culture has ADD, websites should take that into account.

For me there is not enough visual impact for a major new entry to the information stream.

I REALLY want this to work so that a viable ‘alternative’ to our current media might soon arise, but I really don’t see what this current formulation really offers. It’s probably just me, but I don’t get it .

By: LouMinatti

LouMinatti — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 12:24:40 +0000

I hope you, Glenn, Charles, and everyone else get stinkin’ rich doing this, Roger. OSM is just another nail in the MSM coffin, and I couldn’t be happier to see it.

By: Syl

Syl — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 03:44:52 +0000

Congratulations!!!!!

It’s finally here! Absolutely stupendous work! And how exciting to be making the future instead of just watching it unfold!

I salute you Roger! (and, of course, everyone else involved too)

By: notthisgirl

notthisgirl — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 01:13:23 +0000

Congratulations Roger.

After being introduced to blogs in late 2002, and the stepping out (if you will) that Bernie Goldberg did – I wondered whether we’d finally hit upon a new source of truth in media. Especially over the last 18 months reading your blog and others; I find this all very exciting, and the answer to my hope.

By: Patrick Tyson

Patrick Tyson — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 00:39:21 +0000

Out of curiosity…

Via the link, I listened to Judith Miller’s talk, which, btw, left me with a much more favorable opinion of her, and then heard Roger (right?) say there were about ten minutes for questions before Senator Cornyn was due via satellite and then…dead air. I moved on to something else after a couple of minutes. Did I miss anything?

Also, Senator Cornyn, IIRC, talked about the blogosphere in generally positive terms during the Roberts hearings. I remember correctly.

http://volokh.com/posts/1126652282.shtml