B5media has been lately in news for past many days. First they were funded, and few days back they came out with a new design on their homepage. John Evans of Syntagma had reviewed them the same day, when the new design was up. Though he gave them 9 out of 10 but guys at B5media and their friends didn’t seemed much pleased.
Anyways since everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Here’s my 2 cents.
B5media new design is clean, crisp and clear, but still nothing extraordinary special. Things could have been better.
B5media is void of ugly banners, clean CSS, quick scripts (especially their decision to use moo.fx light weighted Ajax script), but the overall weight of page including CSS, HTML, scripts is close to 400KB. That hurts for such a minimalist design.
They have two different Ajax effects one for opening up a new channel, and uploading new (STATIC) content in their discover buttons. They should have used same Ajax library. This would have some more bandwidth and would have made page loads more faster
One more thing regarding Ajax effects, they are loading the STATIC content in their discover panel (on top of the page) via external file. They could have better use hidden divs, instead of loading static content again and again from external file. If they would have loading DYNAMIC or CHANGING content via RSS or API for their Channels, using external files would have made more sense.
They should have randomized at least 3 or 4 channels; they have plenty of space for that. It would have improved the discoverability better. Still if they are only going after one channel, at least show us some more stories. Just three stories are not enough for a new member to get hooked.
One thing which is missing from new B5media is they have removed their list of bloggers which used to be present in previous version. That gave a sense of community to a new guy coming to b5media. In last version all the bloggers were listed in middle sidebar, and each blogger has it own profile uploaded. But it seems they have changed their vision from “blogger’s blogging network” to “global new media network”. I think a new trend is catching up where blog network are shying from label “blog networks” to something else.
One thing I agree with John Evans, they should have portalized their individual channel pages too. For eg, I am more interested in gadgets and new media. For me to bookmark individual channels makes more sense than book-marking the home page. B5media is one of the largest blog network, they should concentrate on building niche channels.
I do like the crisp effects of listing blogs only when a channel is clicked. But I have been seeing that for many months on their Technosailor blog. Infact I think technosailor is the best designed blog in the B5media Empire. The three top banners on Technosailor “Current, Conversation and Best” give a user more options to get to know what’s happening around the blog. B5media should have thought on the same lines.
I have read in BlogHerald Ben stating
“It’s similar to what 9rules does - it gives each member a chance to show up on the home page and drive a little bit more traffic to their blog.”
9rules also picks randomize members, but they do that in their own individual channel pages. Homepage has latest entries, and a header full of channels. That’s way way more discoverability. They don’t randomize channels or members on home page. This is a big difference.
Comments
Your points are well taken, especially on the AJAX. However, we have not removed our bloggers. They are on their own page.
That was a very good review Naveen. Haven’t seen you before, but you seems to understand blog networks well.
This blog looks quiet interesting, have included your RSS in my bloglines.
Keep up the good work.
Yes, bloggers are on their own page but now, they are not on the home page of b5media like in the previous design. The list of bloggers at the home page gives the new reader a feel of community. That’s what I wanted to say!