I’ve redesigned
“Finally,” Om Malik just told me after I told him about my redesigned blog that just went live. We were just on a panel discussion talking to Google’s sales team.
Some things you’ll notice: a prominent FriendFeed component. I’ve really become addicted to FriendFeed. It’s the best place to watch my interactions around the Internet. More and more of my time has been spent on places like Qik, Twitter, Google Reader, Seesmic, Upcoming, Flickr, YouTube, and commenting on other people’s blogs. In this redesign, done by a team at FastCompany’s offices in New York, we’ve featured many of those in my navigation bar too. UPDATE: Haewon Kye did the redesign and it’s getting mostly good reviews — more than 100 comments in about an hour on various services.
I’ve also added an advertising panel, so I’m sure that’ll start some discussion.
Sorry for being gone so much lately. Now you can see my calendar, and see just how busy my life has become. Plus, something about Twitter is more fun. Trying to say something in 140 characters does have its charms.
I’d love to know what you think. We’ll do tweaks over the next month or two as well.
What else should I add along the side?
Powered By 
April 30th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
hey robert
like the new look to the site. good job.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
sharp - i like. will refrain from suggesting additions though since my blog is currently the equivalent of a AMC Javelin that is being kept together by duct tape (apologies to you AMC Javelin enthusiasts out there)
April 30th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Very nice, mate! No matter how many online presences we acquire, it’s good to have a place called ‘home’ where they can all be linked, eh?.
I think the new look is great… to be honest, your previous design did nothing to bring me by regularly, I just kept getting updates at Twitter and RSS. Now I’ll stop by more often. :)
April 30th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Just testing to make sure comments still work.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
[...] Super blogger Robert Scoble, who has argued that having advertisements on blogs destroys trust, added advertisements to his blog today along with a redesign. At least it’s clear now who scratches [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Nice stuff, Robert! What are you using to create the FriendFeed component?
April 30th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Nice. Simple. Clean. I like it :D
April 30th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Would like to see Disqus comments… (as hooked as you are on all these other things I’m surprised to not see Disqus).
also.. is the seagate logo peeking up in the header not a bit much? Sponsorship is good… god bless it.. but in the header, as part of the design? Oi… not feeling that so much. hehehe
April 30th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Much cleaner, Robert.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Robert,
Already commented via friendfeed. You should add a special “Classic Mode” for your loyal readers who came to the site, so the blog can be seen in its old-school, ghetto, retro fashion. Or the easier way could be just change the title font and the header photos so we get that old picture of you in front of the tree or whatever, I already forgot! :)
That would be a distinctive way to honor the waybackness of the old design. Hard to get rid of old, comfortable shoes for shiny new ones.
@elliottng
April 30th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
@Ian.. FriendFeed offers this for everyone.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
looking good!
April 30th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Nice design! The friendfeed on the side is really useful
April 30th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Definitely an improvement! ;)
Kept it simple, clean and added a lot more of “you”!
I still can’t like FriendFeed as it just adds even more to my “information overload” so I’m just paying attention to Twitter (less exhaustively than before these days) and follow a bunch of feeds!
But nice redesign (at last!) ;)
Keep it up Scoble! ^^,
April 30th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Purdy! And looks good on the iPhone. ;-)
April 30th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Absolutely LOVE the friendfeed stream Robert. It i a great way of bringing together lots of content into one neat area.
Equally, you have struck a good balance between engaging video/image content and the actual blog posts.
My only criticism is that the seagate ad is a little TOO large (and the search box above it doesn’t match the width of the ad box)!
Still no link to http://blendingthemix.com though!
April 30th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
grrr…. I did not get to sneak this link in without the comment submitting… (my browsers fault, not the form’s fault…) anyway… sorry for the TP:
http://friendfeed.com/embed
April 30th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Looks great and worth the wait! (I’m a poet and I just didn’t know it!) :-D
April 30th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
[...] Original post by Robert Scoble [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
You dropped the Media 2.0 Workgroup badge man!
April 30th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
This is the first time I’ve been here. I have yet to visit Friend Feed, but will do so soon.
Feel free to visit and comment on any of my blogs…
http://www.bowlofcheese.com
http://www.thingstoworryabout.com
http://www.jeffcutler.com
The Things to Worry About blog is also open for submissions. Just leave a comment and I’ll post it as a worry.
Thanks,
Jeff Cutler
April 30th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Like the new design and especially the FriendFeed component.
I dont get to see the ad’s, AdBlockPlus removes all ad’s on Firefox.
Sidenote - If M$FT spends some time and adds AdBlock as a default setting on IE - How could that impact Google or Yahoo! You will see fewer clicks, because people wont see the ad’s
April 30th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I love the redesign man, good job.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Nothin’ wrong with makin money. I’m surprised you cared so much about your previous comments that you shouldn’t make money with your blog.
It hurts absolutely no one and it actually help some people. If you click the ad, you might actually be interested in the product. If you don’t click it, you still see it so the brand raises its awareness.
Now, overdoing it is a totally different story :P
April 30th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I am really liking the new design, only issue I have is I dislike the red “scobleizer” at the top. Just feels weird.
As far as what else should you add to the side, I’d say nothing It’s already packed full of almost to much stuff.
Otherwise the new design is really clean and well organized.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I gotta admit I’m surprised - I quite like the revamp. The only thing you are missing though IMO is Disqus for your comments.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I got a question, did you change your mind behind the message of this post of yours? I see ads on your refreshed blog design. Based on your post, should I trust you?
April 30th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Much better design.
The old one looked…well…dated. VERY dated. First time I visited, I honestly couldn’t believe an A-list blog would look so bad. LOL
April 30th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
The friendfeed badge rocks!
April 30th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
When I click on a link on FriendFeed, it is opening the page in the Iframe itself which looks bad.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I note that you have removed your phone number. On purpose? Not that I think you should list it by the way.
I like the redesign. Very clean. Very connected. Nice job.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Nice look, great widgets. But I miss teh ‘old skool’ look now.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Is orange text on a dark blue background with your face in it the cool new thing? See Chris Brogan: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/
April 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Much better than before, definitely. Good call on the FriendFeed widget.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Not bad. I mean- Nice. The sidebar a bit longer though.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
The new design looks great.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I like the new design, though, I’m not sure about the header… not because of the picture of course, hmm.. think it’s a bit of an old school design.
Other than that, everything pretty clean and cool.
Congrats
Ian, try this one: http://friendfeed.com/embed
April 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Looks great - I actually just added your RSS yesterday (late adopter on that one!), and I was shocked that such a huge site was still stuck in the 90’s - welcome to the two-dot-oh!
I’m with Paul on the advertising size and alignment - otherwise everything looks great; love the friendfeed action
April 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Funny that you’ve redesigned and put ads on now that you hardly blog any more and your audience here (if not on Twitter, Facebook, Friend Feed, etc.) must surely have dropped.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Yes, I am going to add Disqus, or wait for WordPress.com to update their comments functionality. I love that Disqus comments show up on FriendFeed. That’ll have to come in a while, though.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Adblock Plus makes this site look better.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Robert, about freaking time. Your old web site hurt my eyes.
I like this design, nice and clean. FF sidebar looking good too!
April 30th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I prefer the friendfeed at the top on the sidebar to get a quick glance without scrolling to the bottom, I am sure others expect the same too.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Better choice in fonts and still a great read on the phone and really like the RSS subscribe button location. Excellent redesign.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I like the new design Robert. Happy to see you are finally monetizing yourself with some ads.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Looks good!!
April 30th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Looking good!! Even though TC just mentioned your a bit of a Sell Out, I think the advert you have works well…
Using FF though the Photos and about, appear below the submit comment button.. Perhaps its my 125% DPI setting on WinXP (UPDATE — yep, quick check and it went back up)
Any chance of making the template “Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License” for other bloggers???
April 30th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I clicked on the big header graphic on top expecting to be taken from the permalink to the homepage, but had to click on the scobleizer logo… perhaps accept clicks on both?
April 30th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Not sure I like it… I mean.. it’s almost TOO busy now… I’d drop the mug from the banner, I like the scobleizer logo though. Move the picture to the right and make it smaller…. move the about to the top of the bar, make the bar thinner, takes up too much content now. Not too bad though :)
April 30th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Loads kind of slow. And where’s the OpenID for comments? ;-)
Other than that, it looks good. I like the design.
Are you part of “Mansueto Digital Network” now? I saw that in the footer, and was trying to figure out what it has to do with anything. Parent company for FastCompany?
April 30th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
The Scobleizer logo is great. The photo is one we’ve seen before, only bigger! The right-side links are very professional and clean. I can see getting used to this quick.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
This is nice! The whole thing flows very well and feels intuitive. Great job!
April 30th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I like it. No, wait… it needs a tree. Somewhere. Yup, all suck without a tree.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I love the new design. Much more user friendly, socially oriented and definitely more pleasing to the eye.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Sweet design. I dig the Friendfeed widget!!!!!
April 30th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Congratulations Robert,
The site looks clean, readable and has lots of extra features to follow you.
Looking forward to the new stories
April 30th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Looks good. I like the simple design.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
The friendfeed link part of your comment section does not display correctly if you have a friendfeed acct. It tries to open your friendfeed account within the little window. Also, how about change your picture to one that shows you with hand saying come here.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Honestly I do not like the design. But the friend feed think is pretty slick.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
A little too wide, and the banner’s a little too tall, but otherwise, it’s one of the best redesigns I’ve seen (usually when a blog updates its look, it goes for heavier/busier, but yours is surprisingly clean and laid out quite well)
April 30th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Robert, it’s nice and clean, I like it.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I haven’t tried to kick the tires, but I do like it.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
nice job!
April 30th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I like the redesign better than the old look. The old one was boring and lacking color. This looks better.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
The elegance is in the simplicity.
Based on your interest in friendfeed - I will definitely have to check it out.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Will you share your template with the community? Obviously strip out the personalized elements. Really clean and I dig the plugins.
Just a thought. Call it the Scoble and put a link to your blog on it. :)
April 30th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Outstanding!
April 30th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Either the designers totally ignored SEO, good IA and semantic markup, or they made it look sloppy to disguise the very obvious attempt to suck as much juice out of your blog to their sites as possible.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Welcome to the web! I hope you will enjoy blogging as much as I have. By the way, you may want to remove advertising from your blog because it may make you look like you might be blogging for money. Your readers will want to trust what you say. But either way, your blog looks nice. And don’t forget: blog from the heart and all will be well.
- Bricktash
April 30th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
ARGH!!! PLEASE! Get rid of Snap! It’s the biggest and most annoying piece of shit on the web. Everything else is awesome with the redesign, i really like it. But Snap? @#$$@##%$ Ditch it as fast as you can. Please.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Part of me misses the old-school, retro vibe of the previous incarnation of this site. It was almost like a throw-back to the good old days of the web. Anyway, great job with the redesign. Maybe you could revert back for special occasions. How some sports teams sometime pull out the throwback jerseys!
April 30th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Robert,
site looks fine, but something disturbing about the picture. Is your hand really that small or do you just have a HUGE head !
Dib.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
hi robert- i like the new look especially the new banner but per my twitter message earlier you should semantic-ize your site.
My suggestion is what i did is to start with a simple addition of rel=me on the submenu items like this on my LinkedIn link on my blog:
LinkedIn
so your Twitter link would be
Twitter Feed
More info on rel=me including a quick video overview here:
http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-me
i am new at this and hope to be ’schooled’ today at our DataPortability Project meetup where our topic is our new ‘Do It Yourself’ project and the first project which will revolve around rel=me. More info here: http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-public/browse_thread/thread/3dba84b413e10f3e
Some of us have been having a lot of interesting discussions around the use, so i think our conversation will be very interesting and productive this evening.
We will publish what we learn back into the community and hope that this project can involve both ‘users’ like you and me as well as ‘developers’ working on larger sites in order to identity and support technologies that will enable Data Portability.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
ha it made the links - links how smart.
here is what they look like
a href=”http://www.linkedin.com/in/danielabarbosa”rel=”me”> LinkedIn
a href=”http://www.twitter.com/scobleizer”rel=”me”>Twitter Feed
April 30th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Hey Robert, you should set your post’s CSS line-height to 130%-150%. It would make the text a bit easier to read.
Other than that it looks like a good time.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
The only thing I really dislike is the subtle subliminal ad for seagate behind your scobleizer logo. Its the Seagate logo only turned inside out. Now that is pretty ridiculous.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Wow! Looks great. I am jealous. But not very. You deserve it.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I think it looks great Robert. Much easier on the eyes than the old one.
And the ad doesn’t bother me a bit. I appreciate what you share through your work. And as a fellow parent of small ones, I know diapers ain’t cheap.
Enjoy the facelift!
-Pam
April 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Dude - it was about time for a redesign. New site looks much better.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Looking good. It’s about time you took your name brand to the next level. GigOm is a great example to follow.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Looks very nice, much better than the old style. Few issues with the FF panel but that will get sorted. Good work.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Nice, but I miss the picture of you and the tree. Man, I love that tree..
April 30th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
im too lazy to read all the comments to see if anyone else noted this, BUT when you click a link in your Friend Feed, well it sucks. click the “## more coments” and it open a panel in the iframe or div or whatever it is… Click the Twitter link and it opens your Twitter page in the same iframe or div… suxor.
your team needs to add that target frame crap.
that and personally i dont care for the picture of you. what’s the deal are you telling Rocky where to take the tripod to set it up? i think you should opt for more of a pink chin on your fists look ;)
April 30th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Robert.
I LOVE the new design. The friend feed widget is a nice touch.
I think the ads are fine! Keep up the great work. Cheers!
Rodney
April 30th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
it is unfair that wordpress.com allows you Robert to publish banners but others cant, even if they would like to pay
April 30th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
So your website went from butt-ugly to really nice looking, and that means you sold out? Meh, give me the sold-out Scoble site anyday.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Very nice, very nice.
Comic strip blogger: Scoble is often a test bed for testing of new technology. Just wait, you’ll probably be able to do it as well pretty soon.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Robert,
Good job on the new design. I love the friendfeed stream.
Mauricio
April 30th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Man, you REALLY like that picture holding the camera and pointing at me :-)
Anyway, congrats, I like it. Let’s just hope the meat in the sandwich also continues as juicy as usual :-)
April 30th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
@Comic Strip Blogger:
Check out this link for the WordPress VIP Program: http://wordpress.com/vip-hosting/
One of the perks is you get to redesign your theme and can also put up your own ads.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Can I get the same?
April 30th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Hey, Scoble, what happened to the Snap Shots? I saw them at Web 2.0 and was blown away by how much cooler it can be than the way TechCrunch uses it. Just because one whiner complains, you take it down? Puhleeze! Let the whiner turn it off!!
April 30th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
We just fixed the FriendFeed widget bug you guys were seeing. Let me know if you see anything else!
Paul Maiorana
Director, Technology - Fast Company
April 30th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Robert,
Just tried to click a link in the FriendFeed box, an item you shared in Google Reader, and it opened the page in a small frame within this page. Shouldn’t it launch a new tab or browser window?
April 30th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Looks great, Robert! One more vote for Disqus. One additonal advantage of adding Disqus: if someone reads your blog in Pulse and comments there, the comment will also come back here!
(Another Joseph Smarr project.) :)
http://blog.plaxo.com/archives/2008/04/sharing_the_dis.html
April 30th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Robert,
I like the new design. But one kinda simple item - you might want to add your name back to the title of the page / header. Yes, we know you, Robert Scoble = scobleizer but why not remind everyone?
Also, not sure if you can do this with wordpress or not but one feature I really like at TechCrunch in their comments is that the TC authors comments are colored differently from everyone else - I’d suggest seeing if that is possible (so your comments and any future guest posters if any - perhaps Rocky’s comments for example, might be highlighted differently from everyone else’s and stand out a bit)
Also re advertising - I may unique here (indeed full disclosure, this is a core part of my new company, Nearness Function) but I personally think multiple brands/sponsors is better for everyone involved than a single sponsor. Yes, it can (potentially) raise more conflicts, but it also serves to separate you a bit from any one sponsor. The price any one sponsor might pay may be less than the likely high cost Seagate is paying now but I’d guess the aggregate is higher. (for both good and perhaps ill think Nascar here - beyond the excess of the sponsors logos plastered everywhere, there is also a strong degree of loyalty to the sponsors from the fans of a given driver in no small part because such sponsorships are seen as both key to success and as long term commitments - not short fads but quite literally investments in terms of usually many years)
But overall glad to see the design shifts and look forward to seeing how it all settles down!
Shannon
April 30th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Viewing from my iPhone, looks great. Takes a while to load on edge with such heavy graphics and such… But thats AT&T’s fault.
Keep up the good work & good for u selling out!
@MoCheeks
April 30th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Yeh, thats a cool one. No jazzy stuff. I like the simplicity of the design. Iam sure micheal got u on the ad part. Who cares! as long as the reader love what u say, i dont think its that big of a deal. You just rock and love reading some of ur articles. Keep up the great work
Cheers,
omfut
April 30th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
That old look had kind of become your style to me Robert. Not sure I can get used to all these colours :) I do like the Friend feed though. Guessing we’ll be seeing that all over the web in no time…
April 30th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
now here is better… just go on like that.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Clean and Simple design, I like it!
:)
MattG
April 30th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Nice job. I like it.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Robert, I really like your new design, and the FriendFeed widget is great. I’ve thought about putting FriendFeed on my blogs (I have Tumblr, Twitter, and other feeds on them now), so I think you’re setting a good example by doing it. I also appreciate the links to your calendars and other main socnets.
Selling out? Aw, come on—since when is good design and a well thought-out UI selling out? That’s always appropriate—it’s attitude, not aesthetics. Your community verifies your integrity.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I think the best part of the redesign is that the posts are somehow easier to read. The whole thing is more functional.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Different and better IMHO.
Please, please don’t install Disqus.
My Disqus powered comments are working fine and you already have 103 comments on this post alone.
The addition of your blog would probably bring the Disqus infrastructure to its knees. If you insist, maybe ask for a dedicated server and pay for a VIP service :-)
April 30th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
[...] Congrats to Scobleizer on finally selling out. It’ll put Milan through college. [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Nice redesign!
April 30th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Looks great! I think you were due for a change! Love what you do… keep it up.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
[...] Coincidentally, a few hours before Scoble redesigned his blog, I was admiring his persistence in sticking to old school white minimalism. I even [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Great design, Robert. Very inspirational. Clean, clear, sharp.
Also like your robotic right arm with the camera attachment. ;)
April 30th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Love it, nice and fresh, picture a lot better, love the ad, ads are good, getting paid is good.
On the side could be other blogs you recommend maybe or people on Twitter you like to follow, and you could rotate it.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
sell out.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Funny tweet from Michael Arrington http://twitter.com/TechCrunch/statuses/800803580
April 30th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
The FriendFeed box is a nice touch. I recently added it to my main blog, above my Twitter box.
Regarding the comments at TechCrunch (with an ad at the very top, it should be noted), small ads do not bother me that much, or cause me to doubt someone’s credibility. The ads that drive me up the wall are the ones on InfoWorld, in which the slightest click on the corner of the ad results in an ad displaying over the entire page, blocking the content that you want to read.
But different people use different designs. I like Dave Winer’s blog design, and feel that it’s fitting for his blog. Did you notice that he uses Disqus for comments now? :)
April 30th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
It’s not “selling out,” it’s “cashing in.” Playing blog diva is a full-time job. Right, Scobie?
April 30th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Viewing on my iPhone & the site looks good! It loads rather slow with all the graphics and such… but thats AT&T’s fault I guess.
Keep up the great work & good for you for selling out!
:-)
@MoCheeks
April 30th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
It looks great!
April 30th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Fantastic, Robert! Loving the new look.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Much easier to read, I’ll say that. Can’t wait to hear the John Kerry-esque explanation of the ads given your past position.
Don’t know which picture is worse: the Teletubby Scoble, or the “Look at me! I’m taking High School A-V” Scoble picture.
BTW, it’s not polite to point :-)
April 30th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
hi Robert, we emailed you last week about the photo walking group - can you point us in the direction to sign up for that? thx
April 30th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Well Scoble - it looks good! I like the style. What I like even more is the Seagate advertising! LOL! I guess it was time for you to take on the bazar and sell it all! LOL!
April 30th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Glad to see you redesigned, but man…Seagate’s all over this place. I especially think the inverted and inside-out Seagate logo in your banner has to go.
BTW: Fast Company is awesome! The mag is great.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Congratulations on the redesign. It looks fabulous, IMO. Between Scoble and Arrington, they are going to make each other rich (at least in traffic) with all the “controversy”. Hmmmm. That said, they are two of the hardest working individuals anywhere. Robert is genuinely kind to people across the board. I like that.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I just redesigned mine too, though I suspect you know a hell of a lot more about these things than me. Still, despite it having been as easy as falling off a log for me (relative Newbie that I am, and using the super-simple easy-peesy app that I did), I think she’s a-looking pretty sharp, and certainly better than before (though there is some code mucked up in one place, gotta fix that somehow).
Check ‘er out at http://adsensestrategiesadsense.wordpress.com
April 30th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Robert - congratulations on the design. Very light and friendly! A nice improvement from your last design. :)
April 30th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
“UPDATE: TechCrunch says my sell out is complete”
Don’t you listen to them Robert. TechCrunch is dead wrong! I’m sure your sell out is only just beginning.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Hey, good stuff! I like it.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Hey Robert, looks pretty good! Couple things though.
1. There should be more posts on the first homepage, there is a setting somewhere in wordpress for this. That way people can get a better idea of the different content without having to go through archives.
2. Logo is good, but not liking the search bar design. And Subscribe should be vertically centered with the feed icon maybe.
Best, Ethan
April 30th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
It looks nice. It really does. It’s just not Scoble. Oh well. As long as you like it…. that’s what counts.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Nice change! Portrait mode on a Tablet PC forces a scroll to the right. Maybe this can be fixed in any patches or changes to the design.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
[...] I’ve redesigned :: Scobleizer - the world must becoming to an end. Robert has had his long standing blog redesigned and gawd forbid he has ads on it. Will wonders never cease. [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Nice one Robert, the new design is slick and suits your higher production quality work at FastCompany. Don’t worry about being a sell out, people will love you and hate you either way. The Friendfeed and FastCompanyTV widgets are cool too. Out with the old and in the with the new. Best regards!
April 30th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Nice layout Robert.I love your blog and with this redesign may be there are more reasons to visit your page.
For google reader addicts like me, it’s only the content tat matters :D
April 30th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Why is so against you? I don’t understand lol. Btw love the new design!!!!!
April 30th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
The design is great. I’m a little disappointed that the Fast Company team didn’t use Drupal for your site like they did for theirs. It would have been great to have more community features like their site.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Looks great, really.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Hi robert,
Great redesign. I really love the freind feed. But it only shows the last 3-4 items. It would be great if there were a scroll bar so that the last 15-20 items could be seen.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I’d say you’re missing a link to your Qik page from the sidebar.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
[...] Robert Scoble has a newly designed blog and the new design includes a prominent FriendFeed [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Robert, Nice job on your site.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:08 am
Excellent Robert - nice work. Nice and clean. Well done.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:20 am
This looks really good.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:05 am
good stuff! and about time too! :))
btw: I dont like how friendfeed doesn’t pick up the author’s name of a post. It’s just “posted a blog post…” - tested with a feed containing the author tag. still didn’t work.
anyway. great stuff! You were looking a bit young in the old pic! lol
looking forward to showing you what I’ve been working on - but I’m still sorting code for what I call the ’scobleizer effect’ :)) heh - hey! you’re a feature!
May 1st, 2008 at 3:27 am
alot better :P
May 1st, 2008 at 4:00 am
Presumably Haewon Kye knows how “text size” works (or doesn’t) in Internet Explorer. So presumably there are no longer enough Internet Explorer users to bother about…. ;-)
May 1st, 2008 at 5:08 am
Looks great. Love the FriendFeed stream on there. Also with Adblock plus in Firefox the ads are nuked as well. The ads do not bother me because I will NEVER see them.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:27 am
[...] it had to happen sooner or later, as there was pressure on Robert Scoble to redesign his web site from the pristine almost dull site he had before, to the spanky web 2.0 ish high color web site. [...]
May 1st, 2008 at 6:14 am
Dude, you’ve gone Hollywood.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:21 am
I’m really liking the re-design good job!
http://www.clayton-nichols.com
May 1st, 2008 at 7:42 am
So is the wide format blog the “HD” of blogging templates? :)
Nice FriendFeed widget - didn’t realize it was available. Learn something new every day!
BTW - for those of you with a more enterprise than personal slant, our quarterly research topic for Q1 was Enterprise 2.0 - go get a free copy at http://www.aiim.org/enterprise20 - pushing 1000 downloads as of now.
Cheers,
Dan
May 1st, 2008 at 7:45 am
Wow… It’s totally different.. Threw me off this morning.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:59 am
@mitch - are you kidding with that POV on ads on this blog? There are plenty of commercial places on the web for people to “click and learn something”. And as far as raising a brands awareness, that’s best left to sites that aren’t expected to be objective.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:04 am
[...] big news on the blogsphere today is the redesign of Robert Scoble’s Scobleizer blog and the fact that he now has advertising on his site despite the fact that he has [...]
May 1st, 2008 at 9:11 am
Nice .. great and tidy use of sidebar widget-space, providing useful links without overwhelming the reader! Hmmm… although you’ll obviously have your own ‘big stats’ tools a la Google Analytics, WordPress blogstats, etc., I’d be interested in your thoughts about a compact ’show em all at a glance’ type of geo-hit-counter widget for your sidebar, namely our own ClustrMaps. Despite the shameless self-promotion of this comment, I actually think it addresses a different kind of need (compared to a standard counter widget), and would be in keeping with your new useful-without-overwhelming approach: ClustrMaps shows the rest of your readership where everyone else is, in the most scalable and compact format of any comparable widget now available. Anyway, shout if it’s of interest - you can obviously have the no-ads-and-better-maps version, ClustrMaps+, which we can set up for you.
Cheers
-Marc
May 1st, 2008 at 10:11 am
Your “about” section is not only too professional, but its moving into the realm of ‘corporate speak’.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:37 am
JP Adams: funny, it’s the same wording I’ve had for the past three years.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:53 am
Love the redesign. Navigation is nice a easy. Don’t listen to the haters about the ad space. Makes perfect sense to me.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[...] Raanan Bar-Cohen Robert Scoble’s blog, Scobleizer.com, has been completely redesigned: [...]
May 1st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
[...] Scoble unveiled his new blog theme and the resounding feedback among the 150+ comments was positive… and how’d he create [...]
May 1st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
[...] 1, 2008 · No Comments Yesterday, Robert Scoble announced the redesign of his blog. That’s awesome. My question is: if he wouldn’t have said anything, how many people [...]
May 1st, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I miss the guy next to the tree!
This new design is slick and very polished, but I miss the turn-of-the-century look of your old blog - it was so delightfully simple.
See you on FF!
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:03 am
Although I would like to shout out ’sell out, sell out!’. I refrain as I see that putting an ad does not make a difference and I don’t really care but it but it does seem a bit hypocritical (As you were agaisnt it before and made big posts on it) and maybe a sign that you were better off before than today due to a few failed business decisions you made in the past.
Well like the redesign and hope all is going well but I do have one objection. I can see that you have a seagate advert but why the seagate swirls behind your name in the banner? I hope you get some more individuality. If you want a free logo made I wouldn’t mind helping you make a kick ass one.
later!
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:12 am
Believe it or not, the swirls were an accident and we’re redesigning the banner to take them out.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:19 am
Looks really good, Robert. Congratulations on a new, smooth design.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:45 am
The site looks much better. Good job. Cheers
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:17 am
Hey Robert,
Congrats on the redesign. It’s a perfect opportunity to add a “Disclosure Policy” link to the bottom/side of your blog, linking to a brief statement of any conflicts and you policy of disclosing them for readers.
For example, if you blog about a Seagate competitor, do you plan to remind the reader that Seagate is a sponsor of yours? What if you blog about a competitor to FastCompany, who isn’t a cash sponsor of yours but you definitely have the potential for financial gain from FastCompany success?
It’s easy to think that everyone already knows your interests/conflicts/policy, but the reality is new people stumble across your blog daily and have no idea. Like Privacy Policy links, a Disclosure Policy link on every page provides old/new readers a standard phrase to look for and build trust with the publisher they are reading.
You can create a basic DP at http://www.disclosurepolicy.org/ or you can create your own. Whaddya say?
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:54 am
A disclosure policy is smart. I plan to disclose every bias I have.
The problem isn’t what happens when I blog about a Seagate competitor. If there was a real bias I just wouldn’t blog about the competitor at all.
But, I’d love to help my readers figure out my conflicts in an easier way.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
it looks good..too bad we can say the same about the content
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 am
The design looks great and loved the font. Any reason for avoiding the navigation menu in the header ?
Interesting to see that no pages are hosted locally except “archives” !
Also loved the way you’ve linked “About Me” linking to Wikipedia only that the wikipedia page needs to be updated (It doesn’t say that you are currently working in FastCompany :) )
May 6th, 2008 at 3:15 am
[...] that having advertisements on blogs destroys trust, appears to be no longer content with… adding advertisements to his blog. Now he’s experimenting with Twittering adverts for perennial [...]
May 6th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Glad to hear it Robert!
I just used the Seagate competitor as one example. There are a variety of scenarios where you might blog or converse with a spectrum of conflict involved, including financial and non-financial gain/loss. In fact, the Disclosure Policy at your blog is a great one-stop place for readers to learn about your conflicts and disclosure practices across a variety of services. Imagine including in your DP how you intend to disclose on your blog, comments elsewhere, Twitter, FriendFeed and others with less real estate involved — the emergence of such a cross-service standard would move the whole transparency topic into the post-blog era.
I care less about what your specific policy is — that’s a personal decision. I do, however, believe that posting a DP and linking from every page with anchor text “Disclosure Policy” will help users — and possibly encourage other social media early adopters to do the same.
Therefore, my follow-up question is: Did you intend your comment above “I plan to disclose every bias I have.” to be your Disclosure Policy or do you plan to create a specific Disclosure Policy page, linking it from your footer or sidebars? My suggestion was the latter…
Given your integration of blogs, twitter, friendfeed and the like in this redesign; I’d love to highlight your Disclosure Policy as one example of how to increase transparency across services.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
[...] 今回は自ブログに広告を追加しただけでは飽き足らず、万年スポンサーSeagateの広告をTwitterにまで実験的に出し始めたというニュースだ。 [...]
May 7th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Finally, this day has come!