I’m in the full swing of a massive (literally massive) overhaul of this blog. You can’t see it, but trust me it’s happening. I have a great designer working on the design concepts while I’ve been working on architecture. It’s really a massive undertaking. You’ll know soon enough, though I have no estimated time of arrival on the new Technosailor.
One of the aspects of the new architecture will be “views”. Views simply are different ways of representing the same thing. In other words, content is the same and how that content is presented is dependant on the readers interest.
Everyone is different and reading blogs, and even other websites, is determined by the kind of person and their interest level. For instance, most blogs are reverse-chronological in display. That is, most blogs are a series of entries ordered with the most recent entries at the top and as a reader progresses down the page, the entries get older. There is a comfort level in this for blog readers, and I have no intention of taking that view away. I’d likely lose readers who would suddenly become disoriented.
Another view I’ve been working on is what I call “the Conversation View”. The Conversation view is far more nebulous than the standard view. It is not linear in any way, and the focus of the content is on what people are talking about right now. This view hinges on the readers, while the standard view hinges on the blogger – me.
In the standard view, everything revolves around the blogger. When I write a post, it becomes the center of attention above the fold. In Conversation mode, when a commenter says something, that becomes the center of attention.
There will be more to this concept to come and I will post more at a later date. Just thought you might be interested in what’s going on behind the scenes at the moment. ;)
{ 1 trackback }
{ 6 comments }
Sounds very interesting, and I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
I’m most curious about how you’re going to handle these different views. Are you going to store a cookie on the users computer that sets their default view?
Yes, it will be cookie-based so the choice remains persistant. The weakness of this is that if you view on another computer, those preferences won’t remain and will have to be set again. I may think about having an option for users to register and then store their settings in the usermeta table. If I go that route, options set in usermeta will override cookie settings.
Sounds very interesting, and I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
I’m most curious about how you’re going to handle these different views. Are you going to store a cookie on the users computer that sets their default view?
Yes, it will be cookie-based so the choice remains persistant. The weakness of this is that if you view on another computer, those preferences won’t remain and will have to be set again. I may think about having an option for users to register and then store their settings in the usermeta table. If I go that route, options set in usermeta will override cookie settings.
I’m real interested to see how this turns out. It’s got me thinking about a few other ways to present a blog.
I’m real interested to see how this turns out. It’s got me thinking about a few other ways to present a blog.
Comments on this entry are closed.