DISQUS

Jonathan Nguyen · 1 year ago

Hi Steve, thanks for the tip. I was exploring magazine style themes and was hesitating. You've answered my question. :)

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

glad to be of help :)

robdiana · 1 year ago

Wow, now that I see your new theme, I realize how much was really changed. I like the new look better. I also think you are right about frequent updates and magazine-style themes. Thanks for doing the leg work for the rest of us.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

if my experience even benefits one blogger then it was worth it - thanks

Shey · 1 year ago

I think this theme works well for you Steven, looks great

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

thanks Shey

AdamSinger · 1 year ago

I like this new theme much more - the magazine style themes don't work well for single-author blogs. Your content always shines though Steve regardless of theme.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

thanks for kind words Adam - they are appreciated

Webomatica · 1 year ago

Gee Steven a few days ago I was about to fire you an email. I usually check out your posts via Google Reader (and hence the RSS feed) but I did check out WinExtra proper and found the front page kind of confusing. I was trying to find an old post you wrote and it was hard to do. So perhaps another problem with the magazine style also came down to basic usability.

Barry Welford · 1 year ago

I'm not sure magazine style themes even work well for magazines.

I think newspaper people have been producing printed newspapers for so long they think that automatically that's the right layout for online newspapers. If you watch the progression of their several redesigns, you'll see them simplifying and simplifying and simplifying.

I think they should all re-examine how people look at web pages and what works best in usability terms. As more effort goes into what is required for the mobile Web and smart devices, I think we'll see some interesting rethinking on all this as time goes on.

Good post, I enjoyed reading this.

Gary Mintchell · 1 year ago

My compete.com numbers for November took an unexplained dive, too. That despite another metric internal to my blog provider showed some unusually large numbers on some days. Compete may be the new alexa. I don't trust any of them.

Gorgeous · 1 year ago

Being a Cat, my attention span sucks at the best of times.

The Magazine Style theme confused me (not hard to do) so I am glad of the changes you've made.

Keep up the good work. :)

Rohit · 1 year ago

I think they are meant for team of bloggers because for an individual it becomes a difficult task to manage it. Nice tip.. thanks

Brett Nordquist · 1 year ago

Steve, I agree with your assessment of the magazine style theme. I've considered using it as well so your post was timely. I enjoy the simplicity of your current setup. There's something fresh each day I come to your blog. The Magazine style does look nice but it's not as reader friendly. Excellent post.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

thanks Brett :)

Denise · 1 year ago

Geez, you tell me this after I spent the weekend updating my blog to a magazine style? Well you couldn't have known that I'd be so foolish:)

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

I'm sorry Denise I'll try and do better with these helpful posts in the future :)

Bill Sanders · 1 year ago

So few people actual pay attention to what is driving their success (or failure) and even fewer are willing to share the lessons - especially the painful ones. Thanks for sharing the lesson Steve.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

you're more than welcome Bill. If even one blogger stops and really thinks twice about it before trying out a magazine style then my experience will have been worth it.

Mark Krynsky · 11 months ago

Good post Steven and timely for me. I'm currently working on an overhaul for 2 of my sites and really have done some thorough research on new themes to use. I'm assuming this post is when you switched to the Statement theme from BlogOhBlog. This is an awesome theme that also has made my shortlist and might be used as well. It works very well for your site.

StevenHodson · 11 months ago

glad the post was of help Mark and thanks for the good words

WebServ · 9 months ago

Love this post. You make a LOT of sense, and I hope that you rekindle the blogosphere's love for great design that's NOT magazine style.

It's highly overrated.