photo.net Home Page Brought To You By Canon

[robert_m3]

The photo.net home page looks like it is sponsored by Canon. I like the new design, but the

'Latest Articles' aren't particularly current, rarely change, and yet are given a significant piece

of the front page with a dominant top right position, taking up over a third of the page

before scrolling down.

 

To make it worse, the top five current articles are all 'Canon ...'

 

Can you not put the Photo Critique and Community sections in that place, and relegate the

Canon ads to further down the screen?

[mottershead]

The dominant position on a web page is generally the left, and the most dominant is the top left. The top left position on the page is the Photograph of the Week, and immediately underneath it, the Photo Critique and Community sections. So your preferred sections are already in the dominant position. The right column is not the dominant one. The "Latest Articles" are in fact the latest articles. Our most prolific writer, Bob Atkins, writes mainly on Canon cameras, which is why we have mainly Canon articles. Also, Canon has been producing more new cameras lately in the (D)SLR class, which tends to be our equipment focus.

[bobatkins]

It's my understanding that there are non-Canon reviews is "in the works", so they should displace some of the Canon items if and when they get published!

 

It's not a Canon bias on the part of photo.net, just that as a Canon shooter and primary content editor I own and have access mostly to Canon gear. I'd gladly review anything if it was made available to me, but if I have to review equipment that I buy and/or use myself, it's likely to be Canon.

 

It's not like photo.net has Nikon, Olympus, Minolta/Sony, Pentax/Samsung etc. banging on the door, pleading for reviews of their latest offerings and being rejected.

 

As Brian said, the latest articles are, in fact, the latest articles. At some other period of time they wouldn't have been "all Canon" and no doubt in the future they won't be "all Canon", though if I'm writing them it's likely that Canon will be well represented simply due to the fact that that's what I'm shooting with.

[saddleboy]

Bob, you're a wise man.... Canon all the way !

[robert_m3]

Thanks for the replies guys. I agree that top left is the most dominant part of the screen. But

when you're viewing in a 1024x768 window, the Photo Critique section is already starting to

disappear off the bottom of the screen and Community is completely hidden. It might be

worse this week with a portait orientation pow taking a lot of space vertically.

 

As well, the column for the reviews is the largest width-wise. It's pretty dominant.

[keith_laban]

My concern would be that the home page (certainly when viewed at 1024x768 without scrolling) tells the viewer little about what photo.net actually is and does. The POW has way too much importance and apart from this there are a couple of Canon reviews the like of which can be found all over the web.

 

If I were a casual viewer who had happened upon photo.net for the first time I�d be looking to see what is unique about the site and why I should stick around rather than simply move on to the next.

 

On the plus side the page is looking cleaner.

[elliott_doland]

Good observation. Just remember, making money is what this site is all about. They don't make money and the site is gone.

[mottershead]

I wouldn't say that making money is what the site is "all about", since if money-making were the paramount goal, most of the people involved in the site would be doing something more remunerative. photo.net is far from lucrative, although thanks to subscribers and advertisers, we are paying our way these days. Unlike a couple of years ago, our wives don't think we are idiots for spending all our time on the site.

 

However, your conclusion is basically correct: the site does have to make money in order to continue. The articles and equipment reviews are not ads, and their content is not paid for by anybody. Neither are the article teasers on the Home Page. But the reviews do include ads in the "Where to Buy" sections; and getting people to read our equipment reviews, to bookmark them, and to click through on the links in the Where to Buy sections of the articles if they decide to buy are important for the site revenue. That is one of the reasons that we have changed the home page design to highlight the equipment articles more.