The homepage is something I think I can live with, while I prefered the other one, but the message boards are brutal. Way to hard to read and it takes forever to load now with all the ads. I used to like letsrun because it loaded quickly! I hope that in a few days it goes back to normal...
Philosophically, I love that LR is finding new revenue streams. Although the ad is a little overwhelming, I can deal with it. The boards are a little hard to read, but if it is temporary I am OK with it.
I also like the Bolt crest, and would consider buying a tee. Not sure how it would look on an older (45 y.o.+ white) distance guy!
"Custon Uniform" in the upper right part of the main forum page. So fitting.
I'm all for clever, interesting marketing, but I hope you realize you've reduced your content area to only 1/3 of the screen. I would imagine it's not a huge deal on a desktop monitor, but on a note book screen it's quite hard to deal with. Perhaps you should reverse the ratios and only let them advertise on 1/3 of the screen.
OUT-"FRICKIN"-STANDING! I LOVE IT...GO WITH AND DONT LOOK BACK!
1/3 content and 2/3 ads? Come on.. I don't block the ads on this site to support it, but this is ridiculous. At least let us read the forums without searching for the narrow columns of text within the billboard.
Complete crap. I'm on a very fast connection and it took 1 min to load the home page, 1 min to get to the forum, 1 min (and 2 tries) to get to the reply page to write this.
It's simply unusable, regardless of how it looks. I'll check back in a few days to see if this has gone away. Puma, you probably wasted your money!
In agreement with most here, won't be back for a few days, sorry Wejo. I have been an avid fan of letsrun for years, but this is too much. It's too hard to read the little narrow column of text.
pretty slick design as some others have said...
wejo wrote:
No, Puma did not buy letsrun.com.
They did choose to advertise extensively on LetsRun.com in promotion with the launch of the new Bolt line and Usain Bolt running in the Paris Diamond League meet.
We encouraged them to try and do something really cool. We have the most influential, knowledgeable runners on LetsRun.com and there is a lot of value in reaching out and engaging with you all. Matt Taylor (a college teammate of mine at Yale, and the guy who did chasingtradition.com, chasingkimbia.com, and chasingbolt.com) is the.
Weldon, this is horrible. If you think that outing the webmaster is going to be a feather in his cap, you're wrong. This should be nominated for bad web design. Not only bad, but is slows the website down.
http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/#axzz0tlSlyJbGDont like it. As many have said the advertising banner is way to big. I am fine with advertising but shouldnt change the site this much.
To be honest I thought it was an April fools joke or something!
The first thing I thought when seeing the website was that you did a great job with the design, but the main frame is a bit too narrow. I agree that the percentage of advertising space should be reduced a bit to see more of the actual page content--however I did click through each of the ads and then continued to the letsrun page to view the rest.
I would imagine that the average reader would not actually wear the Bolt kit (I'm laughing imagining my skinny red headed 50 year old coach in that), but the ads do give the brand a lot of attention.
I think more advertising like this would be good for the site...maybe not THIS much all the time, but once every couple of months wouldn't be so bad.
Also, if you do ultimately change the look and feel of the message board, you should consider adding an 'incognito mode' so people can message all day at work.
The new look is too busy, the message column too narrow, and the pages load TOO SLOWLY.
This is really bad. What can I say that hasn't been said already. Loads too slow, too much advertising, too narrow, took me about 5 minutes to make a post. This might be my last visit to LetsRun.
Slow site is sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwww.
Seriously I'm pretty sure this site couldn't get any slower without imploding. Genuinely awful. This site looked like it popped out of a time machine from 1992 before, and by the time this message finishes posting to the board, it probably will actually be eighteen years later. I'll be back when you dinosaurs realize how bad this is and fix it. Until then...
This is bad. Aside from the horrible look, it is painfully slow. I don't have the time or patience to wait for these pages to load.
long sox wrote:
It might
be better
if they
changed the
framing to
allow a little
more width for
messageboard
text, as this
is quite hard
to read.
this is
the
correct answer,
the format
SUX!,
Please change.
SELFISH wrote:
Everyone realizes that the Letsrun owners and operators cannot work for free, right? they need advertising and sponsorship to keep this site alive and running well. Puma obviously made a great offer to advertise on letsrun for a few days and the offer was accepted. this is not a permanent change to the site, so suck it up for a few days. appreciate all the phenomenal coverage that this site provides and quit your bitching.
If this is NOT a permanent change then I can live with it a few days, no big deal but if it does become permanent will need changes. Don't mind the advertisement or logo but it needs to be downsized or put to the one side and bring back the regular size message board. Either that, I will need to buy 3-D glasses. Dang, it was already tough with the bifocals!
It doesn't render correctly on my iPad. Its a mess
Wejo,
I'm on this sight 5 days a week (on average). First off, thank you for always asking us our oppinion on any changes to the sight, it is much appreciated to think this sight is built for runners by runners who utilize our oppinions in developing the sight.
As to the Puma ads/new format. I work as an advertising manager for print as well as online. I do like the Puma ad. It is very catching how it spans the top of the page and flows down into the right tower. The colors are vibrant and are easily distinguishable from the content of the sight. The "Letsrun.com" logo is a bit small, and for a newcomer they will not see your brand (it should pop out at you - which it currently does not). I think it's great Puma is working with you (even if for the short term) and for a first run trial basis I'd say you are 80% right on. For the sake of the content in your sight I would shy away from allowing advertisers to manopolize three sides of your wall. The top and right hand would have been a better representation for both Letsrun and Puma. By not selling all three sides, you will be able to maintain your content (keep in mind your content is what brings customers - your readers - back to the sight, not your advertising) quality as well as providing a results oriented advertising medium for Puma.
Having the message board skinnier makes it more difficult to read the topics, however if you didn't sell the left hand side you would be able to maintain content quality. Anyways, so many people are throwing in their oppinion I'll end mine before it turns into a research paper.
Good job, I like it just remember to keep your focus primarily on your content and secondly on meeting your advertisers needs.