The new look is awesome.

very nice ryan...i especially like the "bubble" effect within the text and the "sphere it" option at the bottom... its all very web 2.0 ....just in time for all those new iphone posts that are coming.

Very nice redesign, Ryan. It's a big improvement over the old. Congrats!

Very nice but... The mouse rollover color of the links (on the right sidebars) are too light - they blend into the white background. I have to roll off the link to see what it is again before clicking...

I know what a hassle a re-design can be (I completed mine a few months ago).

But in features, function and look...certainly worth the effort.

Congrats,
-Peter

Very easy to read on the site on my treo.

It stinks, and I don't like it.

I dunno, Ryan....

Nice! Now can you redesign my site too? ;)

Tell me what you don't like! Is it just that it's different and you were fond of the old design? Or is it confusing? Fugly? Help me out. :)

(Thanks vbprog, I need to fix those sidebar links.)

Ryan,

Put a link under each story for comments , like the old site .

Excellent. I think the new design is much better.

More than the design, thank you for your continued dedication to bringing us news about Sirius/XM.

Oh sure, there's the Bubble Effect now, but wait 6 months...

It's interesting and will take some getting used to - I liked the simpler layout of the old design, personally...

One thing I think you should change immediately, however, is the masthead - the current MyFi banner ad on top just completely overpowers it, and my eye also goes directly to the SRS ad adjacent to the top article...

I would suggest that it might be larger, or perhaps try something different with the colors to make it 'pop' more. By the way I'm always available for design consultation.. ;-)

Just a creature of habit, ryan.

the old "see Comments" link would be good. Finding how to comment isn't difficult but its confusing at first.

I'll tell you what im going to miss. The little "420" banners on the top. And the O-Inno's. And the other things i cant remember.

The "comments" link was moved to just below the headline, so you can see the number of comments to a post immediately. (I need to do more to make it "pop" apparently) :)

@Pete: I actually removed a lot of "stuff" from the layout.. if this design looks more complicated, then I need to reevaluate what I'm doing.

The poll at least shows that the majority like the redesign, but that still means there's 25% of people who aren't happy with it, and that's too much in my opinion.

Thanks all for the feedback, and please keep it coming.

Ryan,
I am visually impaired and use a screenreader to access the web and everything in windows. For me personally, I find the new design confusing, because when you use a screenreader, you use the keyboard exclusively, so the mouseover effects might look great, but without a mouse, those features don't even work. I realize that it'd probably be more work to put links to all the articles like in the previous version, but it really helps to have clickable links that you can press the enter key on, rather than clicking with the mouse. I know I'm definitely a minority here and I know it's important to keep the site looking fresh, butI think some of these new features really sound cool, and I would love to be able to get to them in some way or another. Also, I really did like having the comment links below the news stories, rather than above, so if I had to vote, I would like to see them go back to where they were before.
Thanks for reading, if you made it this far, LOL.

@Toonhead: Crap. It's messing with your screenreader?

To clarify on the links, you can mouse-over to see a preview of the page, but they're still linked to in the traditional sense. I'm able to go to each link via the ENTER key on Firefox, but I haven't tested on a screenreader.

I haven't totally validated against Section 508. Let me put on the finishing touches and address that. Accessibility is very important to me.

(You're running JAWS right?)

Any time there's ads floating around it gives me the impression of being cluttered, but maybe that's because I use ad blockers a lot - heh.

Like I said, though, that masthead is being drowned out - that, I would think, would be the more important issue...

Completely didn't see the new comments spot. This may be a good thing but, where "comments" sits now, after you read the article, you have to scroll back up to click it.

Just extra work. no biggie.

Ok - am I just dumb...I can't find the "comments" button. I saw one last night on the top right of each article but today it is gone. The only way I got here now is by going to the "latest comments" section.

Yep, Ryan, I'm using JAWS, version 8.0 and IE 7.0. It's not necessarily messing with JAWS, but when I first read the article I was under the impression that you couldn't access the links unless you actually used a mouse. That's good that they're still linked to in the traditional sense, so that's awesome. Thanks for being so cool about making the site accessible to everybody. I know like 99% of you guys don't care about this shit, but since I visit the site too, it's important to make it so everyone can visit it, even if ya don't have a pare of working eyes. Thanks again, Ryan for all your efforts!

@XMScott: Don't worry, there will continue to be plenty of 420 references. :) That rotating header was one of the reasons Orbitcast went down last month (silly, I know... I need to change hosts).

@Schimshamity: Ok, that's a good point. Stupid move by me. I'll move it back to a place that actually makes sense.

@Patty: It's not you Patty, it's me.

Ryan,

Great redesign overall. I'd also suggest that you make it more obvious how many comments have been made and a link to adding one yourself. Maybe I'm an idiot but I wasn't able to do that without clicking on the article headline... it'd be nice to see whether an article is getting comments without clicking.

Where is the antenna signal strength? Are you part of the merger?

Ryan, you might also like to move the "recent comments" module to within a topic's page. It would help reduce the amount of clicks(for me at least).

If I'm subbed to 2 hot threads, I have to comment on one, then go back to the main page to see the recent comments again.

Still need to work out some bugs on that "Recent Comments" module - but it's definitely on the list.

Keep them coming!

How about other features? Is there something that you would like to see added to the site?

My posting are being blocked due to some rule about about weblog commentaters. (sp?) Is it really that big of deal to post to a comment? Do we have to log in to another site always? I have to know to many passwords already.

Ryan, I dig the tab structure along the top. One thing that would be cool/interesting would be if there was some way for you to have a "what's on Sirius/XM right now" tab ? I dunno, maybe some way to what's on the radio at any given time? Obviously its not something I need but since you asked.....

Also, maybe you could add some sort of "report breaking news" tab? so instead of sending you an email, there's a web template already for people to send info in to you?

To be honest, I didn't think I needed anything extra for the site but again, since you asked...

Ok... Maybe 1 more. How about Sirius and XM suggestion boxes?

One idea that I've recently wrote to Sirius about is some sort of Lifetime Subscriber Credit. You know how you can get a lifetme sub for 500$? Why can't they credit people with the amount that they've paid so far with their subscriptions? Once the people hit 6-700$ paid, that subscription is now a lifetime sub. That would give a lot of subscribers not only incentive to continue paying for subscriptions, it would make people more likely to purchase additional subscriptions later on.

Why doesn't Orbitcast start a forum?

I like the blog w/ comments, but if theres any place that should have a message board, it's right here.