I am currently preparing a major update to BigBlueBall. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s almost here. And you can get a sneak peek right here at blog.bigblueball.com! The front-end of the site is moving to WordPress for content management. This new interface will be used fo all our news, tutorials and reference pages — the stuff currently found on the BigBlueBall homepage and in the various IM Centers (and very hard to find!).
What you’re looking at right now is a work-in-progress. The logo, fonts and colors are still in flux, but the basic layout, site structure and the concept of featuring content on the home page is pretty well defined. My goal is to make the home page more informative, more visually appealing, more accessible for participation (no login required to post comments!), and just plain better!
The stuff in the right column has not yet been defined, but the basic layout of the front page has. You will see that we have a new section where we an very clearly and vividly feature content. We also will show recent news from the three major categories: instant messaging, mobile communications and social networking. And we’ll have links that take you to everything else, including our most popular section, the forums.
I’d like your feedback. Please leave a comment and let me know if you’ve got feedback or ideas. Love it? Hate it? I want to hear from you. Look around, and leave a comment below.
It’s looking good, Jeff. I understand of course that the colors will be different in the finished version, and hopefully the BBB globe will be “enhanced.”
One thing I detest is that graphic ad on the right-hand side. Please get rid of it and if your really need to, something more subtle and not so in-your-face like Google Ads would be much better.
Thanks for the feedback, Philip. Yes, the design is still in flux, but the layout is in pretty good shape (I think).
As for the graphic ad, that’s configurable via Google. Currently I allow them to serve either text or image ads, but I can specify text-only ads. Out of curiosity, what was appearing for you? I haven’t seen anything really ugly or detestable (yet).
Just dropping by to say that the layout looks very, very sleek.
Great Job Jeff & Fanatic!
Gotta agree… I like the layout, but the colors are still in need of some work (as you yourself said, Jeff, so I don’t think you’re surprised to hear it from us). Curious to see where this is going to go, though!
Jeff, it’s those ads in bright red colors displaying “Find your PURE Love” that kinda thing, argh. It’s just plain distracting in my opinion, and it has nothing to do with BBB.
Other than that, site’s looking fantastic!
Looking good!
Thanks, Mr Oats, Tigerblade, Philip and Ven0m. Your feedback is much appreciated.
Philip, I haven’t seen that ad come up. Most of what I’ve seen has been been pretty relevant, but when you seen something that looks “out there” please send me a private message. We can block specific advertisers if their ads are inappropriate.
I have been working on the colors and graphics, and it’s getting much closer.
This test site is looking really really good! Kudos to you, Jeff. When will the first beta test be coming out (you can see I’m excited about this)
Well, for all practical purposes, this is the beta test site. We still need to move the basic content into WordPress — a process that has been started but is only about 30% complete. And then I need to create a matching theme for the forums. Once that’s done, we can move this over to the “real” BBB site, flip a virtual switch and *voila!* it’ll be live!
As far as timing goes, I’m hoping to get a big chunk of this finished this weekend. I’ll be out of pocket tomorrow (Valentine’s Day), but I’ll be working late tonight and again on Sunday.
Well in the 4 days since my last comment, the colors look way better. Much more closely aligned with the big blue ball graphic that we all know and love.
Thanks, Tigerblade. We’re now working on a matching theme for the forums, once that’s done, we’ll be ready to roll!
Jeff, this test site is looking better and better. Waiting with baited breath for the BBB forums to be given this new look.
Great job, sir!
Looking great!! Much better than the old design. So, this is going to replace what I currently see on http://www.bigblueball.com? When? I want it now! 🙂
Thanks Philip and Gandalf. Did you know that March 1st marks BigBlueBall’s 8th anniversary? Wouldn’t that be a nice time to launch? Hmmm…
Yes, would be the perfect time to launch. 😉
Every time I check here, I see new changes. And I just saw the overview on the BigBlueBall homepage (https://bigblueball.mystagingwebsite.com/forums/website-news/44033-new-bigblueball-com.html). But I still haven’t seen any changes to the forum. When is it coming?! Quit teasing us and let us know!
This is becoming more exciting than the launching of the new Star Trek movie!
w00t w00t!
The forum changes are going to be the most exciting! 🙂