Who hired the 6th Grader? - Page 3

bonds · #21 05-07-2007, 02:58 PM

I for one welcome our new MS Paintin' overlords.

KotOD · #22 05-07-2007, 02:59 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The purpose of the graphic isn't to look good but to get your attention. So I guess our sixth grader just made it to junior high.

MM

[/ QUOTE ]

WTF is this post? Are you in sixth grade? What sort of site admin responds like this to a paying customer? What sort of professional says things like this to someone that is attempting to assist him?!

BradleyT · #23 05-07-2007, 03:39 PM

I'm not looking for work (as someone above may have implied) but I just took about 5 minutes to replicate the banner using only text (except the 2+2 logo).

And here's what it looks like -

compared to -

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<style type="text/css">

</style>
</head>

<body>
<div class="banner"><a href="http://www.twoplustwo.com/bonus/">
<div>Two Plus Two Publishing LLC</div>
<div><img src="http://www.twoplustwo.com/images/twoimages/cardsBasic_BWO.png" /></div>
<div class="bannerContent">New! Five&nbsp;</div><div style="color:#FF0000;" class="bannerContent">Free</div><div class="bannerContent">&nbsp;Two Plus Two Books with poker site signup!</div>
<div>The Best Deal on the Internet!</div>
<div>(For Non-US members only. Click for details.)</div>
</a></div>
</body>
</html>

You get some minor SEO benefits by having the ad as all text. But anyway, maybe they don't teach stuff like this till 10th grade.

iron81 · #24 05-07-2007, 04:20 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not looking for work (as someone above may have implied) but I just took about 5 minutes to replicate the banner using only text (except the 2+2 logo).

And here's what it looks like -

compared to -

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<style type="text/css">

</style>
</head>

<body>
<div class="banner"><a href="http://www.twoplustwo.com/bonus/">
<div>Two Plus Two Publishing LLC</div>
<div>

</div>
<div class="bannerContent">New! Five</div><div style="color:#FF0000;" class="bannerContent">Free</div><div class="bannerContent">Two Plus Two Books with poker site signup!</div>
<div>The Best Deal on the Internet!</div>
<div>(For Non-US members only. Click for details.)</div>
</a></div>
</body>
</html>

You get some minor SEO benefits by having the ad as all text. But anyway, maybe they don't teach stuff like this till 10th grade.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP (sort of)

ZeTurd · #25 05-07-2007, 04:30 PM

Most definitely not looking for a job either, but I was curious what I'd be able to do with the ad mentioned in the OP by playing around in photoshop for 5-10 minutes:

Better?

daryn · #26 05-07-2007, 04:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Most definitely not looking for a job either, but I was curious what I'd be able to do with the ad mentioned in the OP by playing around in photoshop for 5-10 minutes:

Better?

[/ QUOTE ]

wow, i like it

Neil S · #27 05-07-2007, 04:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]No offense but I have a hard time reading the red on green, and I suspect the color blind will have an even harder time. The existing banner isn't ultra pretty but it's legible.

ZeTurd · #28 05-07-2007, 04:40 PM

[ QUOTE ]
It's funny how many people, who probably have no way of knowing how successful the 2+2 website is as-is, are so eager for 2+2 to spend money to 'fix' it.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's sort of true. My suspicion is that 2+2 is indeed making good money from their book sales, and to a lesser degree from ad revenue on the site. But I also suspect that's part of the problem - to the degree that making money can be considered a problem.

It seems kind of obvious that the management of 2+2 has become complacent, and isn't really interested in evolving or thinking up new ways to add revenue. Sure, they tried to give the site a face-lift and some added functionality by upgrading to the latest version of UBB-threads, but if I remember correctly, that was mostly because of expected scaling-problems with the current version of UBB-threads.

The thing is, for an outsider, who has some experience with webdesign, usability and e-commerce, it's pretty obvious that there's a lot of unreleased potential in 2+2 - the website. It may be that the user-base of 2+2 are anomalies, and that all the guidelines for usability and aestheticism don't apply to them, but I sorta doubt that..

BradleyT · #29 05-07-2007, 04:53 PM

Iron - the styles have to be included for it to work.

ZeTurd - very nice work!

grando · #30 05-07-2007, 05:06 PM

wow this is pretty sweet