Re: replace training blurb with upcoming pug meetings?

Magnus Hagander wrote:
> Simon Riggs wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 2008-06-04 at 09:09 +0200, Magnus Hagander wrote:
>>
>>> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 17:10 -0400, Chander Ganesan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I think a single link to training in a spot of its very own
>>>>> would provide a bit more visibility than being cluttered with
>>>>> some text and a link. Perhaps we can have some list of the
>>>>> number of events as well? Want training (22 events coming up!)?
>>>>>
>>>> One option would be to remove events, news, training, and planet
>>>> listings and instead have larger and nicer representation for
>>>> direct links:
>>>>
>>>> Find a User group!
>>>> Get Training!
>>>> Latest News!
>>>> Our community Blogs!
>>>>
>>>> Each of those would be direct links respectively. This would
>>>> significantly reduce the noise on the page.
>>>>
>>> Or we just remove the frontpage completely? ;-)
>>>
>>> IMHO this would significantly reduce the value of the information
>>> there. If anything should be removed, it's IMHO the shortcuts and
>>> "support us" sections. Second to that is training. All the others
>>> are IMHO much more important than the usergroup listings (which
>>> doesn't say that the usergroup listings aren't important, of
>>> course).
>>>
>> Hmmm. I think its hard to say which are the more popular links.
>>
>> Many people would never click on training, but if there was a training
>> course they wanted they would go. But how would they ever know? Same
>> with user groups. Many people wouldn't be interested, but open a user
>> group in their local area and suddenly they care? But how would they
>> ever know?
>>
>> So I suggest two things:
>>
>> * move the suggested topics to detail pages. Give prominence to what
>> turns out to be most popular. Look at hits, don't speculate or argue.
>>
>
> Right. A look at things now show on google analytics for the frontpage:
>
> Between 150 and 600 clicks on each news item, depending on how
> interesting it was (0.1%-0.2% of clicks)
> About 500 clicks on the news archive (0.2%)
> About 50 clicks on each event (<0.1%)
> About 500 clicks on the events archive (0.2%)
> About 18,000 clicks on the planetpostgresql links (6.5%)
>
>
Perhaps a bit of experimentation? Make a small change to the site and
see how that affects things. Obviously, we want people to stay there
longer and click on more "stuff". It seems that since the blog links
are so popular they might be something to draw more attention to...same
with the news archive.

I didn't realize there was an events archive? Or is that the list of
events that are coming up that isn't on the front page? Are there any
stats for the training archive? How about before the changes were made
to the page to remove the three recent events? Having such information
would give us a clue as to whether its better to move all events
elsewhere, or leave them where they are. It would also give us
information about the expected usefulness of putting PUG events on the
main page versus just hosting a link to said events.

I would think we'd want to know:

Of people who looked at the event archive (< .1%) how many people
clicked on an event (which would give us a guesstimate as to how many
people actually click on events using the event archive).
Pre training page change, how many people clicked on front page training
events, versus how many clicked on an event via the "training archive" page?

chander

>
>> * have a way of bubbling up information from details to front page. Do
>> this fairly randomly, so the front page is fresh and exciting each
>> time you visit.
>>
>
> That's kind of what we're doing now, no? News + planet + events?
>
> It keeps the site updating. Just keeping static links to subsections
> will make the page static and uninteresting.
>
>
>
>> I think people are interested in new and interesting things, however
>> we categorise them. Running the same course title monthly for a year
>> is not news, but then neither is the 5th meeting this year of the
>> Pugtown PUG. Nor is writing multiple blog entries on the same day.
>>
>
> Agreed, except actually multiple blog entries on the same day can
> certainly be interesting, if they're about different and interesting
> topics.
>
>
>
>> We just need a way for proactive and/or innovative people to get
>> attention for their activities, without being swamped by bulk
>> marketing activities by the overzealous. Cool blogs, new courses, new
>> PUGs etc are what people want to know about.
>>
>> Can we review again the reasons for keeping all on one page? Why not
>> allow the screen to scroll down?
>>
>
> The screen already scrolls, because we increased the length of each
> section. (Well, it depends on your screen resolution of course, but
> in for example 1024x768 (not untypical since a lot of people don't
> use maximized browser windows) it does).
>
> I think it's fine to have the screen scroll, but it'd be good if we can
> keep the headlines on the initially visible part so that people know to
> scroll. (It does that now at 768 lines at least)
>
> //Magnus
>
>

--
Chander Ganesan
Open Technology Group, Inc.
One Copley Parkway, Suite 210
Morrisville, NC 27560
919-463-0999/877-258-8987
http://www.otg-nc.com