You don’t know how happy I am to unveil RopeofSilicon.com v. 3.0. This latest redesign has come at the expense of me working endlessly for the past six months on a site that has very much become a major part of my life. When I first began the site in 2003 I had no intentions of making it what it is today, I only had the intention of creating a place to hold my writing so I could perhaps one day become a freelance writer. This is pretty much the main reason the name of the site doesn’t have shit to do with movies, but what the hell… right?
Anyway, when I approached the new design I had several goals, primarily simplicity and ease of use. I wanted users to be able to get what they wanted as fast as possible so you just might stick around and check out something you may not have been looking for. I was also trying to figure out a way to have as much advertising on the site as possible while ensuring it didn’t disrupt your experience. Advertisements nowdays are so flashy and eye catching they hardly need to be front and center to garner your attention, so why hit you over the head with them and have them mess up the design?
Everything said, there isn’t a TON that is “new”, I simply wanted to make it better, and thanks to hours of studying, designing, re-designing, coding, re-coding and re-coding what you see is what I have come up with.
As far as what is new, let me tell yah.
First off, the homepage is an ever changing place. You will notice the section that leads off the right column (just below the ad) will be different each day. Here is the schedule:
- Monday – Movies in theaters this week
- Tuesday – Latest DVD reviews and DVDs this week
- Wednesday & Thursday – More trailers and stills links
- Friday & Saturday – The latest movie reviews with their corresponding RottenTomatoes rankings
- Sunday – Weekend Box-Office Results
Next, the Latest News Homepage has more than just the latest news on RopeofSilicon. On top of being able to search the latest RopeofSilicon news, registered users can now check out news from any selection of 15 possible news sources from the Internet in the “Around the Web” section. You must be a registered user and logged in for it to work, but other than that the sky’s the limit as you make your choices and our script automatically updates each source on an hourly basis. If you haven’t set up your favorites yet do so right now, our sources include top sites as CHUD, JoBlo, Hollywood Elsewhere, ComingSoon and even the New York Times.
Moving on I have also given the DVD/HD DVD and Blu-ray sections of the site a little more beef. I have started adding box art and beauty shots of various DVDs (check it out here) along with DVD Clips & Trailers.
I am slowly trying to increase the size of the RopeofSilicon TV section, and we are currently looking for folks to give episode recaps on their favorite shows. So, if you are a fan of any television show on TV and watch it regularly and would like to submit episode recaps let me know.
I have improved our Movie Stills Section with a far more flattering appearance giving you better reason to find a movie gallery you are likely to be interested in rather than clicking on simple text.
The Latest Movie Updates are still the same, but if I add a new poster it is now a little more obvious.
The Box-Office Section now includes a comparison between the actual box-office results and Laremy’s Oracle predictions letting you know just how good (or bad) he actually is. You know, trying to make him look bad and all…
I have added more RSS Feeds as well as daily email updates. On top of that there are plenty of “Franchise Feeds” for those of you that may be interested in say only Harry Potter, Batman, Spider-Man or Star Trek… There is an RSS feed for you.
Finally, there is the forum. This was something I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to do, but in the end I thought “What the hell?”
With this redesign I also hope to change the shape of the site and my overall reporting. You will notice that useless casting information will no longer be a major portion of the daily news (the Around the Web section contains Variety for that). I will, of course, still bring you major casting news and any casting news that I believe is interesting and worthy of note. So, between me and “Around the Web” we got yah covered.
So there you have it, hope you enjoy the new site. I know I will enjoy getting more sleep.
