Comments on: Agent Genius Real Estate Magazine Redesign

By: Jon Karlen

Jon Karlen — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:40:09 +0000

I really like it! Definitely big improvements. (Site speed increase is very noticeable!) Makes it a lot easier to find the articles you are looking for. Very nice changes.

By: Ann Cummings

Ann Cummings — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:54:06 +0000

Really like the changes, especially the threads being tied together. Love the look and feel of the home age – makes it very inviting to pull up and chair and stay awhile!

By: Doug Francis

Doug Francis — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:28:31 +0000

I don’t get to show up every day but always find something useful when I do. Let’s just say that most of the content that I read on AG is worthy of some CE credits.

Hopefully this will be the last design change for at least 30 days… okay?

By: Benn Rosales

Benn Rosales — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:52:58 +0000

I actually do have one, I’ve just not actually done it just yet, let me get it running, and we can crowdsource it together =]

By: Benn Rosales

Benn Rosales — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:48:00 +0000

I understood what you were saying, but thanks for the clarification none the less. Good lookin out!

By: JamesMalanowski

JamesMalanowski — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:47:12 +0000

As an aside … I also would prefer a summary feed for my own blog, but killed it when I realized that feedburner didn’t append a “read more” link. If you come up with a solution I’d love it if you’d share.

By: JamesMalanowski

JamesMalanowski — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:44:35 +0000

Thanks for the quick response and clarification. I guess I should have been more clear. There is no “click to read more” link at the end of your feed. I can click over from the reader, but for those that aren’t familiar with the difference between the full feed and a summary feed it may not be immediately obvious that there is more to the story. Here’s how this article looks in Google Reader:

AgentGenius.com has recently undergone a major facelift and network update to better serve the readers of AG. Readers will now have a better user experience with added benefits and features and as with our previous redesigns, we’ve lead the real estate community and never waited for what others do to dictate our direction, and today is no exception. Agent Genius’ site and logo redesign were aimed at keeping the site structure streamlined and focused on aesthetics and flow of information.

Ribbon cutting:
So what has changed on Agent Genius? You can now visit pages of our authors (e.g. Jim Duncan) where…

I understand your position on RSS, but it sure does make it a lot easier to organize and follow all the blogs that I do. I don’t mind summary feeds … If the intro grabs me I will click over. But I don’t buy grapes without testing them either.

I just wanted to point out there was no “read more” link as part of the feed. Thanks again for the response and keep up the good work!

By: Benn Rosales

Benn Rosales — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:47:13 +0000

James, thanks for commenting and brining that up because it’s as good a place as any to tell the masses that full feeds will return. We had a lot of complaints about the copyright header in the feed reader and venues we intentionally syndicate to are penalized by it for the most part so we removed it. Consequently, we immediately had 14 content pirates pop up within a week, so the partial feed stops that in its track to a large extent. We’re working on an in-house solution right now to meet both needs, so bare with us.

That’s interesting about the no click thru ability in your feedreader, that hasn’t been my experience, so I’ll look into it.

I personally am not a fan of feed readers, and I think RSS is equal to the plight of grocers issues with grapes, but we do recognize that it is important to many and continue to seek the middle where RSS is concerned.

Welcome to AG, I hope you’ll step in from the feeder more often and leave a thought.

By: JamesMalanowski

JamesMalanowski — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:34:21 +0000

Since I get your content in my RSS reader, the one change I don’t like is the summary-only in the RSS feed. If the content is compelling enough for me to want to come over and comment I’ll click on over and do so.

But worse, is that there is no link for the reader to click on from the summary to come over to view the rest of the post so folks newer to the RSS reader thing may not realize that there is more to the post and just keep on truckin’. I believe that that is an issue with the FeedBurner summary option (if you’re using FB, that is) that you may want to rethink.

Otherwise, you’ve done a good job with the design. Less clutter and easier to read.

By: Jason Sandquist

Jason Sandquist — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:31:10 +0000

@LaniAR so you just decide to skip over the Fall-Winter color trends?