Monday, January 9, 2012 at 2:40 pm

Welcome to SplatF 2.0!

SplatF 2.0After a week in the lab, I’m happy to release the first significant revision to SplatF’s design and feature set since it launched six months ago.

The big changes should last a year, I hope, and will help me make SplatF the site I want it to become. Specifically…

  • New, short “link posts” — the orange things you’ll be seeing — link out directly from the homepage. These will make it easier for me to post quick links and commentary more frequently. And, ideally, they will help SplatF become a bigger referrer of traffic, which is one of my main goals for the site.
  • Comments! I am bored with just hearing myself talk and want to build SplatF into a smart, entertaining community. (Contrarian!) For now, comments will be tightly moderated to maintain quality, so make your audition a good one. Please read the SplatF Commenting Guide for details.
  • New designs for the Creators series and featured Charts pages. These are two of the best and most popular pages on SplatF, and I wanted to make them look nicer and better showcase their contents. I think I’m on the way.
  • Search and a new Archives page. I hope you’ll find what you’re looking for.
  • An updated logo and color scheme. Simpler, brighter, and happier. Still subject to tweaking, as always. Re-bookmark on iOS devices to get a new Apple touch icon.

Please get in touch if you’ve found something broken or have any questions or suggestions. Things I’ll be working on next include support for image galleries (I’ll be shooting a lot of photos this year) and potentially a mobile style sheet.

And stay tuned for the next SplatF Quarterly Update coming later this week.

  • Follow @SplatF on Twitter or RSS for the latest.

New! Comments are welcome but moderated. Please read the Commenting Guide first.

  • http://twitter.com/mynameisseb Sebastian Atwater

    I feel like I’m missing out by mainly viewing the site in an RSS reader.

    Also, congrats on six months! The site looks great.

    • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

      Thanks. I actually hope the new update didn’t break the feed. Is there anything I can do to make RSS better?

      • http://twitter.com/erkka Erkka Piirainen

        Fix the issue with attached image and first line of text?

        Screenshot at https://skitch.com/e-erkka/gaj2b/google-syotteenlukija-1000The new look is nice :)

        • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

          Ah, yes. I should do that. Thanks for pointing it out.

      • http://twitter.com/mynameisseb Sebastian Atwater

        If there is, I’ll let you know.

        I get all of the content in each post in Google Reader, so no issues there.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=533634679 Jay Yarow

    Keep up the good work Frommer!

    • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

      Thanks, Jay. For the others: This is the sort of low-content comment I’d ordinarily not allow past the moderation filter. But because it’s Jay, and he compliments me oh-so-rarely, I’ll let it slide.

  • http://procause.com/ matthewhughes

    Terrific updates.

    Engagement should be fun in the comments. 

    • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

      Thanks, Matthew. Let’s hope so, or I’ll look like a jerk.

  • http://twitter.com/jimmaiella Jim Maiella

    Wow, you weren’t kidding about working on 2.0. Looks terrific, congratulations on six months and looking forward to 2012. Does leaving this comment increase my Klout score? Will have to check on that.

    • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

      Only if you comment on the cable posts!

  • http://techjunkie.tumblr.com Matty Stevenson

    Thank you so much for adding the archive feature.  Can’t tell you how many times I have dug and dug to try to find a post I wanted to re-read!

    • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

      Yes, that was something I’d been meaning to add for a while, but was frustrated with the WordPress theme I had customized, so didn’t want to keep building on top of it. Let me know if there are other ways to browse/slice the archives that would be more useful.

  • http://twitter.com/johnlotz johnlotz

    I am anxious to see how comments work out on your site since you will have to moderate them by hand. It’s a neat experiment especially in the face of some of the current blogs that are turning comments off or celebrating their judgement for never having them.

    • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

      I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t inspired by those sites a little. Why not try?

      Mainly, I’ve been blown away by the quality of my audience, and I figured this was an opportunity to borrow some of their brilliance. We’ll see how it goes.

  • Anonymous

    Interesting choice, RE adding comments. Macgasm’s recent decision to remove comments, deleting all the contributions of others over time, has made me wary of spending too much energy on contributions to sites controlled by others, and reconsider starting a blog of my own. On the other hand, Disqus is an excellent platform that alleviates many of the common problems with commenting. I’m wondering whether comments deleted from a site will at least remain, perhaps “orphaned,” in ones Disqus profile.

    I’ve thoroughly enjoyed SplatF over the past six months. Looking forward to years more! :-)

  • http://twitter.com/jpickwick jP✔

     All exciting upgrades. Lots of high-fiving and handshaking so far in the comments as well.

    • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

      Too much high-fiving! But I’ll allow it in this post.