Project Petaling what?

Project petaling street or more affectionately known as PPS. I have been an avid patronizer of PPS since the day i started blogging.

Now, we all know that PPS has undergone a major change on August 31st, coinciding with our national day. However, with changes in such a large scale, one can only ponder upon the consequences, pros and cons.

It's been one day since PPS changed his look. And I have been exploring and scrutinizing every aspect of PPS. The first thing we all notice when we enter PPS is it's variant chicklets or stickers. They have wiki, blog, pings, rss and directory. now, a new user might be overwhelmed by this sudden change but for one who has surfed through PPS religiously throughout their blogging years, it is not something totally shocking.

We have all been introduced to the wiki since Aiz started it. Next, we have the PPS blog, created not too long ago by Aiz with a colloboration of numerous bloggers, they have since been a reflection of PPS bloggers. However, their content was nothing amusing, just snippets of other bloggers, maybe official happenings in PPS itself and Malaysian events. Basically it's ok, but nothing amusing. Maybe one day it might turn out better but for now, i don't even bother going in unless it is of my concern or related to me.

Moving on, we have our famous PPS pings. Now, this is the place where all of us Malaysian bloggers rely on heavily. Just the fact that it is no longer the main page turns us off. However, Aiz said that this was needed to decrease bandwidth. I understand and i totally concur with this change. However, the seven latest ping submissions could be aligned better or simply put some effort into the design. it will really show.

Next, we have the PPS RSS. This, I applaud. With the PPS RSS, everyone's latest blog postings get added automatically through their RSS feed. The design here is cool too. Very professional and soothing. At least there is a correlation with the sidebar from the main content and the menu are located systematically on top. A nice applaud to Aiz and his designing team for this one.

Last of all, we have the PPS directory. Which is actually a compilation of blogs from Malaysia. They pride this as the yin and yang of PPS. Truthfully, i don't really give a shit about yin and yang. Just make it look nice.

If PPS with it's cornucopia of pings will be the yang, then i say the RSS feeds from PPS RSS would be the yin. I mean, it will automatically have a directory of all the blogs once it is completed, kinda like a big directory extension. Which really defeats the need for the directory itself. However, this would only apply once PPS RSS gets out of beta stage and once we can submit our feeds for them.

Okay, now let's look at the layout of PPS's main page. First of all, lack of design, which is ok. However, the main page, needs us to navigate into the categories without taking into consideration that one extra click every day from a few thousand people per day is actually wasting a lot of time. Some idiots might even click a few times. why? don't ask me.

Aiz says that he intends the main site to be google-like. But google knows what is the main thing the user wants, and that is the search form. If we need to click another button before going into search form, then it'd be dumb.

PPS needs to focus on their users. Find out which one of the five are the most important, then squirm their way out from there. For example, I'm all out for their PPS RSS section, which means they could make it their main page. Then in the main page, the top buttons section out to the wiki, blog, ping and directory.

Or, if pings are the main focus, then select a few most recent pings, maybe 10 to be featured on the main page. sectionize (is this a word?) them. Make columns, then divide them into categories, maybe some excerpt from each category.

If users want to expand the pings, then they can make a CLICK for MORE PINGS link.

Yes, content is important, but the way we get to the content is more important. currently, the interface is just as many would put it, appaling. The coding and programming.. i give it tops, but the design... :(

For PPS RSS, learn from SARA. their design and coding is stable, at least with the amount of users occupying currently.

For another ping alternative, look for blogsmalaysia.


p/s: Suanie.net is back. I never realized how much i miss her until she was lost for like 2 days.... i mean 2 days without looking at suanie.net is choking me. Seems that she has gotten into the blogging mood again with her latest entry being who is more hamsap?

oh and btw, my site still looks like shite in IE. boycott IE, go for FF. Even the mousever sidebar list background colors won't work in IE. IE sucks with CSS.

Technorati.tag : PPS , Project Petaling Street , blogs , pings , jee mee , jimmy
blog concerns
September 1, 2005
3

Comments

Wingz said…
phuhlamak! lu tembak abis-abisan la!!! terronye~~~ tapi nanti ko kena rogol bergilir gilir baru kau tau! KAKAKAKAK!!
suanie said…
*sniff* i lap u too
Jimmy Ang said…
wingz : apa tu? aku cakap yang benar ini. the truth babe. criticisms are meant to be given.

suanie : welcome back!

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