I notice the alt="" text for the main page still lists the Blog link as "Blog/Forums"

Since you need to click on the Support link to get to the forums, I was uncertain if this would cause confusion.

As a web-developer, I see a few confusing things about the website...

Ah, so that is where the forums link is hiding now.

Who made the decision to have that dang chat box appear on every page?
That crazy thing is driving me, well, crazy...

Like I said, there are a few problems.

If you are a pro web developer, then why does The Planet's site ripp your site a new one? The Planet's site blows Phirefast site away on design AND functionality. Just my opinion.

DM

Hey, digitalm. You may want to consider adding something constructive to your criticism, and maybe re-consider directly insulting a moderator next time.

I wasn't comparing any of my companys' websites with theplanet.com and never hinted any of them were superior, so ease up. I was simply noting there are a few areas of The Planet's website that could use some improvement.

So... Can we have a look at your site? I'd like to see what you've done with frontpage.

As far as I'm concerned this topic has nothing to do with who's website looks better.
It's about improving ThePlanet's, or did I miss something?

This thread is actually very helpful right now as we're looking to make a few changes to the web presence.

Functionality:
What functionality or content is the site missing?
Where are we repeating ourselves (not just "reinforcing")?
Which pages could use graphics or diagrams to better explain the content that currently takes blocks of text to describe?

Design:
What are your favorite top-bar navigation designs/styles?
What are your favorite site designs overall?

The blog is good. The videos work great to give an inside look at things, although the call calibration video reminds me of the Royal Bank of Scotland commercial where the guy is choking in the restaurant.

I'd never seen that commercial before ... that's hilarious!

The problem with the video I got from the calibration meeting was that the rest of the discussions were account-specific or agent-specific, so the content was potentially too sensitive to broadcast it to the world.

Still, good. For me personally it puts a human face on what you're doing and shows real people working to improve the product and customer experience.

I have to say that these comments are uncalled for. He never said he site was better but that there were minor issues that tend to stick out to people who create websites.

Thanks, Doc.

On a constructive note, I think The Planet's website looks fantastic. The colors look professional and appeal to gamers as well, which is a big part of the clientèle-base.

One thing that gets on my nerves as an OCD web-develoer is how the logo (top left of each page) is not vertically centered. The rollover buttons also use a javascript swap out that different browsers treat differently and take a while to load (since it's loading two images for each one) rather than a more conservative and cross-compatible PNG + CSS system.

I am a left justified title man myself. I am not a huge fan of centered header company names.

No no no, Doc, I mean VERTICALLY centered.

NOW:

VERSUS:

I think the only thing that really bugs me is the fact that the design is so "small". Just by glancing at the site I'd say the area where the content is put is probably only 750px wide. When you navigate to a page the left hand menu is squished! And when you click to view the shopping cart the window is bigger than the site anyway!

So, it at some point the genius who designed the template stated that having a smaller design was better because it's compatible with smaller screen resolutions wasn't thinking at the "big picture". As soon as you try to order something then you instantly get a horizontal scroll bar!

Oh, and that live chat ajax floating popup that moves when you scroll is by far one of the most annoying things I've seen. I've even closed it and loaded another page only to see it popup again. If I need help I'll click the giant blue button! Quit interrupting my shopping spree!

Also, that logo up there is way too simple, I could make something better in about 5 minuets in photoshop.
Can ThePlanet Embrace Web 2.0, please?! In fact, here, I'll make one right now for fun.

--
How's that?

Great suggestions! Now we're rolling with some good ideas!

Haha ... You guys haven't answered any of my questions, though ... Assume that the common concerns are more or less taken care of (though I am not at liberty to prove it).

Anyway...

Kevin, I'll go over the list and respond accordingly. I know this is a time of change for The Planet, with the new version of Orbit right around the corner along with a new layout for theplanet.com.

I absolutely despise that stupid chat box that pops up everytime.

lol

Other than that, I like the website.

It doesn't work to well with opera though..when you start ordering stuff, alot of boxes start to overlap and what not.

Well, Kevin...

One thing the old EV1 site had was an area containing Data Center Pix and Data Center Cams.

It's really hard to host with a data center (The Planet) that won't give you pictures of where you're hosting! I've chatted with sales about this and they basically say "if it's not on the website..."

Also, if I were somebody looking at the site for the first time, I might think it was a reseller, like Host Gator.

Good point! I think we'll incorporate a more in-depth data center guide in the new site to make sure to prove our shiny data centers aren't stock photography (though all most all of the stock photo-esque data center pictures on the site now are from our data centers with our employees).

Awesome - Thank you Kevin. Also plz check PM.

I'd lean that way too -- I'm techy so when I look for a server, I want details. I like to talk myself into even better hardware than I need when shopping. I even like the smell of new servers when you first power them up. I think one issue is that as the Planet has grown so much, there are now a lot of small differences between datacenters, servers of a given class, etc. so the trend has been to abstract everything whereas it used to be a lot more specific (it seems in memory.) I liked the greater detail for both servers (like the old total control server pages) as well as datacenters, network, etc. (e.g. with the old xeon 2.8s and 3.2s it's kind of luck of the draw with the 2.8s as some are 512k cache 533 FSB and others are 1 MB cache 800 FSB. The FSB isn't even listed for the 3.2s. When shopping for a new server, if the FSB was listed, I could easily talk myself into spending another couple bucks for the faster FSB and greater L2 cache. (but of course, it might make it just too difficult to provision the mix of existing servers.) Similarly, drives are listed as just SATA, yet there is now a big difference between early sata drives which might deliver 45 MB/s sustained and the latest greatest even 7200 RPM drives, e.g. the WD ABYS which deliver max 85 MB/s sustained in the 500 GB model and 98 MB/s (!!!) in the 750 GB model, twice as fast sustained transfer as the early 200/250 GB drives which would definitely come into play when doing backups, etc.) So my vote would be to deliver more technical details for the techs shopping for servers.

We have some web cams, but alot of them need a bit of maintenance.. this is the only one I know of that is working:
http://dcwebcam01-dllstx2.theplanet.com/

This is sitting right north of the site control room on top of a cabinet. The first row beyond the cage you see is "Control Row". That row contains alot of patch panels, switches, routers, sonet equipment, misc T1 equipment, and telco equipment.

The tile that looks like it has a hole in it is actually this: http://blog.theplanet.com/images/dallas/IMG_2607_s.jpg from Kevin's Big-D blog http://blog.theplanet.com/2007/08/21/the-big-d/

Shh... don't tell him that I actually read his blogs!

The web cams are nice (and hope the rest get their maintenance too.)

The new offices are nice and all as featured on the blog, but what I rely on the planet for their datacenter. So what I really want to see is how nice the (new) datacenter equipment and servers are (and where I really want to see money being spent is in the datacenter itself. (though I want all the workers to be happy too.) If I look at the new images that have been added to the website, looking at the blog for example it's not until page 3 that you find a single image that is definitely datacenter/hosting equipment vs. office equipment (and that looks like a stock photo off the dell website not a "real" photo placed at the planet.) Now on page 6 there is the nice tour that Kevin did at the very start of the blog and that's cool.

What I really like about this KVM demo is that it's marketing something I can really use directly, and it's showing me something I can't see anywhere else on the Internet. I'd like to see more geeky things... like one blog entry per page that focuses on hardware or networking, things like how fast this new CPU is, or how perfect this new sata raid-10 system is, or how this server compares real-world against this server for hosting a busy invision forum, or how this firewall compares with this other firewall for a LAMP webserver...

(p.s. not saying that I don't like the new offices or the entertaining blog entries at all, just that I'd like to see more technical and datacenter-network related things thrown into the mix; I imagine when you spend every day there these things become boring, but when you're shopping for a server, these things are interesting and colorful.)

Part of the reason for the design change of the site is to create more space to provide those important details, so we've definitely got those on the radar screen. It's tough to provide all the information you may want/need in an aesthetically pleasing fashion, but it's definitely one of the key goals in the redesign process.

On the blog side, the casual "behind the scenes at the office" posts are a lot easier to come by than the detailed technical posts ... primarily because it's tough to gauge what customers want to read, so your ideas are great jumping-off points. The other problem we run into is that everyone stays so busy with their job's responsibilities that they don't really have time to devote to writing a blog post. We've got a few ideas on how to make blog participation a little easier, so you can be the judge of if it's paying off in the next few weeks.

I completely agree with you about featuring the data centers/hardware a little more, and while I don't have new pictures to post, I edited the header to include a quicker link to the blogs tagged "Data Centers" so the hunt isn't quite as intense as we try to find a better technical balance.

On the new website please get the live chat popup to stop harassing me

I even try and scroll away from it, then it starts chasing me down the page, then back up it again *terrified*

In all seriousness though, i dont see it as anything but an annoyance for both new and old customers.

I wouldnt however object to a smaller "live chat with sales" button floating down the left, giving easy access to chat wherever you are. I know the thought process is that it gives continuity by making the chat "ad" look the same as the chat box, but i think far more off putting than "nice" because of the continuity.


The same is true with the about us page for example. You arrive at the page, and are drawn to the left bar, which you would assume to be sub-navigation because of how it stands out. Even just now, it took me a few moments to locate the actual navigation links for that section.

I know like the popup chat thing, you want to push people to sales, but the thing is, if people like what they see, nothing going to stop them from getting to sales unless its horrifically complicated.

Again just now i looked at the site with products in mind, and i was drawn straight to the top navigation bar, where all the other sections links are. It yet again took me time again, to notice theres a separate navigation down the side for sales. If you want to get all the sales options there without any clicks, just have a hover over on the sales/products buttons, but at least put a link to the sales section with all the other main section lists

More user friendly websites = better navigation = potential customers getting info faster = more chance of more customers = $$$

The same kind of thing can be said for all the pages, they all seem to have the same discontinuity to them

Oh, and wheres the pictures in the about us section of the staff. Everyone likes to be able to put a name to a face. Doug didnt strike me as people shy, would at least have thought to see him there.

Isnt it a little backwards you can find a video of me within 1 click of the main page, but cant find a picture of the boss anywhere haha

You only need to click once and scroll a bit, and you get kevin as well. Clearly the blogging team dont mind showing their faces


To address kevins questions more specifically, i dont personally have any real preference to top navigation (ie what the site is now), or side navigation (like server command is) as long as it fits with the overall feel, and as long as you maintain the same trend throughout

As has already been said, at least minimal web 2.0 is never a bad thing and would make things a little easier for users to navigate with less clicks. It can also allow you to put more information on 1 page, without it all being there at once


I think support and contact us needs somewhat of a merger. If i needed help, the 1st link id click on is support, not contact us (which i would assume is more for things like abuse, and the main business contact details etc)

I feel like im horribly rambling so im going to come back to this once theres been a tad more discussion

Great feedback!

Are you a legacy EV1 customer?

Legacy rackshack... we go wayy back

<3 4 digit RS number

I have never really posted in the forums too often, though i do recognise your name

Awesome!

Do you share my pain of only being able to use 3-4 of 100's of functions in Orbit?

I only use server command unless i need to do something which can only be done from orbit. Im looking forward to orbit 2.0, that will be a nice change

The biggest pain for me has to be the old EV1 master reboot switches, they fail so often these days. Thats assuming you havnt replaced all of your old school servers EV1 servers which still used that system. We still have a 1.1 ghz celeron sitting in houston 2 phase 1... that thing doesnt even have ssh.. its not used in production though, its just there for my own amusement now, unfortunately i have been told to get rid of it sometime soon

about 50 of our servers still use the old ev1 system though, which is quite a sizable amount. fortunately later this year we are replacing all of our machines, hopefully then everything will work perfect with TP's nice new setup

MORE VENDING MACHINE VIDEOS

Technical(ish) video up on the blog.

Want to see what our network looks like in a schematic? Yeah... I thought so.

Nice, despite the high level nature of it, thats actually quite informative since from a general standpoint, we dont even really have much information on things like inter DC connectivity.
Shame the video took so long to load... seems all the computers in the house decided to start downloading vista sp1 by themselves a couple of hours ago (except mine of course) and its killing my bandwidth

Does TP have any lower level schematics for us real tech heads? Or are those things closely guarded secrets heh.

I think what i will do though, is make a post on our own forums, about TP, and link to that, since its well explained, and enough information for any kind of regular interested user. I mentioned redundant a couple of times on the testimonial, which a lot of them have seen, but they probably dont get what that means, another thing explained well in your vid.

Will take a few days to get around to that, this week is a very busy one for me what with the next phase of our software rollout and all, but once thats done, i shall make some TP friendly posts, which will also include the HQ tour vids

Maybe once i move to US i can break in to the HQ and a DC and film my own tour for the PB users from a face of PB

We might pack 'em all up and move 'em to an undisclosed location...

After the work put into HQ? I doubt that

Maybe i wont break in but just wait for the next event that coincides with immigration liking me.

1 question about the blog entry though.

What if there was a large scale event at D3? IE a stray failed military spy sat taking it out, meteor etc?

What kind of issues would that give D2,4,5 and 6 considering they are more dependant on D3, than H1 and 2 are on each other.

Would it be a near death situation for the network, or would there just be a noticeable slowdown, but it still cope

tracert's!

You said "H3" when you were in fact talking about "D3" about 3/5 the way through

Nice general - non technical lingo video Though I would be interested if it was available, a more network engineering specific video / document on the planets network.

Also...is interconnectedness a word??? haha

Yeah... That mistake and the "60%" correction were the two that I really noticed as well.



It has a definition online via fairly reputable dictionary sources, so I'm going to go with "Yes," but I'm sure other quasi-words make it in those resources as well.

On the technical side, we might be able to shoot a more detailed video for the technical audience, but there's a sentiment of "keeping it close to the vest" when it comes to the specifics of our network because it's such a "secret sauce" for our customer experience... I'll see how much we can push the envelope.

If its not something they are happy with putting on a public video, im happy to wait until i next come and harass you all. Just at some point its something i would be interested in seeing. It also helps give us a better feel for things in the event of network issues

The children's version (Dem Bones Planet Remix):

Oh those routers, oh those routers,
oh those network routers.
Oh those routers, oh those routers,
oh those network routers.
Oh those routers, oh those routers,
oh those network routers.
Oh mercy how they route!

With the IBR routers connected
to the DSR routers,
and the DSR routers connected
to the CAR routers,
and the CAR routers connected
to the rack switch.
Oh mercy how they route!

haha oh dear.. should i be be concerned at me sitting here genuinely laughing?

you were also the one that came out with the rm -rf / server russian roulette right? all good stuff

See, this is how you know TP has a good, stable network.
When I.T. guys are sitting around acting goofy (we do it too), everything is working correctly!

You could always secretly place it in orbit so current techy people can view the cool network.
(but this is the internet and "trust" is a word that doesn't really exist on the internet these days).

Hopefully one of these days I will be in Dallas and can visit.
Although, I am sure visitors don't get to look at all the "cool" network equipment and servers due to security reasons.

If I knew what you were talking about, I'd record it when I'm in the studio next time.

you dont know dem bones o.o

i would say you make me feel old, but im pretty sure it still comes up these days in a form or another