With all the changes on our site over the past year, it’s
nice to know that, on the whole, our visitors have appreciated the
upgrades to the site including better navigation all-around, more sharing
options & commenting options and an overall better look and feel for
each section of the site, not to mention brand new sections like the Pimpin’
Poster Palace, the Celebrity
Movie Database, DVD/Blu-Ray
Give-aways, the Most
Popular Upcoming Movies section, and others.
That said, one of our most recent updates (for our TEN
SPOTs) doesn’t seem to have converted some people, who have decided to
voice their "disapproval" with the changes in our STRIKE BACK
sections below the articles. That’s not where those types of
comments belong. If you have a "complaint" about any advertising
on the website CLICK
HERE for more info or just general "disagreements" with
the way we’re updating things, please either email Mike Sampson or myself
directly via email,
or just post your items in our SITE
SUGGESTIONS / QUESTIONS forum. We listen/read all comments and
consider all opinions at all times. That said, ultimately this is a
business enterprise and some decisions need to be made according to what’s
best for the business to strive/survive over the next 5-10 years. Below is
a short FAQ about some possible concerns.
ALL COMMENTS
UNRELATED TO THE CONTENT OF AN ARTICLE WILL BE DELETED IN THE FUTURE
WHY DO YOU CHANGE STUFF ON THE SITE?
With all changes made to the site, we always consider the
site’s visitors, but even moreso, we need to consider the industry we’re
in, the Internet itself and all the changes happening to it. Just 3 years
ago, we had no links to Facebook/Twitter on our site, but now they’re all
over the place. The MFC was a small section of the site, now it’s closing
in on 80,000 members. We update sections of the site to keep up with the
times and make sure that we can keep running the site for free for
everyone. Some sections need to be updated for programming reasons, others
for "design" reasons and others because they were just "out
of date" and needed to be brought into the year 2011.
It’s also to note that over the past couple of years,
giant corporations and studios themselves have invaded the Interwebs with
their own websites, resources and investments, leaving
"fan-based" sites like ours, falling behind in some ways. We
obviously don’t have the money or resources to keep up with those
billion-dollar companies, but we do have a loyal following, excellent
"street cred" and a true "fan voice" which aren’t easy
to replicate. The problem is that we are also a business enterprise and we
don’t want to charge anyone for our content, hence we need to make some
changes in order to remain competitive in this ultra-cutthroat
environment.
Most of you have stuck around and appreciated most of our
upgrades over the years and we thank you very much for your continued
support!
WHY DID YOU SWITCH THE "TEN
SPOT" FORMAT?
This one was actually a no-brainer. We’d been running TOP
10 LISTS for about 4-5 years now, but they were always somewhat
antiquated. The lists were generally split into two parts, and with the
shorter URLs that we had just two years ago, that led to a ton of
"duplicate" URLs which wasn’t good for the TEN SPOT archives
sections. We’d also received complaints about the articles being too long
(and heavy for low-bandwidth) users, while at the same time, seeing a
trend on most sites that post "galleries" of items up. We
actually had a ton of reasons to switch up and we believe that, in the
long run, it’s for the betterment of the site. Here are more specific
reasons for the update:
This new module is much easier for us to input info in the back-end
This new module allows us to post larger images which are nicer
The extra spacing for each entry also allows us to enter more VIDEO
"TEN SPOTS" especially since we can feature wider videos as well
Part of the reason for many of the changes on the site is because
"Sharing" has become so popular on the Net these days. This new
set-up makes it easier for folks to share our lists with others on a
variety of platforms
Visitors to our site can now comment on EACH entry
This new module leads to more "page views" for the site, which
helps the site in various capacities
We’ve updated all of our previous TEN SPOTS into the same format, so that
they’re all archived together and can be scrolled through in one sitting
Some low-bandwidth visitors had complained about some of the TEN SPOTS
being "too long" and leading to slowdowns for them
We adore Jim Law and his awesome writing style and needless to say, this
new module puts greater emphasis on his writing (can focus more on each
entry), which is always a good thing
We’ve also taken this opportunity to add a new button feature on the front
page of each TEN SPOT called "CREATE MFC LIST" which when
clicked upon, basically allows you to copy the TITLE of the TEN SPOT into
your MFC profile, so that you can enter your own TOP 10 accordingly
Those are some of the main reasons we switched up (and we’ll be doing the
same upgrade to the other sections of the site including ARROW IN THE HEAD
and MOVIEHOTTIES), but the investment also allows us to use the same
module to create other "galleries" or "lists" that are
not TEN SPOTS including seasonal movie previews, film festival previews,
summer wrap-ups, photo galleries, Comic Con galleries and a lot more!
And yes absolutely…the one ‘negative aspect’ about
the new module is that you have to click on your mouse 10 times, as
opposed to 1 time that you did before (the speed shouldn’t be a big issue
going forward, as we’re working to improve the "speed" for each
page to load). If you believe that doing so is too big a
"sacrifice" to enjoy the ongoing original free content that we
continue to deliver year after year, that’s most certainly your
prerogative, but please send all your complaints and suggestions to us
directly… and leave the STRIKE BACK sections to comments about the
articles themselves, not the writers or your opinion on the direction of
the site, etc…
And now…a short break in our programming…
I AM BOTHERED BY THE ADS ON YOUR
SITE, WHAT CAN I DO?
We recently put together another notice regarding the
advertisements on our site. Remember that depending on where you are
situated in the world, we all see different ads on the site, so
it’s important for you to let us know if you are having problems, etc…
Please read THIS
ARTICLE for more specific answers to your advertising queries.
"F*CK YOUR WEBSITE, I’M MOVING
ON TO ANOTHER PLACE!"
That’s entirely your prerogative but remember that we are
still one of the last remaining "independent" movie fansites out
there. The site is still owned by one person (me) and operated by the hard
work of 30-40 freelancers from all over the United States, Canada and
around the world. We don’t ask our visitors for anything in return for all
the free content that we’ve been delivering since 1998, and even
though we’ve had to take on more ads to pay our ever-increasing bills
every month, we always try our best to keep the "user
experience" as good as can be, but at the end of the day, if we are
going to survive over the next 5-10 years, we need to adapt with the
times, and hopefully most of you will join along and show your support.
Our site has consistently been growing in members and
traffic since 1998, so hopefully that continues (other fansites that were
around since that time, have fallen "behind" these days because
of their lack of upgrades and attention to market conditions and changes),
but if you do decide that you no longer want to visit our site, please
make it for a good reason and not simply because you don’t think
"clicking your mouse an extra 10 times" every few weeks for a
TEN SPOT is "too much" for you. The same can be said about
having to "sit through" some pre-roll video ads before some of
the videos on our site. These are the kinds of things that help us pay our
bills and our employees. If you prefer to avoid them and go to YOUTUBE
instead of something, you’re basically siding with the big corporations —
who incidentally will, one day, all be doing the same thing as well. Right
now, we have to do these things to survive…they don’t.
That said, if you don’t think our site’s consistently
solid output over the past 13 years is worth it, we certainly can’t do
anything about that. To all those who continue to support the site in a
variety of ways, we thank you always.