James Rigg
[Panoguide]
Posts: 282
Location: London, United Kingdom
Registered: 1 Jun 2003
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Soft launch of new panoguide site
Posted: 3 May 2004 at 19:13 GMT
updated: 3 May 2004 at 19:31 GMT
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I am pleased to announce the launch of the new panoguide website, panoguide.net. This new site will co-exist with the .com for a couple of months while I continue to make adjustments and improvements.
Why a new site?
The old panoguide site became impossible for me to keep up to date - this site is mostly database driven and my primary aim was to come up with a way of making it possible for me to keep products listings up to date. (Note that as I write this no the reviews on this site are not up to date - that's my next task!)
So what's new then?
Apart from a new look, the panoguide.net site provides:
* forums
* products can be searched for
* you can compare as many or as few products as you like (no more ridiculously large comparison tables)
* registered users can write product reviews too - so you will be able to read lots of opinions and not just mine
* if you register you can take part in the forums, and submit your own product reviews and you get your own profile/homepage
* the site is designed with stylesheets and will print out nicely in newer web browsers
* the site will even work to some extent on PDAs and smart phones
Why has it taken so long to do?
This is not a full time job for me, I just do panoguide in my spare time. And hey, I need a life too! And yes, this new site is more-or-less the work of one person (me).
Is the site finished now then?
No of course not... I need to add in a site-wide search including for the forums, I might add the ability to subscribe to the forums/thread (by email). I also need to reconsider the advertising provider. And of course, I need to update the products listings, features lists, and reviews.
If you have comments on the new site, please feel free to reply to this announcement, or use the feedback forum.
Thanks,
James.
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David Locke
Posts: 283
Location: San Antonio, Texas, United States
Registered: 12 May 2004
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Re: Soft launch of new panoguide site
Posted: 17 May 2004 at 0:46 GMT
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James,
Thanks again for providing such an informative site about panoramic photography. Had it not been for your information, I doubt my own labor of love (a one man show as well) would have existed.
I like your idea of incorporating user interaction into your site. I think it will truly give people who are doing research on a particular piece of software, techniques, etc., an unbiased view.
I have a suggestion about serving ads. I have found that google provides an excellent ad program. I have been using them exclusively on my site for several months now, and it pays off way faster than any of the others I've tried. You can check them out here: www.google.com/adsense/overview
My own personal experience is about a 1.5% to 3% click through rate, but the good thing is, just one click may bring you 2 or 3 bucks alone. Just the other day, I had a $4.30 click!
Hope this helps and good luck with the new site!
David
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GURL
Posts: 41
Location: Grenoble / Isère, France
Registered: 7 May 2004
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Re: Soft launch of new panoguide site
Posted: 22 Jun 2004 at 16:36 GMT
updated: 22 Jun 2004 at 16:42 GMT
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You said: * registered users can write product reviews too - so you will be able to read lots of opinions and not just mine
That's fine, but I did not find the path to comment PTAssembler (a front end for H. Dersch's PTOptimizer and PTStitcher plus Enblend and Autopano), a program you didn't reviewed yet.
I believe you (or somebody you give the responsibility for doing that) should decide whether or not such program should be included in the product reviews (though I have no doubt you will accept this one). I believe any registered user should be allowed to propose a program and explain the pro and cons of the product (via a sort of "sand box", perhaps ?)
Specific hardware, like pano head or fish-eyes lenses (but certainly not any camera or lens, etc) could be submitted for "review approval" too.
Specific panorama sites, like John Houghton's wonderful site with many good tutorials ( homepage.ntlworld.com/j.houghton/tuts.htm ) ...or mine (French language translation of Max Lyons Tutorial and Help, plus some others I wrote by myself) could be reviewed by users too.
I hope this helps for the best possible Panoguide!
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James Rigg
[Panoguide]
Posts: 282
Location: London, United Kingdom
Registered: 1 Jun 2003
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Re: Soft launch of new panoguide site
Posted: 23 Jun 2004 at 16:52 GMT
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There is a long list of products (mostly software but also equipment) that I have to add to panoguide. And of course there are reviews and feature lists that are out of date that are already on this site.
The database structure I have created would allow me to add all the missing products without creating reviews (or adding the features lists). I have not done this yet because I thought it would look a bit silly to have a lot of products listed with next to no information given about what they can do or opinions on whether they are any good.
The first update I'm trying to do is to REALVIZ Stitcher (current review and feature spec is for 3.1 but latest version is 4.x).
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