To my fellow AOL Journal users, and to any and all AOL staff members who may be screening this on behalf of Homeland Security:
My General Beefs with AOL Journals, and some Ideas on How to Improve Them
1. Clean up the url's. Is leading off the url with journals.aol.com really necessary? Shouldn't the emphasis be on the author of the page, and the ideas they want to get across?
Slapinions.journals.aol.com is still long-winded, but would be a vast upgrade.
And I see no reason, in this security conscious world, that an authors screename (and therefore his/her email address) be force-fed into the url.
2. Compromise between ease of use and creative control. I like how simple it is to add a blogroll, and once you get the hang of it adding pics is pretty easy on the gray matter too. I very much like being able to IM or phone in a post.
But short of sidestepping (cheating) the rules by various methods, there is no way to add the harmless collection of personal banners, countdown charts, etc. that bloggers on other services love. And why a measly character limit on the about me section?
3 Make the comments user-friendly Right now, only AOL or AIM users can register a comment. (and frankly, when I check the site from other locations, I have trouble accessing the comments from AIM).
Sure, it's wonderful to hear from other AOL members. But after 10000 hits and very few comments I figured a way to sidestep the issue by adding my own comments service (sort-of). My first post after that brought 4 comments from 50 hits, none of them AOL users.
Dontcha think it's advertising the breadth and ease of AOL when a Journal attracts an audience outside of the service? Wouldn't it be in AOL's best interest to help that along? And if you feel the need, throw down an AOL banner on the journal to make sure visitors know who's king of the net.
4. Where's the help? Outside of some very basic official help available when starting out, I've relied on innovative Journals like Pam, Random, and Patrick's Place to help me over the rough patches. There should be a comprehensive, universally known and accepted help options for the Journals.
5. Look, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings .. . but the folks who designed the color schemes for the Journals need to put down their crayons. I mean, who comes up with this: [item removed temp.]
Even if you go with 'advanced' controls and tweak it yourself, you are left with that ugly white sash across the top of my page. Why not let users add graphics or a title bar to that area?
BTW - I know that's possible, because some personal journals run by admitted AOL staffers do the impossible and pimp out that space. Poor form to allow that to happen while paying customers are left behind.
This is just my personal wish list. Let me know if anyone has something to add. Dan/Slapinions
here here !!!
ReplyDeletei'm "listening" but alas, since i'm not one of the powers that be, i can't help :(
but great suggestions, especially the 1,000 characters in all about me .. and the banner thing .. i can't believe they'd make it available to employees but not the paying members !!
hopefully someday soon we'll see some of your much needed improvements!
pamela
Actually, you can help - your website is pretty popular, and a link to the post (or wholesale theft and reposting of it) might help get the word out.
ReplyDeleteDan
If I were to add ... As an option, I'd like one of those nifty calendars most journal sites have that allow you to scroll easily through the entry's ... Right up there on the first page. And, it also noted that a lot of the journals outside AOL allow you to leave a picture of yourself, cartoon graphic, or whatever when you are leaving comments. I like the suggestions you have added above. You've got our vote!
ReplyDeleteI think you about covered it all except how hard it is to use your FTP space once you have used up the Hometown Picture allotment. Give us more FTP space. I hate to download from the ftp....takes way too long. Or I am doing something incorrectly. I hated having to delete pictures from my earlier entries to free up space. Copying from other screen names was a drag.
ReplyDeleteMaking it easier to get here from the outside, that's my main malfunction. Will think on it though. Love the list.
ReplyDeleteTwo questions in response to the comments (and thank you for them)
ReplyDelete1. What is the limit on FTP storage, and how do you go about deleting pics from that space? I posted several huge jpgs that never made it to the blog.
2. What do you mean 'get there from the outside'? If you mean generate traffic from outside AOL, check out two links on my journal - Blog Explosion and Blog Clicker. Believe me, they work.
Dan
to delete files from your ftp space ...
ReplyDeletego to keyword: ftp
click on: see my ftp space
highlight the file you want to delete
click on: utilities
click on: delete
on how to find out how much space you have in ftp .. here is a journal entry i wrote about that awhile back ... http://journals.aol.com/his1desire/AOLJournals/entries/92
since i wrote the entry, each aol members ftp space has been increased from 2 MB to 10 MB !!!
hope this helps, if not, be sure and hollar at me !!!
pamela
Name: mary
ReplyDeleteWeb Site: Alphawomans Blog
Site Rating: 10
Visitor Comments:
This is so cool! Have you tried this link http://www.sitemeter.com/default.asp?action=newaccount
It is set up so you can track where your hits are coming from...also a counter etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah.
I had my reasons for setting mine up. The upside is that I have a great number of non-AOL readers. I should set this up for myself too!