New design of PostMasculine

[Schmechti]

Hey Mark,

I really like the improvements of your site. The design looks more smooth and tidy now. Your products are more easy to find. I also like the bigger preview for the articles and the combination of the colors. Keep it up

[Chaos]

I love the changes too.

[Schmechti]

It looks more professional now. Maybe the logo is a bit too big, though.

By the way, a print function for the articles would be a nice idea. I know you can just highlight the text and then print it, but it doesn't look good with Firefox than it looks with Chrome for example. A universal print design would be a better option, in my opinion.

[Chaos]

Also the Popular Articles sections seems to be composed based on the number of comments. That's not a great metric, Unique views is a far better one.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-most-popular/


Here, that should do it... assuming that's not the one you're using already.

[Gatsby]

I like the new design too, definitely an improvement. Is it final ?

[NakedAndFamous]

Like the new Design and especially the fact that you're going to try Videoblogging and Podcasts. I really enjoyed those 2 audiosnippets that came with Models.

[Schmechti]

NakedAndFamous Wrote:I really enjoyed those 2 audiosnippets that came with Models.

LOL, I totally forgot about these two. Now I remember when I bought Models that there were 2 podcasts which I downloaded but never listened to. Thanks for reminding me

[Tim]

Thumbs up for site design yada yada yada.

Remember those video analyses you did of body language back in the day for James Bond and Ed Norton in American History X? Those were awesome! Although I doubt they were that much help; I think it was more the enjoyment of mentally masturbating over how great it would be to have James Bond's body language. But yeah, some videos on something like that (but more helpful) would be brilliant.

[Mark]

You know, I'm surprised by how often readers tell me they loved those videos. They were a complete afterthought for me, and I kind of rushed through them for no other rason than because I watched a marketing seminar which talked about how amazing YouTube traffic was. In the end, those videos didn't get me a ton of traffic, so I stopped doing them. But years later, a LOT of regular readers have said that they loved them.

One thing I would love to be able to do, but I doubt this would ever be technologically possible is do a body language reading of real people in a bar some time. The last year or so, every time I coached, I made a point to take an hour or so and just read people's body language in the bar to my student... I'd make predictions as to how they knew each other, what the dynamics of their interaction/relationship were, what their personalities were like, etc. I'd explain why I thought each thing and then we'd go approach together and find out if I was right. Sometimes I was off, but a lot of times I'd nail it. Was a really fun way for me to teach and also hone my own skills at the same time.

[Schmechti]

Mark Wrote:One thing I would love to be able to do, but I doubt this would ever be technologically possible is do a body language reading of real people in a bar some time. The last year or so, every time I coached, I made a point to take an hour or so and just read people's body language in the bar to my student... I'd make predictions as to how they knew each other, what the dynamics of their interaction/relationship were, what their personalities were like, etc. I'd explain why I thought each thing and then we'd go approach together and find out if I was right. Sometimes I was off, but a lot of times I'd nail it. Was a really fun way for me to teach and also hone my own skills at the same time.

I would also love to see a video about body language. This is huge for anybody's game. Go and nail it, Mark All you need is a hidden cam.

[Alvar]

I'm glad the site is now coming together, I like the new design.
A couple of suggestions:
Do you need to link to "friends" sites on every page of the website? I'd remove them but for the homepage. Or even check if they're still linking back.
Post every new article on Fb and, I'm guessing Twitter. At this point is somehow erratic. If is too much hassle, you can have it done automatically (via feed-twitter or an Fb-App like RSS grafitti.) I bet there's even a WP plugin for that.


And one last thing...

Mark Wrote:If this site ever resembles AskMen.com, you guys have permission to come hunt me down.

(http://postmasculine.com/nightclubs-part-2#comment-2453)

Mark Wrote:Over the past couple months, I slowly felt the site descend into exactly what I DIDN’T want it to ever become: an AskMen.com knock-off with better writing.


(http://postmasculine.com/state-of-the-site)

Where exactly in Brazil are you?

[Mark]

Customizing the footer to only show up on the homepage would be a pretty big pain in the ass. Everyone on that list was an arranged link exchange, so yes, they all link back to me in one form or another. Although I'm quickly outgrowing the traffic they give me, so I imagine I'll be deleting most of them soon.

[poet145x]

(03-05-2012 08:56 PM)Mark Wrote:  One thing I would love to be able to do, but I doubt this would ever be technologically possible is do a body language reading of real people in a bar some time. The last year or so, every time I coached, I made a point to take an hour or so and just read people's body language in the bar to my student... I'd make predictions as to how they knew each other, what the dynamics of their interaction/relationship were, what their personalities were like, etc. I'd explain why I thought each thing and then we'd go approach together and find out if I was right. Sometimes I was off, but a lot of times I'd nail it. Was a really fun way for me to teach and also hone my own skills at the same time.

On an aside from the general theme of this thread, but besides your years of being infield, how did you develop the ability to read body language so accurately? i think it would be a useful skill to have.

[Mark]

Trial and error, trial and error, trial and error.

I think coaching helped it immensely, because when you coach you're often forced to figure out how a student's interaction is going without hearing what's being said.

And yes, when it comes to "skills," reading other people well is possibly the most useful one, in my opinion.

[Zac]

Quote:Everyone on that list was an arranged link exchange, so yes, they all link back to me in one form or another. Although I'm quickly outgrowing the traffic they give me, so I imagine I'll be deleting most of them soon.

I came to this thread to ask about this. It seems like a lot of the links are pretty sub par in comparison to your site. I wonder with the new makeover what other sites would be willing to link with you instead, if you even decide to keep that part there. I thought as products come out it might be nice to see a list of links to those instead.

[Mark]

My guess is eventually most of them will be deleted. But not quite there yet.

[Chaos]

Fucking love the new design!

[Pineapple]

(03-05-2012 08:56 PM)Mark Wrote:  One thing I would love to be able to do, but I doubt this would ever be technologically possible is do a body language reading of real people in a bar some time. The last year or so, every time I coached, I made a point to take an hour or so and just read people's body language in the bar to my student... I'd make predictions as to how they knew each other, what the dynamics of their interaction/relationship were, what their personalities were like, etc. I'd explain why I thought each thing and then we'd go approach together and find out if I was right. Sometimes I was off, but a lot of times I'd nail it. Was a really fun way for me to teach and also hone my own skills at the same time.

Something similar to this?




I think a lot of people would find it very useful. Kind of off topic, but one "trap" I fell into after learning to read body language (more specifically, indicators of interest) was that I depended on them too much. I wouldn't approach, escalate, etc if I wasn't getting strong IOIs. Fortunately I now focus on what I'm feeling and act accordingly. I'm not sure if its a common mistake, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

New design looks great by the way. Looks much sleeker.

[juggernaut92]

Am I the only one who does not like the new design lol? too much negative space. But I will get used to it.

[Mark]

The design today is a test. Will see how the metrics look in a couple days.

The site continues to be a work in progress... almost there, almost there...

[Mark]

Oh and obviously, any feedback on the new design is appreciated.

[IdEngager]

Some of the font sizings are a little strange. The headline for the first article ("How to Give Good Advice" today) is way bigger than anything else on the page and dwarfs the Postmasculine (Radical Self Development for Men) in the top corner. IMO that takes away from the branding of the site. I would personally make the fonts on the article previews and headlines main content panel (lower left) a bit smaller on the whole - everything else on the page is fairly dense already. Maybe enlarge some of the photos to take up more page space though the stock photos have never really done anything for me!

[Halo Effect]

The title of "How to give good advice" is bigger than the "PostMasculine" logo and in the same/similar font. I don't know if I like that. I do like the big headline though. I love the simplicity.

I love that you now have the 2x2 older articles, with two smallers columns in stead of all of them just below each other. Very space efficient and it looks good. The images under those articles seem too small. Doesn't look right. Also, book reviews doesn't have an image which messes with the symmetry.

The "Products" section in the sidebar is empty, but you're probably working on that.

I don't see like buttons etc. for individual articles anymore?

[Warped Mindless]

I don't like the new design. The old one looked more professional IMO. This one looks like a cheap, hasty thrown together wordpress theme.

[Mark]

(04-12-2012 12:16 AM)Warped Mindless Wrote:  I don't like the new design. The old one looked more professional IMO. This one looks like a cheap, hasty thrown together wordpress theme.

Hah, that's ironic because the only thing I didn't like about the last one was I didn't feel it was professional enough.

I'm still putting touch ups on the new one (logo is the big one). But it's funny you say it looks cheap, this one cost 3x what the last one did.