I am not a designer. And, I am not a marketing person. But, I've been the one behind our beautiful and oh-so-informative website designs over the past couple of years. It's a struggle for me. Nothing is more intimidating than a blank Photoshop document. And writing marketing copy makes me feel like I'm 12 again being forced to do a book report during a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

So, we need help -- professional help. I realize this now...

I'd appreciate any suggestions on the content and design, or even some actual mock ups, of just our public website -- the members' site is staying how it is (for now), although I'll take suggestions on anything. If you have any suggestions, or are a designer, or know a great designer, please let us know -- either by replying here, or sending us an email at service@linode.com.

• We're after a better look and feel, and improved content.
• We're after simplicity.
• The public website will have its own new navigation. The existing navigation's look (the tabs+subtabs) will remain under the members' site, but we want the public site to have its own look/feel, and a fresh start.
• We're after a modern design (read: 2.0ish)

We'd love to know what you guys think.

-Chris

This may not be helpful, but I'd suggest leaving it roughly similar. I always have liked your website, and AJAX-y web2.0 buzzwordbuzzwordbuzzword sites just tend to annoy me and get in the way of the information I want.

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Jay Faulkner
http://oldos.org

I actually like it the way it is also, functional, to the point and no excessive "busy work". One of the worst and most obscene is GoDaddy, so please don't take any lessons from those morons

If you're set on a "redesign" use Drupal and you can integrate everything very nicely

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Where "Thought Crime" is commited
http://www.rejecttheherd.net

I have to agree with the others; I appreciate the simplicity of the current design. The last thing you want when dealing with a tech-savvy userbase like vps admins is to make things overcomplicated and flashy. New or different isn't necessarily bad, but I'm wary of major overhauls and cutting edge standards sometimes.

As a fellow not-designer-but-gets-stuck-doing-it-anyway, kudos on a job well done.

I have to agree with the rest. Site is in no need of a redesign, IMO.

There are a slew of "linode rocks, thank-you" threads in this forum. Maybe display a few quotes (as links) on the front page? It was a friend's testimonial for unmatched (personalized) customer service that lured me in...

Having just seen the Linode ad in this month's issue of Linux Journal, however, I'll agree you can/should throw some resources at marketing. Compare your ad to the likes of Server Beach in the same issue. Their ad really caught my attention, but I only noticed the Linode ad because I am a customer and recognized the logo.

Agreed -- simple, clean, elegant and to-the-point is best.

Cheers.

I have to disagree with everyone. I think a re-design would be great. Not that the current site is ugly or anything but an update would be refreshing.

IMHO re-designing a site opens the doors for innovation and progress. Current users might not like change but change brings new ideas and new and interesting ways at looking at things.

I'll TRY to ask my girlfriend (who is pretty good at webdesign) if she would be interested in contributing or I might take a stab at it myself.

I agree with the other comments. Simplicity and ease of navigation. It works great for me. It conveys exactly what you want.

Fred B.

Yeah, there's always room for improvement, so a redesign would be great.

But I do want to agree with a lot of people on one point:
WEB 2.0 is NOT ALWAYS GOOD.

A well-designed static page is a thousand times better than even the best Ajax application. Plus, static pages are easier on the server.

As it stands, your website is already much+ easier to navigate than that of a lot of your competitors.

Redesign != new complex page. Maybe they can organize it better and make it even simpler yet more usable. Don't forget that the design has to go through the caker & tasaro seal of approval. I doubt they will allow some overly complicated behemoth through their desk. Have faith guys and gals.

I'm going to have to agree with most of the other replies around here: the site is pretty good as it is.

If you are going to do a redesign, please keep the changes subtle. And for God's sake, NO flash! And don't use one of those irritating "Contact a sales representative" popups that so many Hosting companies just seem to love.

I like the current site as well.

For another successful low-tech site, think about drudgereport.com. Hasn't changed in 15 years. It just works.

Sometimes less is more.

I'd rather the effort be put into WebService::Linode personally!

Oh no... not drudgereports!

BTW, what about an open contest? Something like "Winner gets 1 year of free hosting!" With a little bit of $$ incentive like that, I'm sure a lot of people here will be happy to share their ideas.

It should have!

Drudge has a twitter feed... much easier to digest then his website... (Who the hell doesn't have an RSS feed these days!)