http://www.bitwisemag.com Bitwise Magazine

Just a quick word to let you know that my new online programming and technical magazine, Bitwise, has just gone online. This is free so please drop by and let me know what you think.

www.bitwisemag.com

A bit of background. I've been a computer journalist in the UK since the mid-80s, having written the opinion column, Rants and Raves, since 1988 - first in Computer Shopper, later in PC Plus, now online at: www.rantsandraves.co.uk. I've written the Delphi programming column for PC Plus for 10 years, the C# column for 3 years and, at various times, columns on other languages such as Java and C++.

I have long wanted to publish a technical computing magazine but could never persuade a conventional publisher to back the project which is why I eventually decided to go it alone online. If only I could work how to make an income from this my happiness would be complete . However, for the time being, it is completely unfunded and free (as it will remain) to interested readers.

The first issue contains articles and tutorials on C#, VB, Delphi and Smalltalk, an interview with the developer of Chrome Object Pascal, a feature on DVD compression and backup, book reviews, astronomy software reviews, opinion columns and more.

What can I say - I hope you like it!

best wishes
Huw Collingbourne

It looks good! But a few suggestions:

One thing that hits me right away, is the question of why I should stay. What I see right away seems, well, boring. I would suggest putting news, or parts of stories with a "more..." link on the front page. Throw in big headlines, something to catch people's attentions. Apart from the word "magazine" the front page doesn't really tell anything about why this site exists.

I know you have a mission type statement there. But why not shorten that and put it down the left under the menu and put actual content in the space it leaves?

The front page of a site is like the first page of a book: You have to give people a reason to keep reading.

Also, I'll take your C# article as an example, the category ("Adventures in Coding") is huge, this is fine. But the title of the article is tiny! Chances are nobody's going to see it or even realize that there's a title there. If I'm skimming, I really have no idea what the article is about. This may cause confusion, and people leaving.

Totally on the admin side of things: You have space, why not expand your Google ads? You can fit the format with 4 ads in it. The "skyscraper" I think they call it.

I hope I don't come across harsh. You have a very good site, and you seem like you've got it together. Keep it up.

Thanks for the comments.

Let me explain my design decisions. I've tried to make the design fairly clean without too much in the way of shouted headlines. My background is in print magazines and this is simply a personal choice. I don't like magazines that try to 'drag me in' with lots of bold headlines and taglines. My hope is that people who come to bitwise will already have some idea of whether or not the subject matter is likely to interest them and will therefore prefer the rather laid back design so that they can browse at leisure. However, I may, of course, be wrong in this and so I'll obviously pay careful attention to feedback to see if this is what most people want.

As for Google ads. The reason I decided to stick to 2 per page is that, in my experience, when there are 4, at least two of them tend to be pretty irrelevant to the subject matter on the page I have to say that I had considered removing all Google ads as I don't think they really look nice. On the other hand, bitwise costs me a lot in both time and money to produce and I have to find some way of covering those costs....

best wishes
Huw