I see that Chris has allowed more "full" stories on the Home page and lots more "clips", too. That will go a long way toward keeping content from getting pushed off the Home page after a merge, so kudos to Chris.

Steve

I voted no for several reasons.

First, the new template only shows 5 "full" stories. Extra iPhone and Zune stuff would push typical Mobility Site content to the clips area. Plus, stories would disappear off the Home page faster because of the extra news.

Second, I don't have an iPhone or a Zune, so I don't want to get bombarded with news that doesn't really interest me (especially when it has effects as above). Seeing an occasional iPhone or Zune piece is fine (I like to keep in the know about broader topics), but seeing 50 iPhone software reviews in 50 days would just annoy me. (Not that the reviews are bad or anything; they just wouldn't interest me as I don't have an iPhone.)

Third, what about the people who pretty much want to focus on the iPhone or the Zune? They'd have to wade through the traditional content to get their stories.

Finally, while separate RSS feeds are nice, I don't use RSS much anymore (information overload). I come to Mobility Site and read the new stories on the Home page, post my comments and I'm happy. Having to skip over stories and do more paging would be annoying.

Yes, you could add filters, but I wouldn't want to lose ALL iPhone and Zune news as mentioned above, so you'd need a "typical Mobility Site" view (which means authors would probably need to put stories in two categories).

If anything, maybe we need more sites. I joked with Zealot earlier about spinning off an eBook Site for all of his eBook posts, but it might not be a bad idea. I like some eBook news, but not too much, you know?

I like the mix we have now, and wouldn't want that diluted with too much iPhone or Zune news.

But whatever you do, I'm sure we'll support you.

Steve

I agree with Steve completely. I'm still pretty well committed to windows mobile and while I like reading through the occasional, high level article about these other devices, I don't want to get bombarded by them - I'm just not that interested in those topics.

Using tags (like what Steve has laid out) on articles will help a lot. I wonder if Chris could create tabs on the front page: windows phone; iPhone; Zune; Android; etc, and then the user could click on the tab to review the articles they are interested in reading. The front page space could be used for feature articles.

FWIW, those "tabs" (they are actually icons) are already there, and every story seems to be tagged as well. Look at the top of the page; click one of the icons (WM, iPhone, Android, WebOS, BB). I've actually done that a few times in the last couple of weeks when I am looking for a particular post to reply to.

Unfortunately, there's no "high-level view" icon. The icons there are just quick ways to view every story tagged with the specified OS. For example, none of those icons would show the story about Chrome OS, Zune information, eBook stories, etc.

And if the Home page showed every story posted, some of us might feel information overload. That's why the "home" tag and Boolean tagging are needed.

We might also need a tag list (there's no cloud on the Home page) to see all of the tags available, too.

Steve

Perhaps we can use the system that sites like Gizmodo and Engadget do, where if you don't want to read iPhone stories or eBook stories (for example) there is a filter you can set to hide them. When you want to see what is happening with them, you turn off the filter.

That wouldn't really work for me, though, unless there was a "high-level" overview. What I want from Mobility Site is a high-level overview of lots of mobility topics, but in depth news only for those devices I'm interested in.

For example, as a Windows Mobile user, I want in depth coverage of Windows Mobile. I also want high level overviews of the iPhone, Android, Zune and eBook readers (hardware and what kind of software is really cool), but in depth things like iPhone software reviews, new releases on the Zune or new eBooks don't interest me as much.

We can still provide that with two features. First, have a "General Interest" category/tag for the high-level items and device-specific tags for anything dealing with those devices. That should be fairly easy to do, but we need authors to choose the "General Interest" items carefully. We also need them to separate lengthy posts containing high-level and detailed information into separate posts.

As I'm replying to you, allow me to cite an example of yours, the Ebooks: Content Cavalcade. Seeing that title, I expected it to be about new content coming in eBooks (which I probably wouldn't be interested in). However, it actually started talking about the Dulin readers (which meets my high-level criteria), then switched to talk about blind people suing universities using eBook readers (which again I consider high-level), then to the Nook backlog (that's kind of high-level, but pushing it) and finally to Carina Press (that's more detailed). That should have been split into four stories, IMHO (ideally posted on two or three days). (As I said, much of the information I found interesting, so please take that as a constructive suggestion. :D)

Second, allow Boolean operations on the tags. I would choose, "General Interest" OR "Windows Mobile", for example; you might choose, "General Interest" OR "Zune" OR "eBooks"; an iPhone fan might only choose "iPhone".

It would be even nicer if the system would remember our preferences when we visit the site in the future.

Steve