Loading...
Symbols:
Authors:

Welcome to the New Seeking Alpha

by: Mick Weinstein August 28, 2007    
Mick Weinstein

Mick Weinstein

About this author:
Become a Contributor Submit an Article
  • Font Size:
  • Print
Welcome to the new Seeking Alpha.

We began Seeking Alpha three years ago with a mission to aggregate high quality market analysis from money managers and financial bloggers in an easily accessible manner, free for all individual and institutional investors. We’ve evolved to provide more comprehensive daily market news, while using the internet’s unique resources and tools to broaden the investor's information horizon in a manner no other financial site can match.

Our new design makes all of this a lot easier to do. The new site contains a whole host of enhancements incorporated throughout – from our homepage through article pages, sector pages and individual stock pages. Among the features of Seeking Alpha 2.0:

• Brighter spotlight on authors on article pages

• Enhanced search function, with auto-fill

• Clearer separation of community-submitted opinion articles from SA news briefs

• A sidebar widget indicating readers’ most popular articles and our editors' picks

• Clearer charts, data and comments on individual stocks

• Quick and easy registration for personalized email alerts and commenting

• Streamlined navigation

We hope you’ll take a few minutes to explore our new site and share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

We’re currently developing a number of additional projects upon this new platform - most of them initiated by contributor and reader suggestions - so please continue sending in your ideas.

We see this new site as a turning point, as we've always believed that micropublishing, the smart hyperlink, and clear presentation will transform financial media.

Thanks as always for reading and contributing to Seeking Alpha.

* UPDATE 9/12: We're Listening: SA Homepage Now Includes Author Links

~ Mick Weinstein, Seeking Alpha Editor in Chief

Related Articles

This article has 79 comments:

  •  
    Aug 27 09:55 AM
    I already miss seeing bylines from the main navigation, but it doesn't look bad overall so far.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 10:00 AM
    The site loads so quickly now.
    and the look is so slick...

    thank :)
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 10:04 AM
    it looks amazing and loads really fast, congratulations seeking alpha!
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 10:18 AM
    wasn't broken, didn't need fixing. thumbs down.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 10:51 AM
    Disagree, this change is more than welcome, the site is much clearer than it ever was.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 10:53 AM
    The new search is phenomenal! Love the way it completes company names and stock tickers.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 11:01 AM
    This is like Seeking Alpha on steroids. Page load times are exceptional. Seriously, how do you make those pages load so quickly?
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 11:31 AM
    Ugh! Definitely a case where the old SA was better than the new SA!
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 04 02:07 PM
    RP, any particular features you miss that you think we should look at again in the new design? -- David
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 11:41 AM
    like most of the changes, but one thing i I think is REALLY unfair is at the beginning of each article, you no longer write "author xyz submits"

    this gives the impression that A) authors are no longer important and that B) seeking alpha is coming up with all this content on its own.

    please fix that..I wish this site the best but I think the authors first name needs to continue being highlighted at the beginning of EVERY article

    thx
    dan
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 12:09 PM
    Thanks Daniel.

    Regarding the author byline - a central goal of the rebuild is to bring more attention to authors. Articles, like mine here, will contain a full sidebar element with not only a link to the author's site, but also a new link to the author's bio and articles that have been published on SA.

    On RSS feeds and third party feeds, the intro byline will remain the same as it was on the old site, ie. 'Daniel Jacome submits:' with a link to your site.

    Also, we plan to use the central box on the homepage to highlight an 'author of the week' that will rotate among our top contributors.

    ~ Mick
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 12:43 PM
    Hi Daniel, this is a really key issue for us, as one of our top goals was to *increase* the exposure we're giving to contributors. I'd love to hear from other readers: do the photo and links on the left hand side of each article page increase the prominence of the authors, compared to what we had before?
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 12:38 PM
    Page load time is amazing. Search is far, far better (no longer need to use Yahoo Finance to look up ticker symbols). Navigation between sectors is easier, and you seem to be showing more topics now. I also like the look -- it's clean and readable.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 12:39 PM
    The new layout looks good. Will provide feedback as we use it more!

    Nidhi
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 12:42 PM
    the new layout looks good. Will comment more as we use it more ..

    Nidhi
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 12:44 PM
    My old name/pseudonym is lost though .. I had to create a new one.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 12:43 PM
    can you cover pink sheet and over the counter stocks?
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 01:48 PM
    some of the changes are ok, but overall I dislike the changes and long for the old look. the first glance is not nearly as informative or comprehansive as before
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 01:53 PM
    I enjoy your articles very much.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 02:06 PM
    perhaps you have a few glitches in your newsystem. have not received any e-mails all day
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 03:46 PM
    We delayed sending out the emails this morning until the new site was live. Sorry for the delay -- you should have it now.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 01:38 PM
    as of 1:38 Tues have received only 2 e-mails
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 04:04 PM
    Is there any way to get a page-view of headlines from all the sections, like it used to be? Very annoying to have to click into the different sections for things. Also, any way to have a date delimiter when in the article pagination view?

    Looks much "prettier", but seemingly less functional ...
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 05:57 PM
    Hi Jerry,

    You can view headlines from all articles by clicking on the "More" link below the headlines in the "Opinion & Analysis" column on the home page. That link takes you here:
    seekingalpha.com/artic.../

    (The title for that page should be "Latest Articles", not "Article Pagination" -- a bug we just discovered.)

    The headlines on that page are in reverse chronological order, so generally you don't need a date delimiter as most of the headlines you see will be today's.

    Some explanation about the new home page design: Our goal was to show as many headlines on the home page as possible, while telling a coherent "story" instead of providing an undifferentiated river of headlines. The new home page looks as though it has fewer headlines, because the headlines are divided into News, Opinion & Analysis and Long Ideas/Short Ideas/Cramer/Transcrip... etc. But in fact in shows more headlines than the old home page, and groups them into coherent units that should hopefully be more useful. Showing dates, tickers and authors below headlines significantly restricted the number of headlines we could show on a page, so we opted to eliminate that info on the home page and the sector home pages.

    We hope that the effect is that the Seeking Alpha home page is a much more powerful resource. It shows the top news stories in the left hand column, a wide selection of opinion and analysis in the center column, and transcripts in the right hand column. We hope this denser layout will be particularly powerful on the sector home pages -- if you work in the energy industry, for example, the Energy sector home page is now a far richer resource.

    We tried to take care of the people who wanted the undifferentiated "river of headlines" by providing that "More" link. Also, the "All headlines" email we send out every morning lists all the articles by sector.

    Best,
    David
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 08:08 AM
    I appreciate the reasoning for the change, but it just has the feel of two undifferentiated rivers to me. The information available to me immediately in the old style when deciding to click an article was headline, sector, tickers, author, date/time, even a brief snippet; now I am supposed to decide what to read based on the headline alone and whether it is "news" or "commentary" (I care about both).

    I can use my scroll wheel if you have more headlines than fit on one page, but the new layout just kills my ability to pick out meaningful articles. Unfortunately the quality of commentary is not uniform, and I don't want to read through a lot of trash or use the search function just to find something worth reading!
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 08:16 AM
    To give an example, of the top five commentaries in US Market, three are about the Fed. Am I supposed to use the headline to choose? In the old style I would have immediately gone to the author with the most credibility, or the article dealing specifically with impact on the Russell, etc. and gotten to the others if I had time. It's nice that you are improving the author recognition in the sidebar, but you just removed all front page visibility for authors!

    I do think the rebuild looks slick - there is way too much white space, in my opinion, but I can zoom out to help with that. I will stick with it and see how it wears.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 10:42 AM
    Well said, gembree. A lot of functionality has been sacrificed to make the site 'slick'.

    The ability to filter articles by authors has definitely been lost and this was a biggie - you now have to wade through all the chaff to find the wheat, articles that were well written, well thought out.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 07:05 PM
    Ummm, maybe it is my PC, but when I look at all my articles, I do not see my PIC or bio onthe left hand side, as you claim.

    That is why I complained earlier....can someone confirm this?
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 07:49 PM
    Hi Daniel,

    We're trying to transition all the pictures and bios to the new platform. Look at this article for an example of one with a picture etc:

    seekingalpha.com/artic...
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 07:19 PM
    Did these changes impact the email articles? I have not received any since point on the 26th?

    Walter Willis
    walter.willis@gmail.co...
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 27 09:38 PM
    oustanding information lots of insights and profesional perspective
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 05:38 AM
    Could we have the author names back on the front page, please? Also, for some reason, all my email alerts disappeared - haven't gotten any since Friday.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 10:21 AM
    Hi writersblock,

    Thanks for this feedback -- v helpful. We're gathering input about author names on the front page, so this is helpful.

    On email, we've had issues sending out emails the past couple of days (we send over 450,000 every day). Hopefully they are resolved -- by the time you read this you should have received your email alerts as usual.

    David
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 05:41 AM
    It would also be nice to see dates on the articles on the front page, so we can see where one day ends, and the next days' articles begin.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 10:22 AM
    FYI -- All articles on the front page are today's.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 07:39 AM
    A lot of people seem to be impressed with how fast pages load and how slick the site looks. Personally, what was and hopefully will continue to be the most important part of this site is the wealth of info that you can get. I always look forward to what David Fry, Barry Ritholz, David Merkel, Eric Savitz, etc. have to say. Even Cramer. It's become an impossible chore to track down these people. If I search for David Fry articles, I'm presented with a whole slew of them with no dates. I can't determine which is from today. I haven't seem an email from SA since Saturday. People, let's not get so wrapped up with the "sizzle". I WANT MY "STEAK" BACK, PLEASE!
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 01:58 PM
    Barney, the author pages are still up (and are a key part of the site), and list that author's articles with the latest first, with dates and stocks under each article. The author pages appear in search as "[Author Name] - Seeking Alpha". Usually the author page appears first in the search results. David Fry's is about the sixth in the list.

    Here are the links to the authors you were looking for:
    seekingalpha.com/autho...
    seekingalpha.com/autho...
    seekingalpha.com/autho...



    You can find Cramer directly via the link below the top bar on the home page and here:
    seekingalpha.com/tag/c...

    Having said that, we're listening carefully to comments about author names on the home page. Please see my comment above about the factors that influenced our decision about finding the best home page design.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 08:32 AM
    I don't see any improvements for the new sites and it's lot slower. Plus, I stopped getting emails subscription ever since the upgrade. Worse, the new subscription never works. (Button not responding).
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 09:38 AM
    Since you have gone to the new website format all my email preferences are now messed up. I no longer get my ticker symbols or the subjects I requested. Several attempts at updating my information have been unsuccessful and the system does not save them. Please fix the bugs. SeekingAlpha is an excellent site.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 02:00 PM
    User 82402 and others who have pointed out the glitches with email: don't worry! Your email preferences are unchanged, and we're resuming emails now. We had to freeze some of the emails as the new site rolled out, but you should be receiving emails again now.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 10:03 AM
    i miss the sector listings at the top of the page so i can go right to telecom, biotech etc...
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 11:27 AM
    Hi User 53292,

    Very interested to read this. When you mouse over Sectors, do you not get a flyout menu of all the different sectors? If not, please respond with browser/platform info etc.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 28 12:17 PM
    Very (that is very very) sorry to see that you've killed off your emails. I had selected "real estate" and there were many articles which came from a stock and more honest orientation than what I expect from people selling a real estate product. Now? I get no more emails - can't send your articles on to the other members of my real estate group. Yes, very sorry to have this resource taken away.
    Reply