I will begin this important post with a quote from the movie Apollo 13:
That, better than anything else, summarizes the old Slope of Hope. It was built, piece by piece, step by step, with no particular plan in mind, over many years. It did its job well, but it lived well past its prime and, technologically, fell far behind the times. But it was a good ship.
I introduce you now to our new ship – the new Slope of Hope. This system was built new from the ground up. We started with a blank sheet of paper and blank hard drives and went from there.
The vast majority of improvements are invisible to the eye. I wanted to take this opportunity, however, to illustrate a few differences between the old and new Slope to get you acquainted with our new home.
In general, though, this is how I would summarize the difference between the old Slope and the new Slope: The old one was a blog that just happened to have a lot of cool little features built around it. The new one is an integrated web site in which all parts – – SocialTrade, SlopeCharts, and the blog itself – – all have equal importance.
You’ll notice the design is totally different. On the old site, when you went to the home page, you were instantly at the most recent blog post. By its very nature, the old SOH focused intently on blog posts.
The new site provides quick access to the most recent posts via a scrolling marquee, but the home page is an access portal to SocialTrade, SlopeCharts, the Blog, as well as help. (For those of you who just can’t abide change, you can use this URL to go straight to the blog posts each day).
For those newer to the site, there is introductory content at the top of main sections. You can “collapse” this text permanently if you like. At the top of the blog section, you also have one-click access to any tag you like, and we’ve added a few new ones.
One big change is in the comments system. I have stripped away a lot of stuff which we added over time but decided later was just extraneous and not that well done. The Q&A feature is gone, as is virtual trading. You will find using comments simpler and cleaner, including the ability to drag and drop images into a comment.
There are three classes of people that will visit the site: Guests, Slopers, and PLUS members. Guests are people that haven’t even bothering registering themselves, so their experience is very much a “read only” one. Slopers have taken the time to register themselves (which takes all of four seconds or so) and get a much more personalized experience than guests, as well as being able to leave comments. PLUS members get all the power features (and no advertisements).
You are going to see a much greater emphasis on PLUS membership with the new site, and it is explained quite clearly on the “Why Subscribe?” page.
Another big emphasis on the new site is going to be knowledge and education. For example, there’s an entire page devoted to tutorials about using SlopeCharts. This library will expand over time.
For me, the biggest surprise in creating the new site was how much time SocialTrade took. Indeed, it was the biggest challenge of the entire project. I am pleased with the results, though. The old SocialTrade was sort of cobbled together roughly.
The new one, however, is beautifully-integrated with the site, and you will find navigating the content far more elegant.
Take the time to explore. As with all new products, there are bound to be some rough edges, some things we missed, and other minor mishaps. I’m ready to address those and continue the never-ending process of making Slope the best it can be.
Thank you all being being a part of it.
