Ohiyo!
The Treadmill Sensei has a new addiction to confess to. Mat, who helps me out with all things internet and website, introduced me to a magnificent service called Statcounter, which is a statistics and monitoring service we use here at the DOJO for treadmillsensei.com. What it lets you do is see how many people are on the site, what pages they go through, where they are from and so on. I’ve gotten so addicted that I check my stats every few hours now just to see where people are coming from and what they are looking for. It helps me figure out what I should write about next. An added benefit is that I get to see when manufacturers, retailers and even competitor reviewers are checking out my page. My favorite two visitors are an Arkansas manufacturer and a review site from Memphis…both are here on the site a few times a day soaking up the wisdom of the Treadmill Sensei. Great going, guys, the best place to learn is at the feet of the master! If you both stick at it then you might just become possessed by the spirit of the Sensei.
Anyway, I have to bail out on doing a review tonight because my beloved grandchild is going to be staying with Mrs. Sensei and I until tomorrow and, to tell the truth, I’d much rather play with him! However, I will answer a piece of new reader email with a suggestion I will be following up on.
Sensei,
I absolutely enjoy the site. It’s magnificent what you do and have done.
I’m in the midst of researching ellipticals and thought I had it narrowed down only to find yet a new one pop up on your 2007 list. I was wondering if you’d like a couple of suggestions on the site. Obviously you can ignore them.
Since the buddah rating is in the reviews, could they be added to the right hand index, perhaps at the end of the elliptical/treadmill name maybe in parenthesis? Or, I was also wondering if the right hand lists would be better off in buddah order from top to bottom. That way, a quick stop at the site could immediately show what’s at the “top of the heap”, instead of having to search through every one to see if there’s a new winner.
Each time a better one comes up in your reviews, etc, you just pop it into the appropriate spot on the list. Thanks and regards, -Stephen
Stephen:
Thanks for the note and I’m glad you like the site…I hope it’s helped at least a little on your search. About getting the buddah ratings listed in the right navigation bar: I think you’re on to something. I am going to try and get that implemented this weekend. I’m not sure if they’ll show as a picture in the right nav because of the limited space, but I know they’ll work as a mouse over bit of text. In other words, when you place your cursor over a unit a little box will pop up with the treadmill or elliptical buddah rating in it. Will that work? What do the rest of you think?
Before I sign off I want to put out an open call to everyone who has bought a treadmill or elliptical in the past. I am looking for buying horror stories. Did you run in to an incredibly pushy sales person? Were you unable to even get a sales person’s attention at a big box store? Did it take forever to get your treadmill delivered? Or did your elliptical show up completely destroyed in transit? Send in your buying horror stories and I’ll publish them all in the next few weeks.
That’s it from the DOJO tonight. I’ll be back with a couple of new reviews tomorrow to make up for tonight. Take care and stay fit!
-The Treadmill Sensei
http://www.treadmillsensei.com
Sensei,
I see what you mean about the limited space and the idea of the pop-up. However, with a quick glance at the list, it looks as though most, if not all listings are already two lines. Pretty much all of them look to have ample space next to “Review”. I was thinking along the lines:
BladeZ 7.9 Elliptical
Review (4.5/5)
Eclipse 2100HRA Elliptical
Review (2.5/5)
Or even to conserve more space,
since all good readers know it’s
out of 5 buddahs:
BladeZ 7.9 Elliptical
Review (4.5)
Eclipse 2100HRA Elliptical
Review (2.5)
This way, it’s a simple glance
at the list with no need for
moving the cursor over each and
every item. Another example is
your great comparison page. I
want an elliptical with 21″
stride, so I just quickly scan
down and pick out ones with that.
(Would be nice if that table could be sorted by headings! :-D)
I appreciate your reading the e-mail and actually thinking about implementing a change!
Regards,
Steve
Sensei,
YES! Looks great! Thanks!
Sorry to be such a pain in the you know what and your site was/is definitely THE resource for those looking for a treadmill or elliptical, IMHO!
I got another thought that popped up when I was looking at the list, but may be a little more challenging to implement.
I was thinking, under the main heading of the indices (Elliptical Reviews & Treadmill Reviews) have two buttons, one to sort the list alphabetically, the other to sort by buddahs.
Yeah I know, bug off already! ;-D