Thu 21 Feb 2008
Our Metro-North blogging brethren StationStops.com has retooled its schedules page, putting all the stations on a single screen. In short, you can do with one click on StationStops what takes about a half-dozen clicks and some scrolling on the MTA page, and as StationStops points out, you can’t bookmark the MTA Schedules page.
The new page also offers easy access to the real-time Metro-North Big Board, which the MTA site makes a point of burying.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:17 am
Two reactions to this:
1. The single-station schedules might be just the thing for the everyday commuter, but we regular visitors/explorers who may use more than one station during a trip would appreciate an HTML-only version of the entire schedule for a line.
2. I appreciate StationStops’ desire to be compensated for blogging, but isn’t it a little excessive to have three (3) sets of Google ads (with link text confusingly similar to the content links) and two (2) graphical banner ads?
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Cap N Transit:
I appreciate the feedback!
I started StationStops.com primarily because I wanted to be able to pull up my own schedule with a single click.
Now that I have set that up, I will definitely add interstation routes of all sorts, its coming!
As far as the ads go - YES I agree completely it is way overdone right now - but I’ll tell you why…
Although I have been a web developer for the last 13 years, I am neither a graphic designer nor I have learned the ins and outs of selling ads.
For now, I have ads everywhere, so I can measure which ones perform and which do not - as TJ can attest, this is a long process for small sites like ours who’s adsense revenue averages about $.20 a day.
So, once I figure out which ad positions and advertisers perform, I will dump most of the rest and turn the pages over to the designer who will make the pages look far less utilitarian and ad-obnoxious.
In the long run I dont expect to have any adsense, just 3-4 hand-selected advertisers who are right for my visitors - like Tumi briefcases, Blackberry, laptops, iPods, and other stuff people use on the train!
Have faith, and thanks again for your feedback!
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