Moises Kirsch 10 Jun 05

Matt, there is an error on the link at the post.

Melanie 10 Jun 05

Weird, I was just at the new site earlier today and thinking it was much better than I remembered. Nice job EK.

ML 10 Jun 05

Whoops, fixed now.

MMI 10 Jun 05

Wait a minute… You’re trying to tell us someone actually quit 37 Signals? I don’t believe it.

raj 10 Jun 05

EK is the man. God broke the mold when he was born. Fucking broke it.

ek 12 Jun 05

raj, I hope you’re kidding. ;-)

MMI, I wouldn’t quite say that I quit. It was more a realization that I wanted to do something else with my life and that I definitely did not want to spend the rest of my life doing Web development.

In fact, when I stepped away from 37s, I had no idea what I was going to do next, which was a little scary. But, as often seems to happen when you let yourself go with the flow, I ended up doing something I had wanted to do for some time, which was to move to Oregon and simplify my life.

I don’t make anywhere near as much as I did back in the bad ol’ days of the .com bubble and the nearest big city is an hour away, but (knock on wood! ;-) my wife and I are both happier than we’ve ever been and feel more fulfilled than we ever have before.

There really is something special and spiritually redeeming about being so close to the beauty of the natural world. I know this is going to sound corny, but it makes me feel really good, makes me want to be a better person and makes me want to do whatever I can to preserve and protect that beauty so that others can experience it as well.

All this typing is making me want to go for a walk!

pb 13 Jun 05

I think search boxes are better left empty than with text such as “Search this site”.

ek 13 Jun 05

Hey pb, generally speaking, I would agree, but to me, the required Google branding adds a little confusion, which is why I added the note in the search box making it clear that the search function will search the site, and not the Web at large.

That said, I don’t think it’s a very elegant solution and, as soon as we’re able, we’ll be adding our own, non-Google-driven search feature (along with some nice filtering functionality to make finding info about specific shoes easier).

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Also, based on some comments we received in the past couple of days, I cut down the number of Google ads along the right side from four to two, which I think really helps cut down on the clutter (I also tweaked the color mix of the ads just a bit). My hope is that that change will actually increase the click-through rates — that’ll be an interesting metric to track.

Dan Boland 13 Jun 05

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

I’ll toss in my two cents. I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with putting some explanatory text like “Search This Site” in a search field. One thing that’s easy to forget is that there are a LOT of people with little experience or expertise when it comes to the web. For instance, there are people that go to google.com and type “solecollector.com” in the search box because they don’t know any better. So a little clarification may elicit “duh” from more web-savvy folks, but “oh I get it” from, say, my mother.

ek 13 Jun 05

So a little clarification may elicit �duh� from more web-savvy folks, but �oh I get it� from, say, my mother.

And I have it on good authority that your mother is a BIG fan of the site. ;-)