Giving up on the CBR Home Page

[Iron Maiden]

I can't stand it anymore. Ads and videos are constantly loading or attempting to load. Sometimes you can't even read the articles anymore because of all the intrusions. Unless the mods have some suggestions, I'm going to a less bothersome site for news.

[dancj]

Have you tried Feedly?

It's a Chrome plugin and mobile app which let you get feeds from CBR (and other news sites) without having to go to the main page.

That's what I use for all of my comics news.

[Abe]

When an "exclusive preview" is announced in the forums, my first reflex is to go to the site of previewsworld to read it without boring me without the difficult connection and all the ads and videos of the cbr main page...

[LordMikel]

Agreed, their solicitations page is unreadable here. I can't even get the page to load usually and look elsewhere.

[FluffySheep]

Agreed, their solicitations page is unreadable here. I can't even get the page to load usually and look elsewhere.

I've started going elsewhere for solicitations too. The images and text are far too big on CBR so it's a huge scrollfest to get through the whole list.

[dancj]

I've started going elsewhere for solicitations too. The images and text are far too big on CBR so it's a huge scrollfest to get through the whole list.

Yeah, ridiculous.

I've started using the http://www.comiclist.com/ feed in Feedly to give me my previews. That's got the opposite problem of having no images at all, but that's far preferable to CBR's huge images

[Iron Maiden]

I don't like the huge blocky text either. I guess it's good for mobile devices but I tend to stick to my PC still at home. At least CBR doesn't have the slide show for solicitations. I think it worked better with a thumbnail of the cover image that you could click for the larger one.

Have you tried Feedly?

It's a Chrome plugin and mobile app which let you get feeds from CBR (and other news sites) without having to go to the main page.

That's what I use for all of my comics news.

Thanks for the suggestion. When I get on my home PC I will try it out.

[Park Slope Pixie]

Have you tried Feedly?

It's a Chrome plugin and mobile app which let you get feeds from CBR (and other news sites) without having to go to the main page.

That's what I use for all of my comics news.

What news? We get flimsy content in the form of tedious "15 best blah blah" lists that make the old Bleacher Report slideshow click accumulators look highbrow in comparison.

[dancj]

What news? We get flimsy content in the form of tedious "15 best blah blah" lists that make the old Bleacher Report slideshow click accumulators look highbrow in comparison.

The Brian Cronin articles are still good.

[The Celtic Batman]

I really miss the old News page layout, and especially the way the news items were automatically linked to the forums. Just another Facebook portal now

[justice004]

I absolutely echo everything that has been mentioned on this site. I'm a longtime CBR reader from the 90s and ever since the change over in ownership, this site has slowly gotten worse and worse. I was willing to give it a chance, but not sure anymore. Issues:

1. Writing quality has dropped dramatically. With the exception of Brian Cronin's articles (hard to find) everything on this site (every article or piece of content) has become endless "15 lists", "List of 8 things we like 7 we don't", "Top 10 lists" lists lists lists, etc etc. Its RIDICULOUS! What happened to real journalistic articles and columns? Interviews, analysis, actual news, opinion pieces, history lessons etc? At least Brian still does articles relating to history, comic legends/myths, rumors, etc which are fascinating and educational, but everything else on your site is a joke.

Lists are something that should be used every so often, to mix things up and if written right with some meaningful subject matter can be fun and informative. But it seems not only is the site being overtaken with lists many of them are pretty lame and crass/cheap at that (15 times a robot got lucky?, 15 times heroes did the nasty with villains) Really? Who's writing this stuff junior high boys?

Here is another example:

What happened at SDCC Comicon 2017? There used to always be great summaries and roundups for things that occurred and announced at Comicon. Great for folks who did not attend, but a week out things are now trickling in? I had to hear about the major Captain America creative team announcement of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee from another site! Comics, games, movies, tv, etc were always covered and nicely summarized from SDCC but not this time it seems unless i missed something.


2. The shift to mobile while understandable in this day and age is not without issues. The HUGE images for things like articles or solicitations make reading and consuming NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE whether i'm on a laptop browser or mobile. Pages often times load slow, crash, and frankly are impossible to read given the size the images take in terms of presentation and real estate. This is especially egregious in the monthly publisher solicitations. I often times try CBR and give up and go to other places like Newsarama or others as they make things easier to read and consume regardless of platform. How about shrinking the images a bit and/or perhaps have large and small thumbnail popups to allow users to view and choose vs throwing it all in their face?

3. As mentioned all the intrusive ads/videos that popup or play at the worse times. I am not against them as i know you need them to operate but the way they are working now is severely impacting the user experience of this site.

4. Presentation: Other sites whether it be on mobile or laptop/desktop have been able to not only grow and succeed but thrive as well with well executed modern design. This whole "endless feed only" style of presentation is awkward, cumbersome and limiting. We can have feeds AND categorizations that help users stay informed very quickly AND allow us to find and navigate to things of interest.

As a longtime reader I want CBR to succeed while evolving with the times, but it seems like its doing the exact opposite. Quality of writing, content, presentation, and usability are all taking a hit IMHO and it seems with others as well. CBR has always been a great site with great content and coverage and good industry name recognition. As it is, I fear it's losing everything that made it so great in the past and recent years, but i hope I'm wrong. I care enough about the survival and quality of CBR to actually register and provide feedback (I'm not much of a forum guy but i felt strongly enough about this to register).

Please consider some of the points shared above. If things continue to head the wrong direction, I.m afraid I'll be looking elsewhere for my comicbook related news, information and stories.

Thanks

[MindofShadow]

I can't stand it anymore. Ads and videos are constantly loading or attempting to load. Sometimes you can't even read the articles anymore because of all the intrusions. Unless the mods have some suggestions, I'm going to a less bothersome site for news.

It is bad. Really bad.

I've left many of sites because of ads and videos constantly loading non stop.

It must be profitable or it wouldn't be so common but good lord. comic newsites are a dime a dozen and i aint dealin with it

[JasonTodd428]

It is bad. Really bad.

I've left many of sites because of ads and videos constantly loading non stop.

It must be profitable or it wouldn't be so common but good lord. comic newsites are a dime a dozen and i aint dealin with it

Yeah, I stopped going to a lot of sites including the main one here because of those all those damned ads and videos. Nine times out of ten one of both of those freeze my tablet or my PC and I'm sick of it. These days I don't even bother with the news site at all. I figure they worked so hard to drive me away that I'll oblige them and stay away period.

[Iron Maiden]

Yeah, it's a shame really because CBR was one of the best with columns. Brian Cronin's are always fun but I sometimes I have hard time just finding them. The old setup linked to his archive much better.

The main page is just overloaded and IMO it's counterproductive to getting people to read it regularly. I've gone days on end without even trying.

[Alan2099]

I hater those videos that load by themselves, often talking about some other topic you didn't even want to check on. i always mute the tab when they come up.