More recently, the blog network has taken on another new look.  While the latest redesign has kept a number of elements from August’s look, quite a bit has changed, and not all of it for the better.

The first thing you notice when you visit the new site is the revamped ‘network’ bar that links to all the TechCrunch websites.  Although located in almost the same place as last time, the background has been turned black, making it much more prominent.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and might help convince people to visit other parts of the network.  However, I think the black stands out so much that it draws your eye away from the main content.  It unnecessarily overpowers the rest of the website.

In addition to making the network bar more obvious, the large banner advert has been moved into the space next to the site logo.  This has meant that size of the logo has been reduced to make way for the advert.

The website homepage now includes three promo items along the top of the main content.  While this makes it easy to jump to what the TechCrunch editors rate as important content, the placement of an advert next to the three boxes first made me think the whole bar was one big advert.  After a few visits, I finally realised that it actually showed content, although nothing I couldn’t get from just reading down the page.

Another change to the homepage has been the reduction in width of the article excerpts and provision of a number of tabbed boxes listing active and recent entries.  These boxes used to live beneath the 125×125 pixel advert blocks on the far right hand site.

Overall I think this design is a serious step backwards for the website.  They’ve taken what was a very clean and easy to read design and cluttered it up with adverts.  The more space-efficient top bar including advert and logo now has less white space, but is just crowded.  The promo bar is badly designed, making it seem like one big advert.  The reduced width of the actual content and increased number of adverts on the right hand side just makes the site seem even more cluttered.  I don’t think they could fit any more stuff in if they tried.

Hopefully next time they do a revamp, they’ll go back to the short-lived clean and consistent design across all their sites.

You can see the new design vs old design from the screenshots below. Although the old screenshot comes from a different site on the TechCrunch network, you can still get a good idea of the changes.

Techcrunch, a technology blog covering ‘web 2.0′ and internet start ups had a bit of a redesign earlier this week.  As a blog that I keep track of all the time, I’m really pleased to see it move away from its previous, cluttered look to this clean and fresh design.

Features of the new look include a much more integrated navigation including links to other blogs from the Techcrunc.  network, more consistent advert space, links to most active and recent comments, and a move away from full posts on the homepage.

The new navigation brings a much more consistent feel across the website.  Links to the other Techcrunch blogs (CrunchGear, MobileCrunch, TechCrunchIT etc) have moved from their previous location at the bottom of the old advert column to the very top of the page, making it easier to navigate across the network.  However, TalkCrunch (the network podcast) and CrunchNotes (Michael Arrington’s personal blog) are notably missing from this list.  Other links which a regular reader wouldn’t use very often but are still important (such as About, Contact, Advertise etc) have been moved to the right of the logo.  While they are still obvious, it means they do not take up as much valuable real-estate as the previous layout.

The new Techcrunch network navigation makes it easier to move between blogs

The new design loads much quicker than before.  The old site took an age to load (it was almost worth going to make a cup of tea while waiting for it to load), however the new design is pretty much the same as every other blog in the world.  I can only assume this is mainly achieved through a simpler layout and improved code.

One of the way’s the speed has been increased on the homepage is by switching to an excerpt scheme (only showing a small extract rather than full articles).  From a web design point of view, this is a big improvement – it increases page views (because you have to visit a dedicated page for each article), and it can increase your Google rank (because you no longer have duplicate content on your site).  But from a user-interaction point of view, it requires many more mouse-clicks, and makes it difficult to just scan through a series of entries.  I’m torn as to which is best and have been considering a similar switch on this blog – comments from readers would be much appreciated.

In general I think this redesign is a big success (although a fair amount of the comments on their website seem to disagree with me).  Mark Hendrickson (who announced the re-design) explained their intention to roll this design out to other parts of the network, an aim which would bring consistency across the board.  However, I’ve heard this before. CrunchGear has had two designs over the last year, both of which were supposed to be rolled out across the network and never were, and more recently new layouts have appeared on TechCrunchIT, TalkCrunch and CrunchNotes.  If, however, this does happen, all the blogs will be much more pleasant.

Other recent Techcrunch layouts.

According to Michael Arrington, owner of TechCrunch, they are working with a supply chain management company who believe it is possible and can have a few prototypes ready in a short period of time (within a month).

I’ve been considering buying a UMPC for quite a while as I no longer have a need for a fully fledged laptop.  I do however still want a portable device, so I can sit down in the evening in front of the TV, browse the web and reply to emails.  If TechCrunch pull this off – and I really hope they do – I will definitely be investing in a unit.

Something like this is right in Apple’s territory – they already have the thin MacBook Air and the fantastic touch screen interface of the iPhone, but no tablet PC.  If TechCrunch get this device out quickly, Apple will have been caught asleep at the wheel.