New Trade Me

Right, well it was always going to happen and like the Stuff site, I was always going to have an opinion on it. New site is clean and the layout mostly works for me. I'm not so keen about about the 'Buying/Selling' watchlist menu under the search, just because I am not used to it, but that's fine, just a readjustment.

So, colour me not surprised that the top 468x60 (is that the size of the top banner?? Don't know, don't have a ratecard... oh - that's harsh, sorry) has not

been sold on the homepage. Sorry, still think that this format is SO redundant. I know that we used to specifically make tab & tower, but we didn't have a choice. We do now, show and skys, that do not need to be purchased together. Yes!

I note that throughout the rest of the site the majority of the top banner ads have been purchased in conjunction with the sky. It looks (quick check - don't hold me to it) that Westpac has purchased a Sky only, and an in house ad is running in the top banner position. I will be interested to see how this progresses, and whether, like the homepage, they will leave this placement empty if unsold.

Now, I am seriously hoping that agencies are not putting the sky/banner combo

through to their clients as an all in one package. I recall having to talk clients into making tab/tower formats specifically for Trade Me, because TM is TM and if you want to be there, you have to make those formats, but you don't have to anymore... if you don't want to make the redundant format, you don't have to. I hope this message is being passed on to clients.

As per any new site there are a few glitches. This one is a bit of a pity though:

Check out the chicken in the showcase... on the homepage. Now, happy to be corrected on this one, but pretty sure that XT don't have a chicken in their campaign - unless it's Richard Hammond in that chicken suit?? Showcase should look like this:I saw the chicken, thought "Huh?" clicked on the link, went through to XT, went "huh?" again. Like any good Internet geek I emptied my cache, refreshed a few times, got the right ad, and then the chicken turned up again, and it was at this point I screen grabbed (let's be fair, when I got the right ad the second time I was kicking myself for not screen grabbing the first screen!!)

Other nasty little glitches like the drop menus not returning properly are a little frustrating, but I have no doubt that these will be fixed relatively quickly.

Overall, I do like the site. I think it is clean and it is a nice evolution from the previous site. It is fresh but not a complete departure from what it's users know. For me, I am not a fan of the top banner as an advertising space, but in saying that the sky/banner combos that are on the site today do look good, I'm just not sure if the price tag is justified. So there you go. Like I said, was always going to have an opinion on this.

UPDATE: I get it now. Opened Trade Me in IE and the chicken was dancing (it wasn't dancing in Chrome, just static). Interestingly, when someone else opened up TM in IE there was a showcase sitting in the top banner. That was odd. Isn't happening for me, I would have included a screenshot of it. Ah, the joy of new sites!