I usually visit or read something from Rotten Tomatoes everyday, mainly via their RSS news feed, because they put out some decent stuff. They usually are a day behind the other movie news sources out there, but they still get some exclusive content and some interesting interviews with movie reviewers.
But on Tuesday of this week they switched over to a new theme and so far, if I read all the comments correctly, they’d be getting around a 13% rating, or “rotten”, in their own made up ratings.
The sadder part is that 13% comes only from the comments I can actually READ on the blog post announcing the new theme. There are two more pages that for some reason I can’t view, they just take me to the frontpage. Not good.
They also have some formatting issues when I look at it in Firefox on my Ubuntu operating system, which kind of sucks. It appears to only be an issue on Ubuntu, as Firefox on my XP virtual machine is fine.
I actually don’t mind the new theme, the new logo with the grass up top is kind of okay, albeit succumbing to the Web 2.0 looking graphics. I like the little “news” boxes all over the frontpage, but they appear to be not organized well…like having the News at the bottom of the page.
But the site seems to be very slow at times and hopefully that will improve.
I’ve done a lot of redesigns of websites over my lifetime and it sure does suck when something you put a lot of work into really doesn’t go over well with your readers, so I do feel for the guys at Rotten Tomatoes.
I hope they get all this ironed out soon.
I agree with you 100%. I hate the new layout..
Wonder what they are going to do with it.
Amen, the new theme/site sucks a lot. I remember the most useful thing about the OLD rotten tomatoes was instantly sorting that huge list of movies by rating, not to mention being able to instantly SEE all movies in the sidebar at all times. That was the whole site for me. The new design is cluttered, commercial, ad-strewn, and useless to me. They’ll get no more traffic from me.
Not to mention slow as heck ;(
What is it with you and new themes Mike – you have been having the worst time with them. I think it is you.
I hate the new layout. All I want to do is go there read mainstream reviews all in one place , not other readers.
It is cluttered and hard to find what I used to find with one click.
I avoid sites like this, and I will miss the old rotten tomatoes.
That sucks Linda, I think they may have lost some readers because of the change…still funny that they haven’t tried to switch back or tweak it a bit…it has some format issues to this day for me.
looks like rottentomato just sold out. Is it possible to make you check out more ads before looking up a trailer, rating, etc.? What a bunch of sellouts. If they don’t change things, I expect this site will be dead within a year.
I totally agree with you and it STILL sucks 7 months later. SO SAD
Yep and 2 months after that, I couldn't pull up a review at all. I've depended on RT for years and now I'm looking for alternatives.
I just STARTED using RT this week and I loved the content but it’s just too slow to dig through. As a new user, I was looking for “slow connections” mode that might bypass some of the sludge. I was also hoping to find a way to list links to movies that are airing on the main cable movie channels this week. That would be a HUGE benefit.
And a year later, nothing’s better. After the site changed, I was embarrased to have recommended it highly to so many. I used to scorn IMDB, but now I have to go there for quick info. Of course all this because they sold out to FOX-IGN. What used to be my movie-loving paradise is now just a source of anger and anguish every time I dare to brave the site. And see? In the time it took me to put in the address, open another tab, query “slow connection rotten tomatoes,” read all comments, and write this– it’s STILL LOADING.
Good to know it is not just me, the site is so slow it is unuseable
Still stinks….. and getting worse. I used to find the site useful, but now it is a waste of time.
Still sucks!!! I am a long time RT user (from, like way back in the early 2000s) and it used to be simple and fast. Now it’s very close to being unusable, and insulting with all the ads. Too bad
A lot of pages seem to render incorrectly in Firefox on Ubuntu, don’t know why.
And RT is super slow on any setup…I mean, I used to have a 1.5 Mbps connection, and now with my 12 Mbps connection I can’t really notice any speed difference on RT.
I can’t even get to my own reviews. Ultra frustrating.
It’s still frustratingly slow, although I’m sure Armond White would give it a positive review nonetheless.
Slower than slow for me… i really can’t use RT anymore so it’s getting removed removed from my boomarks.
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