New Oscilloscope Website

[aat24]

We just launched a new website focussing on oscilloscopes and providing basics, background, glossary and latest news. We are still working to enhance the content.
Comments and suggestions welcome!

Link: http://www.oscopes.info/

[PointyOintment]

This should be a good reference; thanks for posting!

I've just had a quick glance around, so my feedback is simple: I don't like that the body text is all bold. I noticed a misspelled word or two.

[aat24]

Thank you for your feedback! We corrected meanwhile the misspelled word and we will think about the bold text. 
Also we invest a lot of time in enhancing the content. 

[PedroDaGr8]

Thank you for your feedback! We corrected meanwhile the misspelled word and we will think about the bold text. 
Also we invest a lot of time in enhancing the content.

I'm gonna have to agree on the bold text. Keep the date bold, keep the text standard. I think it will make the page look more clean and less busy.Otherwise, it appears to be a great resource. In time, it might be good to include more editorial content like reviews, critiques, news on issues (such as the Rigol AC coupling issue), etc.

[avvidclif]

I like the bold text. Old and tired eyes say thank you. Much easier to read.

[avvidclif]

Thank you for your feedback! We corrected meanwhile the misspelled word and we will think about the bold text. 
Also we invest a lot of time in enhancing the content.

I'm gonna have to agree on the bold text. Keep the date bold, keep the text standard. I think it will make the page look more clean and less busy.Otherwise, it appears to be a great resource. In time, it might be good to include more editorial content like reviews, critiques, news on issues (such as the Rigol AC coupling issue), etc.

Rigol doesn't have an AC coupling issue. They have an AC Triggering issue. Big difference.

[PedroDaGr8]

Thank you for your feedback! We corrected meanwhile the misspelled word and we will think about the bold text. 
Also we invest a lot of time in enhancing the content.

I'm gonna have to agree on the bold text. Keep the date bold, keep the text standard. I think it will make the page look more clean and less busy.Otherwise, it appears to be a great resource. In time, it might be good to include more editorial content like reviews, critiques, news on issues (such as the Rigol AC coupling issue), etc.

Rigol doesn't have an AC coupling issue. They have an AC Triggering issue. Big difference.

My apologies, early morning brain fact. Yep huge difference.

[edavid]

Looks like a press release site with no original content    Don't think I'll be returning.

[videobruce]

Where/when did the "info" domain name about??

BTW, great idea about the site and hope you succeed with it. Any chance Spectrum Analyzers could be included in the future since they are 'scopes'? 

[aat24]

@edavid:

We just launched this website in November and we already have original content e.g. 10 Tips for selecting an Oscilloscope (Basics), Oscilloscopes - A Historic Timeline (Basics), overview products and manufacturers (Market), Oscilloscope Glossary, Weblinks,... and we are working to enhance this.

Concerning the press releases I think these are important as well - otherwise you wouldn't be informed what is going on in this market. And I think there is no other website which is covering this market segment like www.OScopes.info.

So stay tuned

@videobruce
This website is dedicated to oscilloscopes only. Some scopes offer already also a spectrum analyser function (probably somehow limited). From that point of view we will cover this also in a way. In addition we are running an other website covering the whole spectrum of test & measurement: www.all-about-test.eu/

[Wuerstchenhund]

And I think there is no other website which is covering this market segment like www.OScopes.info.

Try this:
http://www.eetimes.com/test-and-measurement-designline.asp

To be of interest to me and worth my time your website would need to me more than just another press release aggregator with some trivia (incomplete timeline, missing for example that this year LeCroy brought a 100GHz scope to market) and some beginner's information mostly derived from manufacturer whitepapers. That's already better done by sites like EETimes.

The "10 Tips for selecting an oscilloscope" is merely a collection of trivia. More complex issues (i.e.vertical resolution) are dealt with in a very superflours way (what about ENOB? noise floor?). This is also true for advanced functionality. Considering that these days most scopes are closer to full signal analyzers it's a big omission to not discuss this in more details. It seems to me this was written by someone who only recently got his first low end scope. But the worst of it is that the title is misleading, there are no actual "tips" in this article, the reader gets thrown a bunch of parameters and that's about it.

The section "Market" isn't really a market overview. It's a list of manufacturers and some form factors and bandwidths. BTW: LeCroy stopped making PXI kit quite a while ago (IIRC 8 years).

To be worth my time I'd expect more original content (i.e. not parrotting manufacturer statements) dealing with more advanced topics showing how to use scopes to solve complex modern-day problems.

BTW: I really hate inline popups (where if the mouse hoovers over some word a popup comes up), they're reason enough for me to dismiss a site no matter what the content. It also looks like you think your readers are idiots or why else dou you feel the need to explain almost every term on every damn page? You have a Glossary so why shove it in your visitors face?

The English in some of the areas reads a bit bumpy (obviously translated by a German in German to English). Please don't take this as an offense, I'm a non-native English speaker myself, and it's perfectly fine if your English is a bit rough (mine certainly is). But on a website such as this it looks a bit unprofessional and careless.

I also agree with other comments re. the layout. It does look like one of these fake spam sites, and if I had found it through a search engine I'd immediately leave it.

Frankly, the site shouldn't have brought online in its current state.

[marshallh]

Looks like a blogspam/SEO garbage site. There does seem to be some original content in it, but it's hard to find in the morass of useless PR spam.

You have several problems:
1. Graphic style is poor. While it's clean, it looks incredibly generic, like some 5 minute wordpress template. My eyes can't figure out where to focus.
2. Break up all your walls of text. Add images whereever you can. The bolded summary text doesn't work well. All that text may as well say "Lorem ipsum.."
3. Clearly mark original content and the PR spam separately.

Maybe pick a 200px tall banner on the front page that contains image links to "Choosing your first scope" "Navigating the used scope market" and so on.

Sorry I can't provide any more tips. Unfortunately if I were to run into this site from Google I would quickly hit 'Back' thinking it was noise.

[aat24]

@marshallh
@wuerstchenhund

Thank you for your feedback. We implemented already some of your suggestions: we disabled popups, added images and avoided bold text. Also we added some more original content e.g. "More than just a scope". Work still goes on;-)

BTW: The 100GHz scope of Teledyne Le Croy was not missing in the timeline, becuase it was first announced in 2013 but we now mentioned in 2014 again. The timeline is still incomplete and we like to add milestones e.g. in the 70s, 80s and 90s. But  this information is hard to find. Any ideas?

[IconicPCB]

If You have enough room on Your hard drive  start collecting a library of service manuals and user manuals of various oscilloscopes.

Initially if no room available post links to existing archives but do try to collect and collate manuals as well.

[aat24]

We added a new section on the oscilloscope website listing special offers, promotions and packages for oscilloscopes:
www.oscopes.info/promotions/

[Wuerstchenhund]

We added a new section on the oscilloscope website listing special offers, promotions and packages for oscilloscopes:
www.oscopes.info/promotions/

Really, promotions? Your website lacks serious content and you're adding promotions (which all link to the same website anyways)? I mean, it's not that manufacturers don't advertise their promotions on their website and any EE news aggregator out there, which do that much better anyways.

No offense  but you should really start adding some real content of value. There are literally thousands of topics I can think about that relate to scopes. Promotions are pretty much at the bottom of the list.

[edavid]

We added a new section on the oscilloscope website listing special offers, promotions and packages for oscilloscopes:
www.oscopes.info/promotions/

Really, promotions? Your website lacks serious content and you're adding promotions (which all link to the same website anyways)? I mean, it's not that manufacturers don't advertise their promotions on their website and any EE news aggregator out there, which do that much better anyways.

No offense  but you should really start adding some real content of value. There are literally thousands of topics I can think about that relate to scopes. Promotions are pretty much at the bottom of the list.

Well, I half disagree.  If they provided the actual promotion details, instead of a useless generic link, that would be useful.

[CountParadox]

I came here to post this, I think if you can spare the space to start storing manuals in a central place, organised in a wiki form or something, then you would probably get more traffic/interest.

You could have an area where users could submit manuals to be reviewed and sorted

If You have enough room on Your hard drive  start collecting a library of service manuals and user manuals of various oscilloscopes.

Initially if no room available post links to existing archives but do try to collect and collate manuals as well. - IconicPCB

[Wuerstchenhund]

Well, I half disagree.  If they provided the actual promotion details, instead of a useless generic link, that would be useful.

Indeed. It might also help if there was at least information for promos of more than just one manufacturer (which happens to be a German one, as apparently is the site owner).

This somehow reminds me of the 90's when dozens of half-arsed websites came up made by people who cobbled together some very basic 'webpages (anyone remembers FortuneCity, Tripod, Lycos, Geocities of the old days?) which were notably low on content and actual information, and then went through the newsgroups telling world & dog about their new hot page about some topic.

My gut feeling is that this will end up as another unmaintained zombie site like so many before.

[nowlan]

These thumbnails are small, but very visibly slow to render. Is my internet that bad?

http://www.oscopes.info/

http://www.oscopes.info/images/stories/2015/GW-GDS-2000E.jpg
1,081px × 795px (scaled to 128px × 94px)
59.26 KB (60,686 bytes)

http://www.oscopes.info/images/stories/2015/SpecialOffers.jpg
412px × 344px (scaled to 122px × 102px)
45.81 KB (46,907 bytes)

[IconicPCB]

Another whinging pom...

[aat24]

@Wuerstchenhund

Building up good content takes some time. So please be patient and stay tuned

Concerning the promotions: on beginning of January most oscilloscope suppliers did not have any promotions running. Meanwhile we have 13 promotions of 8 manufacturers listed (only two of them coming from Germany).

[Wuerstchenhund]

@Wuerstchenhund

Building up good content takes some time. So please be patient and stay tuned

That may be but a good cook doesn't send his food out unless it's thoroughly cooked 

In short, don't launch and promote a website before you have added at least a reasonable level of content.

[radiomog]

building a website takes time, BTDT.

constructive criticism helps as does material contribution!

I haven't spent a lot of time there, I just stumbled upon this post.


See if Tektronix will let you share their XYZ's of Oscilloscope use (~) and I'm pretty sure there are other techbriefs/white papers available by other equipment manufactures.
I know that Rohde & Schwarz have a doc, but it's listed as advertisement.   
Offer up I bit of 'free' advertising in exchange for doing so.

[Hugoneus]

How about a section with links to good YouTube scope reviews and tutorials?