It’s been about 18 months since Linkshare debuted their new interface, but I have yet to stop using their old one. I think the fact that the old interface has still been functional for so long should make it clear that the new showing was far from great. As a matter of fact, it was quite awful. But now comes word that on August 11th, the original interface will be “retired” and I will be forced to use the new interface. I have used the new interface occasionally just to see if my feelings for it have changed, and I no longer despise it like the second coming of Family Guy (or the first coming of that awful show).
When they first launched the new “Publisher Dashboard,” my biggest complaint was that the commission numbers never matched up. I would log into the old interface and my commission numbers would be anywhere from $200 to $2,000 off. That’s a big discrepancy, especially since Linkshare numbers always seem a little lower then what they actually are. But now I notice that the numbers are finally spot on. Now, if they could just make their commission numbers update as quickly as they should.
One thing I will really miss from the old interface is getting a detailed report in just 1 click. I can log into my account on the old interface, go to the bottom of the screen, and chose the dates and report type I want to see right there. And since I usually want a sales report for the current month, all I had to do was hit “go,” and I had it. Now I have to go into the reports section, and deal with a drop down box. The new interface has plenty of white space at the bottom; they should really consider adding that feature there.
They also changed the display of the report when you download it. Instead of being a nice and clean, you get bogged down in useless information and a stupid layout. First, they reduced the text size from 11 to 8. Not a major change, but enough to be irritating. They also added a delightfully boring shade of grey to the top row of the report. I don’t know about you, but when I think of ways to liven up a spreadsheet, the first thing I think of is throwing some grey in there. Thanks, Linkshare. Also, the report now includes the all valuable Advertised ID number as the first column instead of the Merchant Name. Since Linkshare thinks this number is more important than the merchant name, I am going to start to refer to merchants solely as their number. It looks like I need to do more with 2661, what do you guys think? My final rant dealing with their new report is the use of a border around each cell in the report, with all the other cells being whited out. How many people when making reports actually do this? All this does is create another step I have to do when making a report, removing boarders from cells. The whole “updated” reporting part of the new interface really sucks.
Perhaps the biggest thing I love about the new interface has nothing to do with the interface at all, but rather the login. That’s right, Linkshare finally upgraded their login to let browsers recognize and store passwords. I know this is not what most people will be thrilled about, but it’s comforting to know that I no longer have to type in a password to log into my account. While some people may consider that a security feature, I always considered it annoying and it made me wish ill things to whoever set it up. Maybe that they would stub their toe or that their pen would run out of ink. That would show them.
The only feature that I have actively logged into the new interface to use since its inception is the Last Payment info. As a matter of fact, it’s located right on the home page. Nothing makes me want to do more with Linkshare than to see that number every time I login. I don’t even think it was ever actually possible to find this information in the original interface since 2005. But now I get to login to my account every week and see exactly how much is being sent to me. And while opening the envelope from Linkshare each week was similar to the excitement of opening a birthday card from grandma to see how much she sent me, knowing how much was coming let me plan my budget far better.
I now have less than a week left of the old interface. I am sure that once I am forced to use the new one, my complaint list will grow and I will find new feature that I like. But I am going to guess that if I do another post about the interface, the complaint list is what will grow the fastest. What do you guys think of the new Linkshare Publisher Dashboard? Am I being too hard on it?
August 6th, 2009 at 12:45 am
The new one has a lot of promise, it is slicker looking, and has some more features, it is supposedly more real time, Overall it is an easier interface to use and I am sure as you use it more, you will like it more, it is a tad slower though and I will miss the simplicity (but not the ugliness) of the old one.