Firehouse.com Vs. FireEngineering.com

The all new FireEngineering.com

Two of the largest, most popular, and longest running fire service websites are in the middle of being redesigned. Firehouse.com is still being tweaked while running live online. FireEngineering.com is live, but I believe still being tweaked although the web site does not say anything to that effect.

A while back, I did a critique of FireEngineering.com. It was not a full critique but more so a small idea of how I would change it to better suite ME. Yes it was very selfish. At the time I did not realize that FireEngineering was actaully going through a redesign. Bobby Halton, Fire Engineering Editor-in-Chief, actually left a comment on the post and offered to let me in on the redesign and offer my thoughts. While Halton meant well, I never got to offer my input because the webteam working on the new site never got in touch with me. However, I have since been in contact with him about the progress.

The all new Firehouse.com

Fast forward to today and we have two very instrumental, prominent, and popular websites being redeveloped. Understandably they will both be having growing pains as they customize their look and fix any bugs. All in all, both of the sites look decent. I will offer one suggestion on each site, if they want more they know where to find me.

Firehouse.com - Lose the quick links at the bottom. They take up too much space.

FireEngineering.com - There is simply too much stuff on the homepage. simplify it.

As a webmaster myself, it is always difficult in figuring out exactly what to put on the home page. Simply put, we want everyone to read everything! It just isn’t going to happen. You have to make it simple but eye catching. People click on images and videos! Thumbnails are a must! In my experience, there are three kinds of readers….

Regular readers – these are the guys who go to a site on a regular basis and scroll through the new stuff and read what catches there eye.
First time readers – these people end up on your site and just start clicking. If they find it interesting they might become regular readers.
Search engine traffic - these people end up on a specific page for a specific reason, cater the sidebar and navigation bar so that they can continue looking/searching once they get to the site.

I think that the FireEngineering did a better job with the overall look but Firehouse.com did better with the content layout.

What do you all think? Do you like the new sites? What do you like and what don’t you like?

Also on the FireCritic …

Website Critique on FireEngineering.com – July 30, 2009
New Fire Engineering Website – October 8, 2009
Top Ten Marketing Tools for Fire/EMS Blogs and Websites – July 1, 2009
Top 10 Website Design Solutions for the Fire Service – June 17, 2009

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Robby O

Firehouse.com and Firehouse Magazine is the playboy of the fire service…..all they do is show you pictures of fires and incidents with very little educaitonal material….While I do enjoy that I find it hard to pay the amount of money they are asking. I subscribe to Fire Engineering Magazine and .com as well as Fire Rescue Magazine….in my opinion they are the best educational mags in the fire service…..for my fire pic viewing I go to firepics.net which is cheaper and you get a better cross section of the world.
Robby O

Firehouse.com and Firehouse Magazine is the playboy of the fire service…..all they do is show you pictures of fires and incidents with very little educaitonal material….While I do enjoy that I find it hard to pay the amount of money they are asking. I subscribe to Fire Engineering Magazine and .com as well as Fire Rescue Magazine….in my opinion they are the best educational mags in the fire service…..for my fire pic viewing I go to firepics.net which is cheaper and you get a better cross section of the world.
chiefreason

In my younger, more foolish days, I lived on Firehouse.com and got upset each time they “tweaked” it. It got to the point where there was so much junk, you could click on it, go make a sandwich, eat it, check out TV and come back just as the home page was done loading. I gave up on the site and I was a charter member of MembersZone. No more.
FireEngineering, though crammed with all sorts of educational materials, has become elitist, in part due to FDIC. You might even call it “snobbish”. I seldom visit. I do love reading Lasky's stuff.
Nope; for my money, it's FireRescue. Good balance of voluteer to career ratio and with guys like Homer writing at a level that we can all understand to Tim's nut on and timely editorials, FR has become my favorite far and away. Website wise; it's the Nation.
Robby O

Firehouse.com and Firehouse Magazine is the playboy of the fire service…..all they do is show you pictures of fires and incidents with very little educaitonal material….While I do enjoy that I find it hard to pay the amount of money they are asking. I subscribe to Fire Engineering Magazine and .com as well as Fire Rescue Magazine….in my opinion they are the best educational mags in the fire service…..for my fire pic viewing I go to firepics.net which is cheaper and you get a better cross section of the world.
chiefreason

In my younger, more foolish days, I lived on Firehouse.com and got upset each time they “tweaked” it. It got to the point where there was so much junk, you could click on it, go make a sandwich, eat it, check out TV and come back just as the home page was done loading. I gave up on the site and I was a charter member of MembersZone. No more.
FireEngineering, though crammed with all sorts of educational materials, has become elitist, in part due to FDIC. You might even call it “snobbish”. I seldom visit. I do love reading Lasky's stuff.
Nope; for my money, it's FireRescue. Good balance of voluteer to career ratio and with guys like Homer writing at a level that we can all understand to Tim's nut on and timely editorials, FR has become my favorite far and away. Website wise; it's the Nation.