Three years? Already?

Posted by Ira at Tuesday, November 10, 2009

First off, let me start with a heartfelt "Thank You" to all of you who have helped to make this site as relevant as it is. Your emails, comments, questions, and input are the fuel for all of this. It's been an interesting and fantastic three years and I really appreciate all of your help in passing the message along to others in need.

It's been challenging and at the same time very rewarding to get to read so many emails from people who are able to see through clear (and even tinted) lenses and still be able to afford groceries for the family.

Keep passing it on. It's making a difference. The markets are beginning to change in response to this sharing of knowledge and empowerment.

I bought the site a logo for its "birthday". I'd expect to see it soon on new business cards, stickers and maybe a t-shirt or two in the coming weeks.

I also tried to respond to as many of the suggestions as I could about the site design. The two most prevalent questions I've gotten are "Where do I start?" and "What are the best deals?" (check the news scroller at the top and the extended listings on the customary left side), so I tried to highlight those two areas in the design of GlassyEyes 3.0. It's not that I don't like answering the questions, but I bet you'd rather not have to ask. I value your time and know that I don't necessarily enjoy digging for information that should be plainly visible.

Keep the questions and ideas coming. It makes filling posts easier.

Thanks again!

11 comments:

At November 10, 2009 at 6:36 AM bullet875 said...: Very nice new look! Thank you for all of your assistance and the information you have given over the past three years and here's to many more!
At November 10, 2009 at 9:24 AM 5556777 said...: The new design looks terrific! Thanks for three years of hard work; I found your site a while back via Consumerist (I think) and I've gotten a couple of great pairs of glasses for maybe 20% of what I'd have paid otherwise.

Keep it up!
At November 10, 2009 at 9:46 AM Rob said...: The site revamp looks fantastic!
At November 10, 2009 at 2:17 PM Anonymous said...: I have subscribed to your feed since the beginning. I've purchased from 4 different vendors a total of 7 pairs. 3 of those pairs have been something like wearable. Given the high profile and traffic of your site, I wish you'd use your pulpit to focus on quality. Discounts and style are something your readers can discover through a number of venues. Accuracy of prescription and quality is something more difficult (and useful).
My last pair of glasses: $8 frame from an online vendor. A nice frame. But I tossed the (tested inaccurate) lenses and went to an optician to get $250 trivex AO lenses with a great Hoya anti-reflection coating. They hit my prescription. I just couldn't get that online with any confidence.
At November 10, 2009 at 3:03 PM Ira said...: @anonymous,

I think your experience is something of an anomaly. I've had two pair that weren't right on with the prescription, two more that the frames were less than awesome.

I've also had over 35 pairs that have been (and continue to be) fantastic -- at an average price of maybe $25/pr.

That's not to say I don't think that quality should be pushed. I've written a number of pieces on the topic and have a few more in the draft stages.

On the other hand, $250 for lenses is something you're not going to see a whole lot about in these parts.
At November 10, 2009 at 5:05 PM Unknown said...: @anonymous: Did you contact the sellers of the glasses that did not work for you? It would be very useful information to know if you did not call, they did not respond or their response was worthless.
At November 10, 2009 at 6:08 PM Unknown said...: Just a note on the $250 lenses:
Trivex is both much optically clearer than Polycarbonate or high index materials so the lenses are sharper. It is also more impact and scratch resistant by far. It can be found online for about $90.
The Hoya anti-reflection coating is vastly harder and more wear resistant than any generic free coating. It's almost as hard as glass. Not available online from any source I've found. If it were, it would probably cost about $60 vs $90 retail store price. So About $140 for the lenses IF you could get it online at a big discount.
$110 is a big premium to pay an optician and it goes against my grain. But I'd rather have one perfect pair than 7 or 8 that aren't.

If there was one online vendor who sold high quality materials (e.g. Trivex) and had a perfect record for filling prescriptions, that'd be great. I'd order again and again.

It's worth saying that a lot of retail opticians are poor at getting the prescriptions right. Costco is quite highly rated by Consumer Reports, but some of the big chains (justly maligned on this blog) aren't so great.
At November 11, 2009 at 6:34 PM Unknown said...: Hi
I am wondering if some vendors would be better than others for sunglasses. The last pair of precription sunglasses i got from an optician, the lenses fell out of the frames after a couple of uses and I paid around $300 for the lenses and frames.

any recommendations?
At November 13, 2009 at 12:11 PM Anonymous said...: I really like the new site, however, I can't seem to link to the forums. I try to click on the "Forums" tab at the top of the page and it takes me to the "How it works" page instead.
At November 15, 2009 at 8:16 AM Ira said...: @anon,

Yeah, that's due to the corner image. I'm fixing it with the IE6 update that is due today.

Thanks!
At November 26, 2009 at 10:57 AM Anonymous said...: The forums link should work properly if you increase your screen resolution, set it to 1024 x 768 and the links work properly