Revision3′s Stunning New Website Unveiled

January 18th, 2008 at 08:09 by Jim Louderback in Announcements

We’ve got a lot going on today at Revision3!

Our big news? Today we launched a brand new update to Revision3.com. Our new site look has been under development for more than five months, and includes a number of new features, capabilities and styles.

Let’s start with the look itself. With a complete site redesign, our site is easier on the eyes, more organized, and each show has its own destination sub-site, with its own distinct look and feel. Our new home page is anchored by a rotating module that highlights shows, events and other key happenings at Revision3. We’ve also made it easier for you to find our shows, and try out new shows and episodes you might have missed.

These new show sub-sites are actually full-blown destination sites themselves. Inside you’ll find individual pages for each episode, more pages for daily episodes (where they exist), detailed pages for each host, and much more. We’re also highlighting news and notes for each show, ensuring you never miss any details for all your favorite Revision3 shows and hosts.

And once you find a show you like, why not subscribe to it, or share it with a friend. We’ve made that easier as well, with a big “Subscribe” button in the upper left hand side of every page inside each show’s subsite. We’ve also laid out all the subscription options in one place, and made it easier to embed a show on your blog or MySpace account too.

Oh, and what about watching your favorite shows? Sure you can subscribe and download, but we’ve improved our streaming capabilities as well. Over the last month we’ve worked closely with our streaming CDN, BitGravity, to improve performance and response time, and to integrate in a larger player. Now you can see all your favorite episodes in a new 555×337 window – that’s big!

Another part of the Revision3 site you may not have paid much attention to, our strong and active community, now takes center stage as well. We’ve integrated in forum comments everywhere on the site, from the home page to show pages and even down onto episode pages. Now you can easily read comments and post your own — about Revision3’s shows, or whatever’s on your mind.

But if you want to post, you’ll have to become a member. It’s easier than ever, though, and once you’ve logged in the site changes in subtle but important ways. First, your own comments will be appearing in our community pages for all the shows. Second, you can create and upload your own favorite avatar image that follows you around. And there’s much more to come, including new customization options, chatting options and much more. And when you become a member, don’t worry – we’ll never sell your name, nor never send you anything you haven’t asked for. But I encourage you to check the box that enables us to send you Revision3 updates – you’ll be first in line for our new email update, along with updates on new features and more. You can do all that on your own personal Account page.

Speaking of members, that leads me to our second big piece of news. For the last year or so we’ve made early release of Diggnation a part of our paid membership program. But just as Woodstock became a free concert, as of today those gates are down. Everyone will now receive Diggnation at the same time. So for everyone who’s been waiting mournfully for 24 hours, or heading over to other sites to get Diggnation early, your long national nightmare is over! Diggnation, free for all, on Fridays at 7pm (eastern).

The new Revision3 website is a thing of beauty. And our amazing web development and tech team, including Ron Richards, Stephanie Chu, Jeff Rizzo, Mark Rebec, Chuck Siu, and Brendan White have put together a fantastic site – with many more cool features and capabilities to come. So make sure to keep coming back and checking here at our blog for updates and announcements of new functionality. Enjoy the site, check it out, and feel free to leave any questions, suggestions, brickbats or kudos here in the comments.

- Jim Louderback
CEO, Revision3


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This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 8:09 am and is filed under Announcements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • trixdropd

    Site looks good. I am pleased with what your helping do Jim. Now, as others have said, we just need to get leo and Robert heron aboard. Hell I’d like to see becky w at revision 3 as well.

  • oddjob86

    I am not toooo enthusiastic…yet.

  • JKeefe

    The new site looks very slick, but I miss the humble usability of the old site. Please bring back the ordered list of all releases!

  • http://darkfox.eu/ DarkFoxDK

    I second #3′s statement about the ordered list of the latest releases. could just be the latest 5 relases.

    Also, found some Lorem Ipsum you forgot to remove:

    “Reset Your Password

    Augue facilisis sed eros in tincidunt in vero et dignissim, ullamcorper dolore. Blandit velit ea, feugait dignissim magna vero molestie praesent delenit vel. Ea at vulputate duis dolor ea, blandit esse feugait.”

  • Glugory

    I’m subscribed to the Rev3 blog RSS and for some reason this post didn’t come up. Do I need to resubscribe and if so… where is something for me to click on that’ll do that?

  • jeffgarlick

    I LOVE the new design! The old site design was simple and functional but this just screams “We’ve ARRIVED!” Very nice redesign and I can’t wait to actually subscribe to my favorite shows!

    Well done!

  • http://spiri.dk spiri

    I really love the new site! Very nice design, and easy to navigate!

    I actually agree with the others about the missing latest shows list. I didn’t use it much before, but now that it’s gone, I actually miss it :)

  • hazord

    Huge fan of the new site design. Once the bugs are fixed it will be great. Good job.

    Been looking forward to this for months.

  • Dr.Jeckyl

    Really dig the new look.

  • Grazz

    It’s pretty but sacrifices functionality for the sake of glitz… what’s the point? An ordered list of shows is all I want from revision3 not some attempt at a web portal.

  • chrisledet

    Good job guys! Loving it!

  • gehinger

    Fantastic job everyone! Great new look and feel, easy to navigate and tons more content. Congratulations!

  • Razster

    In a way it reminds me of Joomla templates… http://demo.rockettheme.com/
    This site is slower, rough on the edges and I really dislike it – I liked when I could see the latest episodes on the fron page… I honestly dislike this design.

  • ageekinpink

    I love the new direction, but there are some small issues. There are several corner graphics which don’t fit into the background, making it obvious they are not transparent (you can see the square edge, ie the top left corner on the home page). Lots of the images have been uploaded at a much larger size than needed causing slow downloads and pixelated photos (http://revision3.com/diggnation/). There are just a few things that need to be cleaned up.

    The home page feels a bit clunky too for some reason. Maybe it is the various widths used for the blocks of content. I think rearranging these or changing the widths might make the page flow much better.

    But, that’s just looking at it with a critical eye. As I said, I love the new look! LOVE the new flash player and the new banner ads for all of the shows are very nice. It feels much more like a media network site now. I loved the old site (and everything else Daniel does), but over time it just didn’t mesh with the growing network of shows. It looked more like a site designed for one podcast instead of an entire network. Great job Stephanie and team!

  • igothandle

    Sexy, but BRING BACK THE ORDERED LIST… I don’t like all the extra clicks just to find out if my favorite show has a new episode out…

  • varunkshenoy

    good job guys! i liked the easy access discussion board for each show. I too am in favor of the ordered list of latest shows.

  • super_dog_87

    The site needs speeding up a little… The site is real busy also. I liked the simpler design of the old site. The colors of the old site was not the best but the site had a nice feel. So I like the new colors. But the layout is not the coolest. I would work on the site a bit more… But a nice attempt.

  • Abuser_Name

    I really don’t like this new look at all. Things seem to be spread out and less organized. It is less intuitive than the old site. Also, I was watching podcasts from my Wii on my big screen tv since my PC died. Since the relaunch I haven’t been able to watch any of them. So please tell me Revision3… Why have you forsaken me? Why do you hate me so?

  • totalabyss

    I’m sorry I don’t like it. If there were an option to continue using the previous look I would do so.

    The more I click around the more things that bother me. Don’t get me wrong but I love the the larger video size and the “feeling” of the sections for each show but the design is lacking on the final touches.

    As mentioned the upper left corner, you can still see the corner tab…this issue is also apparent in the show pages in the sub-nav.

    What really put it over the top are the links to the left of this page showing the recent posts. Do you really need a text decoration on rollover for the date and person commenting? In some cases on rollover it causes a vert jump.

    Just seems like a poor attempt to style a cms, I’m sorry…I can;t bite my tongue on this.

    I love the product, just a little disappointed in the packaging.

  • sodakey

    Wow, it is “pretty”, if that is what you were going for, and is definitely slower. Why did you mess with a good thing? Having the latest episodes on the front page was an excellent and EASY method of getting what you wanted, fast. Honestly, I was looking for the latest TRS, but I haven’t found the download section yet. It shouldn’t be this hard. Do you want people to navigate your site quickly and easily or get annoyed and leave?

    So, old site, 8 out of 10, this new site, 4 out of 10, IMO. Here’s hoping that the recent episodes quick list comes back!

  • EmptyPocketsCarl

    This page took 13 seconds to come up. That about sums it up. And it is actually illegal in 37 states to use the term ‘stunning’ with respect to a page that has the blocky text box Google ads on it. Shame!

  • fifalover

    What happened to the torrent feeds? I see the torrent links next to the regular download link, but existing feeds don’t work and I don’t see any new ones.

  • 3noisiver

    for me it took about 40+ seconds. I don’t maybe the reason is I just signed-up for this site 2 days ago. Overall I love the new look.

  • kingkool68

    The first thing that struck me is the lack of consistent color scheme. This new look is bland and corporate feeling. The typography is really suffering. For one, the text is too gray. Darken it a little to increase the contrast and the readability. Also the line-height needs to be set to space the lines out a little bit to also increase readability.

    I really liked the look and feel of the old site because it felt slick and cutting edge like Revision3 itself.

    I posted more thoughts about the redesign on my blog -> http://www.russellheimlich.com/blog/bland-revisions-for-revision3com/

  • Paulius

    Even thought the old design was acceptable, I welcome this change.

    I really hope that you get your stuff together and make sure that the site loads fast, even under load. Either it’s experiencing lots and lots of traffic, or your load balancing (I hope) isn’t setup right.

  • Jim Louderback

    Yeah, we need to speed things up for sure. We obviously didn’t sit around the room and say “gosh, we need to make the site prettier, but slower”… We’re working on that.

    And on the “latest releases”, that was a total “doh!” thing. We should have put that in from the beginning. I’m totally lame for not seeing that. So… expect us to fix that soonest (while we tweak for performance too).

    Thanks for the comments, and thanks for helping us make the site the best it can be. Like any new site, it’s a work in progress. It’ll be better next week, next month, etc. Keep the comments coming, good and bad, thanks!

    jim

  • Emerica2

    3 Problems noticed so far.

    1. Feeds appear to be different in some way, don’t load in some readers. Trying to watch System and Diggnation in MadCat Media Browser, getting :

    Error: The server committed a protocol violation.
    Section: Response Header
    Detail: CR must be followed by LF

    2. Password reset, doesn’t seem to reset password in DB, emails new pass, but it doesn’t work.

    3. No dupe emails, not a problem, but a pain in the arse when you can’t reset you’re password, and the load times of the site make it a chore to go through the hoops.

    Don’t look to bad,I like the old site better though, nice work.

  • Emerica2

    Also the 3 latest forum posts box on the main page.
    You might want to pull that or the spam in the forum, unless you want lesbians and dildo ads on you’re frontpage. ;)

  • SeymourBewty

    I love the new site layout, and what you guys are doing here. The only thing that is missing is a non-apple based HD video format for the shows. VC-1, x264, AVC, and heck even DivX is pretty decent for 720p and up. I know encoding takes awhile, but I’d much rather have a HD format that works for me instead of the stock WMV Large format that is always full of artifacts and is generally poor quality. I realize I’m probably in the minority here, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, does it?

    Thanks a bunch and keep up the great work!

  • davebowker

    “Stunning”?? — Hardly.

    “Our new site look has been under development for more than five months” — WOW! In 5 months didn’t you realise what you were making was…. less than par to put it politely.

    “our site is easier on the eyes” — Not really. The previous white on black was alot more easier to read. The medium grey on white doesn’t seem right. It’s more of a strain to read.

    “more organized” — fine you’ve categorised everything into sections etc etc. It may be slightly more organized, but it’s more complicated to use. Usability seems to have been lightly skipped over.

    “But if you want to post, you’ll have to become a member. It’s easier than ever, though, and once you’ve logged in the site changes in subtle but important ways.” — the change password and email screen doesnt work. not that easy.

    Overall the site looks plain. Nothing special about it. The front page show rotator doesn’t even work in Firefox, and why is there a big gap on the right of the front page? What’s that for?

    Go back to your old design. I wouldn’t have said anything if overall the design was better, but it’s not.

  • douggrif

    The old site is much easier to navigate from the home page. It looked great and unique as opposed to the new site which looks like any other site.

  • Chriswalkr

    The New site is nice.

  • cocodapuf

    JKeefe Said:

    “The new site looks very slick, but I miss the humble usability of the old site. Please bring back the ordered list of all releases!”

    I have to agree with that statement wholeheartedly. I’d really like a page displaying all show releases in order, that’s the page I’ll have bookmarked.

  • madberry

    This new site is sooooooooooooo slooooooooooooow being a web designer myself and looking at the source too much JavaScript needs more image compression. I agree with 3 and 4 i would like the list back.

    Maybe even better a choice between new or old layout I always prefer functionality before beauty. It can look pretty but if now I have to wait for stuff to load up then I would rather use the old layout…

    It can look pretty but if now I have to search for stuff then I would rather use the old layout…

    [mad]Berry

  • MinutNudler

    New design is great! BUT IT TAKES AT LEAST 2 MINUTS TI LOAD.. Have you changed hosts?

    Btw. When will we get feedback on the free t-shirts?

  • jonspence

    I must say, I really don’t like the new site. For one it’s slow, it took me about ten minutes to log in, which is about nine and a half minutes too long.

    And I miss the recent shows listing on the main URL. I really don’t want to have to click each episode URL to see if there’s any new shows.

    And it just looks too corporate now, it doesn’t have anything nice to it, just a lot of white non-unique stuff. I miss the simple black, easy to use site.

    Now I appreciate sites trying to do new things, that needs to happen, but I hope you read these comments and rethink your site a bit :)

  • stenciledheart

    Wow. For a site with some of the most interesting content on the net, I am let down. Technically, I’m sure there are problems that will be addressed such as the broken links and speed. Aesthetically though, wow. The previous iteration of revision3 was minimal, very utilitarian, and highly useable.

    Areas of opportunity: graphics polishing (rounded corners transparency), colors (yes, it could use some work. Your choice of typography and colors leaves much to be desired), overall table structuring (the basic layout of the pages doesn’t really lead the eye anywhere. It honestly looks like the site was comp’d in illustrator quickly, sliced and thrown into Dreamweaver)

    I hate being critical of a site I enjoy so much, but it’s a shame when a redesign that I’m sure took a lot of time and resources come out as a visual step backwards in many ways.

    Keep up the great work guys.

  • dyzzi

    Problems:
    #1. ads for your own content flooding your own web page. (i know where i am and i’m sure #1 on the main page updates slide show will no doubt make randoms who stumble upon this site instantly think you’re selling a software product.

    #2. color.. there was something GREAT about the black (easy on the eyes) simple design you used to have… OH YEAH.. i listed why already.

    #3. i STRONGLY agree to every negative opinion about the lack of updated content posted in a convenient location.. why in hell click more than once when you definitely don’t need to.. as you’ve already displayed.

    #4. you don’t have enough content to even have a slide show!!! unless you’re planning on releasing a plethora of new content very soon and keep up that pace then you just don’t need one. Gametrailers.com has one because it makes sense, content is updated just about every hour. you don’t need one because it doesn’t list new shows (and don’t get any ideas with that because thats still more than one click and it then defeats the relationship we’ve all developed with our scroll wheels.) it lists the shows themselves… which means diggnation will never leave 3 and then it will grow moldy and kill it’s own attention at 4.

    this is my take on it and i have probably only 20% credibility as someone who knows what the hell they’re even talking about and i just subscribed after all this time just to make this statement, not that it’s of any true relevance.. but REALLY guys you had me at black background.

    you had me so bad that i felt like a groupie.

    ooxxXoXXo bwahahahah

  • dyzzi

    this page is so bad that i can’t even get back to the main page and it’s been like 5 minutes now. what the hell Jim.. you’re breaking balls here Jim… breakin’ em.

  • Runar0

    Not much to say really, great design! :)

  • marc57

    Totally agree with #13.

  • buzzra

    I much prefer the old site. It was simple and easy and I could find everything about any show quickly. Most of the time with only one click. If it took more than 5 months, that should have been the first clue something was terribly wrong.

    It is also really slow, and some of the feeds don’t seem to be working. At least the XVID feeds I subscribe to. I can’t even download the latest Tekzilla from the site.

    Hope you guys come to your senses.

  • rsbrace

    Need to add a Latest X# of released shows. This way when visiting the home page I can just click on the last show that was released.

  • LiamJM

    Someone might of already mentioned this as I haven’t bothered to read this whole thread. The displayed thumbnail pictures for the shows and each episode are way too huge. They are just resized on the site instead of being smaller images. This means it takes longer to load them and it’s a huge waist of bandwidth. Doing this also distorts the image as it’s displayed.

    For example if you go to a shows page you download an image like this:
    [url]http://bitcast-a.bitgravity.com/revision3/thumbs/diggnation–0132–2008-01-10spinney–thumb.jpg[/url]
    But it displays as a tiny thumbnail.

  • CheatRZ

    I just wanted to say that I love the new layout, while there are a couple of issues, I know they’ll be worked out in time so it’s not that big of a deal. It’s a rather refreshing design.

    Also, a few hours after the site went live, I poked my nose around some pages. I checked out the advertising section and noticed a typo when talking about the microsoft zune under the How to Advertise category. I emailed the contact address as I figured it would be a simple quick fix for your potential advertisers, but I see it’s still there today. So I guess this is just a little reminder =]

  • srotman

    “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” -Bert Lance, 1977

    You guys had such a simple site that was incredibly usable, fast, and unique. I and many others loved it. Now it’s slow, hard to navigate efficiently, and looks like every other site on the net.

    I’m sure you all worked very hard on revising the site design but it really was unnecessary. Perhaps in future you could run a beta of a new design parallel to the original and take feedback from users before making such a bold switch.

    Nonetheless, it’s nice to see Revision3′s dedication to keeping things fresh for its user base.

  • dyzzi

    god dammit stop giving them props for this piece of garbage!!! if there’s a problem then there’s a problem. don’t give 2 points of view on the subject.. you all know that trying to even read your comments hurt your eyes because dark grey on ivory is beyond retarded. no colors, this site is way too god damned slow and i don’t have a god damned clue what new shows came out over the last 2 days and that is far too annoying. i know you’re trying to do your fans a favor, but did you honestly get ANY complaints about the last layout?!? or was it just simple suggestions??? because this ISN’T the answer to a simple suggestion.

    Boycotting this website until you fix your broke ass shit.

  • xtsquintx

    Yeah, the site looks all Web 2.0 and everything, but it also looks like another cookie-cutter layout with links to areas with no real content; like those “fake pictures” that come with a frame when you buy it. However the biggest problem, which has already been addressed by several people:

    PUT THE NEW RELEASE/ORDERED LIST OF EPISODES ON THE FRONT PAGE!
    - That alone makes you feel like there’s no content on the entire site, when you get to the main page and the only way to get to the shows (which is what the entire company is based on in the first place) is to click on the ONE link that isn’t super visable, which then takes you to yet another menu page, etc.

    And of course the other problem is the loading times; Rev3 USED to be one of the fastest loading sites that I visit on a daily basis.

    Also, the rotating flash banner thing is pretty much useless when you’re only using it to display generic ads for your own shows. I’m sure you will update it with useful news blurbs later… right?

    Basically what I’m saying is don’t turn this into another crappy site with junk all over the place.

  • franz_bibfeldt

    I got the impression, whther right or wrong, that the site was approved a long time ago (on paper) and even as it became apparent it wasn’t very user friendly, the decision was made to stick with the new.
    My question is was it field tested by actual users or was all input and feedback dervied from in shop?
    Very slow and not very easy on the eyes. Navigation does not take me, the user, to where I think I am going.
    I do web development; I guess I’ll always be a Web 0.5 kinda guy ’cause I still think the user should be held above gimmicks and flash. Oh, yeah, Long Live Bert Monroy!

  • sporb

    why does the main page not have ‘newest episodes’? i like to check shows that catch my attention with a nice little thumb. it’s a good way to kill my time (instead of posting comments like this). without the newest episodes being on the main page (with thumbnail and episode description) i won’t be watching occasional episodes of ifanboy, webdrifter, TRS, systm, tekzilla.

  • buzzra

    I’m with dyzzi. I’ve even deleted all my feed subscriptions since they have problems now too.
    Now that I think of it, the last site Patrick was on, DL.TV had problems with its feeds too. I even emailed him about it, holding Rev3 up as an example of the right way to do it since their feeds never had any problems. Now. Patrick comes to Rev3…feeds go bad. Hmmm….

  • loopyloopy

    i purchased an ARCHOS 605 WIFI media player specifically so that I could download and watch Revision 3 shows without a computer.
    Now I cannot, as the page that lists the shows to download is filled with so much stuff, that it crashes the Opera browser and I have to switch off my media player.
    Please Revision 3, please provide a LO-FI page that i can access your shows from without crashing my device.
    A compatible streaming player (such as that used by youtube) would also be desirable.

  • louish

    At first I was reading these comments and thinking… “Why is everyone complaining about it not being as easy on the eyes? Sure, black backgrounds with light colored text is easier cause there is less light coming from your monitor, but who cares, its just as easy”.. then i scrolled all the way to the bottom of the site, and saw the footer, where it showed the old colors, and WOW. The old site WAS WAY nicer to read. As soon as I saw the footer, I could instantly tell it was easier to look at. A dark gray with a light colored text… so much easier.

    Yeah, and about that lame login time. I hate sites that use a “username” instead of “email”. I can never remember which username I had to use cause if the site is popular, half the time my desired username is take. So I sit there for 5 minutes trying to login with 4 different usernames, with lame 30 second load times on each attempt, then finally logged in. Then when I get back to this page to scroll to the bottom to leave a comment, it freezes around comment 30… took a while before the rest of the page finally came up.

    Whatever. I love it “underground” sites are dark in color, cause its not normal, they are taking a stand against the norm. Then they get all big and change to white.

  • darthpilatus

    I get why they don’t have a recent released list… They want you to subscribe through iTunes for the ad money…

  • phrozendemon

    I also want the recent released list back. I don’t want to download every episode on iTunes. If it is because of the ad money then add more ads to the site.

  • sektor

    I also miss the chronologically ordered list of shows and descriptions.

    The thumbnails on diggnation.com are actually huge images just being reduced by the web browser. Not exactly professional web design.

  • DigitalGuy

    Ok, I’ll be the dick. Just put the site back like it was. It was way more user friendly and way easier to see what was new. The old site was way faster too. 5 months to design this turd, you guys went backwards. Sorry, like I said, I’m a dick.

  • blunden

    It looks good I guess but for some reason it’s now slow as dog crap. :( It used to be fine. Unfortunately I didn’t do a traceroute back when it was fast to make sure it isn’t just the route that for some reason has changed.

  • pault

    I briefly saw a list of recently added shows! Seems that this is being worked on, thanks for listening! Site is still extremely slow though, what’s up with that?

  • denverken

    Need at least a new releases link….but, the site is improving on load times, first few times were way long, actually thought you were down. Also a little too cluttered for my tastes….I’m not looking for G4 here, just for the content, and the shows I like and easy viewingdownloadable options.

  • http://www.tbtelevision.com laxaloot

    Few Things.
    #1: Honeycomb background….. It doesn’t look great and it breaks your rounded corners.
    #2: This has been a problem forever but, my account never stays logged in.
    #3: The front page looks like one of those fake placeholder sites for domain squatters. Lose the slideshow, instead have a list of all new shows, or maybe even try something like blip.tv has where it loops through the new content you have.
    #4: I’m lazy and not in EST, can’t you tell me what the schedule is in other time zones, or at least put “7PM EST, 5 Central” or whatever?
    #5: I think the site needed a change, it just needs improvements.

  • jrebec

    Looks FANTASTIC! Much faster & easier to navigate than the old site. Must have some super geniuses working at Revision3.
    Congratulations!

  • SARS

    Excellent site and it is beautifully designed….must be made from a beautiful webbie

  • bikee4

    Too much crap on the main page and slower than shit and not very intuitive…could of invested more money in your production facility than waste it on this.

    IMHO

  • murphysclay

    I was looking for the episode where Jim was reviewing the gutter cleaner and couldn’t remember initially which one of your shows it was on. I wanted to do a general search of your site but low and behold….there are no options to do general mass searches of your entire site. I assume that will be coming….???

    thanks
    Lori

  • adamfalkofske

    I love the new site. It’s cleaner and easier to read. The only complaint I have is that Firefox 3 Beta 4 doesn’t stay logged in. Also, there’s three links on the top right of the page (username, account, and account under “Welcome Back, Username) that all do the same thing – they send the user to their account page. Just thought that was kind of silly. Thanks, guys. Made my life a lot easier to watch Rev3 shows.

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