I guess that a lot of AO members use Netscape/Mozilla as navigator. Those navigators have a sidebar feature used by some sites in order to display news (cnn.com) or to access quickly in their feature (google.com).

I suggest to make an AO sidebar more useable than the ticker. With last posts (like the ticker, it would be possible to adapt it) and maybe (I said *maybe*) integrated features like new private messages and buddy list (but it would be more difficult to do it).