Website post - Help me improve my site

[Zhoubobby]

Sigh... I can't find the login information for my other account (long time lurker... since 2000), so now I have to create a new account.

Mods, this is not a spam, feel free to lock it if you think it is.


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I am involved with a couple of high school friends in developing a website the past year or so.

The site is about 60% done right now, there is still quite a bit improvement that we are working on right now for the page editing system, but you should be able to get a general idea of how it works.

Anyways, check out my Website and let me know what you think of it.

The video about the site is here (youtube link).

Give the desktop stuff a try also, was it easy to use? Did it make sense?

Thanks!

 

[Zhoubobby]

no comments at all? Did the site even load for you?


I promise good pics for those that help

 

[SmoochyTX]

First off, kill whatever mathgladiator.com is. In my FF, it causes the page to take forever to completely load (no problem in IE).

Second, your Title tag isn't holding. The site still shows as "Click here to see more!" in the whatever page bar (as well as the tabs) on FF & IE.

 

[Zhoubobby]

Originally posted by: SmoochyTX
First off, kill whatever mathgladiator.com is. In my FF, it causes the page to take forever to completely load (no problem in IE).

Second, your Title tag isn't holding. The site still shows as "Click here to see more!" in the whatever page bar (as well as the tabs) on FF & IE.

Thanks for the info on that server, I will take a look at it. Yea, I need to change the site title page.

Which version of IE are you using?

 

[Q]

Kind of annoys me how when you scroll it acts weird; probably caused by that non moving bar you have at the bottom (Register/Tour)

I do not like the background on http://www.hurox.com/u/guest

The default On/Off button is a great idea, just because turning it off (having normal backgrounds) makes the site look MUCH better

 

[SmoochyTX]

Originally posted by: Zhoubobby

Originally posted by: SmoochyTX
First off, kill whatever mathgladiator.com is. In my FF, it causes the page to take forever to completely load (no problem in IE).

Second, your Title tag isn't holding. The site still shows as "Click here to see more!" in the whatever page bar (as well as the tabs) on FF & IE.

Thanks for the info on that server, I will take a look at it. Yea, I need to change the site title page.

Which version of IE are you using?

IE7

 

[Modeps]

I stopped trying to look at your website when it didnt load for 30 seconds.

 

[Zhoubobby]

Originally posted by: Modeps
I stopped trying to look at your website when it didnt load for 30 seconds.

Were you using IE6? The site doesn't work for IE6

 

[zach0624]

pretty sleek looking site and the features looks cool

 

[warmodder]

Slow loading and navigation on firefox for mac. Do you think there's really a need for another social networking site though? I think web 2.0 has that area pretty much all tied up.

 

[dbh13]

Quintox, absolutely! The one thing we dislike most about most My Space pages are the erratic backgrounds that make viewing a given page almost impossible. Thus, being able to turn them off at will

Warmodder: So far, we're hearing the same thing from just about everyone. Slow loading I will say that it should be much faster after that initial load. The first time you visit the site, you download a 300k (or so) javascript file that essentially contains all the keys to making the site work. Once cached, that download of course disappears and the site should, for the most part, load as you would expect.

As for the need for "yet another social network," allow me to explain the one key difference: we allow users to create an account for free, and then *immediately* start selling and buying content. So let's say you're one of those infamous garage bands that all the other social networks love to cater to. You create a Hurox account, upload your music and create a few pages with our tools about your band. Then, using our desktop, you set your music to be sold (with all the bells and whistle of something like iTunes, like allowing a clip to be previewed, etc.), and voila, anyone can purchase your music, download it to their hard-drive or Hurox Desktop (depending on the settings you selected).

We have a host of other new features that separate us from the crowd, but the above feature is the selling point that truly sets us apart.

Anyway, sorry for the marketing speech there... we do really appreciate any and all feedback you guys can offer. We're actually currently researching a way to improve our load-times by as much as 40%.

Thanks again and keep it coming; my username on Hurox is dbh... feel free to send me a message anytime!
http://www.hurox.com/u/dbh

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: Zhoubobby

Originally posted by: Modeps
I stopped trying to look at your website when it didnt load for 30 seconds.

Were you using IE6? The site doesn't work for IE6

Latest Firefox on OSX

 

[effowe]

Firefox on OSX here as well, screen was blank for about 5 seconds before it all popped up at the same time. It was quite sluggish while scrolling, although flash on OSX FF can be kind of hokey.

 

[rh71]

One key thing is that 'Hurox' means nothing and people aren't likely to remember the sitename. Myspace, facebook... it works. You meet someone new who's interested in your band... you tell them to go check out your page on Hurox. They won't remember on what??? 2 days later.

Second thing in my opinion is that even though you can justify a 300k js file load initially, you won't get many people with patience. This is on top of the stigma that it's another social networking site already. My opinion is to keep it as clean and simple as possible initially to get people interested first. Facebook has done a great job at that.

Lastly, requirements. You need to get it to work for all IEs. On top of that, if people don't have JS enabled, your entire site is screwed. You're trying to build an audience and you don't want to throw hurdles in their way just for them to check you out. You can have a creative look with simplicity too.

Beta bugs: Didn't test much but I'm running Opera and when I take the tour, the overlay is actually underneath the video ready to play from the main page.

 

[Q]

Originally posted by: rh71
One key thing is that 'Hurox' means nothing and people aren't likely to remember the sitename. Myspace, facebook... it works. You meet someone new who's interested in your band... you tell them to go check out your page on Hurox. They won't remember on what??? 2 days later.

No offense but you have no idea what you are talking about. Of course you recognize the names Myspace and Facebook, they are both just about the most popular website on the internet. Creating a unique name is important for domains; naming a search engine, for example, is horrible using the word 'search' in the title. Not only does this greatly affect SEO, it is too generic and people will never remember it.

Now maybe Hurox wasn't the BEST name to use, but certainly better than using generic words to create a domain.

Take orkut(.com) for example. What the hell does that mean? Who knows, but it works.

 

[rh71]

Originally posted by: Quintox

Originally posted by: rh71
One key thing is that 'Hurox' means nothing and people aren't likely to remember the sitename. Myspace, facebook... it works. You meet someone new who's interested in your band... you tell them to go check out your page on Hurox. They won't remember on what??? 2 days later.

No offense but you have no idea what you are talking about. Of course you recognize the names Myspace and Facebook, they are both just about the most popular website on the internet. Creating a unique name is important for domains; naming a search engine, for example, is horrible using the word 'search' in the title. Not only does this greatly affect SEO, it is too generic and people will never remember it.

Now maybe Hurox wasn't the BEST name to use, but certainly better than using generic words to create a domain.

Take orkut(.com) for example. What the hell does that mean? Who knows, but it works.

What I'm talking about is you are trying to generate interest in a playground with many existing players. I'm talking about you not helping yourself. Social sites are about word of mouth, am I right? This is one of the most important pieces if you're doing a site like this. Do you think it's easier to pass along names like Friendster, MySpace, Hi5 or do you like Hurox? What? The others mean something. People will remember at least part of those names and be able to find it in searches based on what friends mention only in passing. Maximum exposure. I'd definitely stay away from an obscure word which people may even need to spell out for their friends and hope they remember it later.

And what exactly about 'Orkut' works? Nothing except an already established name behind it. Don't you think Google had something to do with its popularity (if it's even popular at all)? I also have to ask as an aside - why pick that specific name?

I'm not saying it's a negative to have that particular name - I'm saying it's not going to help if you're trying to generate interest from having nothing to begin with.

 

[Crusty]

I get a completely blank page, nothing on it at all.

Firefox 64bit on Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit

 

[aceO07]

Looks like you guys go a lot of work into it. I'm using FF, whatever the latest version is.

My initial comments.
1. visual overload. lots and lots of icons and graphics on the main page.
2. title of the main page probably shouldn't be 'Click here to see more!'
3. flash video is taking up a good portion of space that could be used to actively grab attention more. it doesn't start by itself, which is good. but it's blank space.
4. initially doesn't grab my attention enough to want to scroll to the bottom of your main page, where more interesting things are.

What I see when I first glance at the page is, black flash video box.. and yellow text 'take the tour'. Of course there are other graphics/icons/text, but that's what catches my attention first.

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: Crusty
I get a completely blank page, nothing on it at all.

Firefox 64bit on Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit

Maybe you have noscript active? It seems to need javascript access even to load, which I'm not a big fan of.

 

[dbh13]

Hurox actually does mean something, and it is really no different than Hi5. Think about it for a second... "Who Rocks"? Hurox.com/Billrogers--- Who Rocks? Bill Rogers. Stupid? Silly? Hard to spell (Hurox instead of Whorocks.com, for example)? Sure... but what about Hi5? You tell someone to check your page out at Hi5.com... they think, "www.highfive.com".

Anyway, you both bring up some great points. We have an extremely upwards battle on our hands as far as PR and marketing. You're 100% correct, rh71: the words "new" and "social network" today, when put together, imply "close this window immediately."

The things discussed that we do need to work on are problems pointed out by Crusty and Modeps. If the site isn't even loading, on a supported browser, we have a problem.

As of now, we support Firefox (latest version), IE7, and Safari v3.0. IE6 will *never* work, and this is a technology issue. If you're curious about the reasons behind the problem, I'd be happy to elaborate, but I figure most are simply uninterested.

At any rate, I would like to get to the bottom of two user's issues that were unable to get the site to load on Firefox. Crusty and Modeps, could you guys try one more time for me and just simply wait a few minutes when going to www.hurox.com? I'm trying to determine whether it is a slow connection problem and that initial download just isn't being met, or something else. We originally had a front-page that had nothing to do with our virtual machine (the downloaded component), to avoid that first download when you reach the site. We may have to go back to that...

Again, thanks a ton for taking the time to discuss, provide feedback and help us out in general!

 

[dbh13]

Ace007, that could very well be the issue. Crusty, if you get a chance, double-check your javascript settings so we at least know where we need to react.

Secondly, I do agree that the video needs to be put further down. That is something we had discussed earlier this week, prior to launch. Up until now, our "first-glance" focus was geared like you say. I'll be sure and bring up your points again and see what I can do.

 

[Zhoubobby]

Originally posted by: aceO07
Looks like you guys go a lot of work into it. I'm using FF, whatever the latest version is.

My initial comments.
1. visual overload. lots and lots of icons and graphics on the main page.
2. title of the main page probably shouldn't be 'Click here to see more!'
3. flash video is taking up a good portion of space that could be used to actively grab attention more. it doesn't start by itself, which is good. but it's blank space.
4. initially doesn't grab my attention enough to want to scroll to the bottom of your main page, where more interesting things are.

What I see when I first glance at the page is, black flash video box.. and yellow text 'take the tour'. Of course there are other graphics/icons/text, but that's what catches my attention first.

1. I am working on redesigning the top navigation bits, the new version will be extremely simplified.

2. Great point, we will change it asap.

3. I agree, the flash video does seem too big.

4. After seeing the bottom stuff, did it interest you at all to signup? Does the features matter at all?

Overall, great suggestions and comments. Thanks again for helping out ace007!