websocials.com now revised

**Brent** · 01-10-2005, 03:47 AM

After a yr now i am coming back and asking for help again. Well not help but some good advise from everyone here to keep our graphics dept working hard. We update new features approx. once every 2-3 weeks and have a team capable of overlooking the site 24/7. Now up to 4000 members our traffic is off the wall and weve had some amazing feedback and were looking to network anywhere we can. Please look at us in detail as we have pages of content for cool people and i would love some feedback about our content and whether we are ready to launch our fees. Really i would love the feedback from those who already surf related sites like ours but ill take all critisism. Click around everything is ours, nothing links out. Thanks in advance. It should only take you a minute to go

1.watch the interactive demo and press the green arrow for a demo of our dvds
2.top 100's
3.review our xtras page called the digest
4.options in the social manager

log in using
pw-guest
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www.websocials.com

**wmtalk.tk** · 01-14-2005, 02:01 AM

wow, very impressed, im thinking you are a proffesional right now... im trying to start a teen help forum but i have 2 members so. and im still working on my chat room, very nice site though.

**MKJ** · 01-14-2005, 08:10 PM

Quite something for sure. My own site could certainly do with a make over to look like this one. Really impressive I must say.

MKJ
Sites-4u

**MIckRamone** · 01-15-2005, 02:57 AM

I'm usually not a big fan of flash sites but it goes really well with the site layout. What I like the most is that its interactive, most dating sites have the same structure and layout. I'm digging the graphics, Im jealous...I want my site to look like yours.

**Mooofasa** · 01-15-2005, 03:02 AM

I must be either blind or stupid.

Where is your logo?

Just a few notes:

1) The same effect can be done with Javascript, HTML, Adobe Photoshop, DHTML, CSS etc. Why choose Flash?

2) Too much flash. It loads quickly on my connection, but does it on other people's.

--twitch

**wmtalk.tk** · 01-15-2005, 03:13 AM

yea but anyone that is doing online dating i think will wait the extra 30 seconds. The logo is at the top left.. lol?

**Mooofasa** · 01-15-2005, 03:25 AM

Oh yeah... I thought it was part of the advert. Change the season's greetings. It has finished now.

--twitch

**NC Media** · 10:48 AM

Actually to our demographic/region the season is not over (Toronto Canada).

* We are not aiming for slower connections or users
* Quote-The same effect can be done with Javascript, HTML, Adobe Photoshop, DHTML, CSS etc. Why choose Flash? -Quote
- ??Adobe photoshop can do this? really? wow, we just so happened to use this great tool... and once in flash we still rely on java, and other dynamics... To be honest twitch your responses are just that, twitches. Please respond with valid points, and look before you post, so far both have been wrong, short, not even to the point, i.e. yeah we can build the site in 5 different languages, we use 3-4 already, why not point out which one the gods use? and why?. We are looking for legitimate feedback that will improve our site, not negative critisizm or nits, please elaborate superspam (quoting your title).
* The rest of you - thank you kindly for your feedback, we do appreciate all comments, especially if you find something wrong with our site that we do not see. Currently we are exploding with both traffic/signups/etc. So any valid help is more than appreciated from both aesthetics, to programming/functionality.

Thank you kindly.

**Fara0^** · 01-18-2005, 10:58 AM

Actuallty it took me over a minute to figure out what the iste was about :P
I like the design, its kool!

GJ!

**easdesign.com** · 01-18-2005, 11:00 AM

First your site is extremely visual and looks very nice. Reminds me of all those clear channel radio station sites. I know you said that you are not going for slower connections but even on high speed your site is too instence. Work on Optimization. In my opinion that should be your primary focus. Here are a couple of ways that you could do that

Move some of your resource to another box. (ie. Chat or Images) I don't know what your process or ram is on your machine but it looks like you are using Tube.e Communications Inc on a aDSL type line. On A Windows Server. In my experience Unix can handle the data much better.

I might recommend you check out www.thedilly.com and see what they are doing. It appears like you have similar format but the processing on thier machine is much better.

Image Optimization will do wonders for your site though.

**TrIpKeBAb** · 01-18-2005, 11:37 AM

Site looks good, i think what twitch meant was for example the sample video dosent need to be flash it could have easily been a random graphic with the video imposed ontop. But it probably wouldnt make a diff to load time.

There is ALOT of flash and dosent load supa fast on my 2mb connection, but it wasnt any way near annoyingly slow either.

Overall layout and design is good, very professional with great use of graphics.

Things that could use some modification:

The four buttons at the top " home, advertising, about and support, also the six buttons directly below that, meet people, rate people etc. They are all noticibly compressed to much which shows the fuzzyness round the text and also makes the images look generally blury. If you still have the originals id lower the compression and sharpen them if possible.

On the right hand side where you have text saying newest female and newest male, this appears to be too high up. (it out of the white area and looks unintentional. Also the text used is very jagged and dosent match with the rest of the text. Id suggest using maby arial on a low font with bold enabled as this is automatically antianalised by the later versions of ie... Or replace the text with graphics of text to suit.

Also watch recent exposed dvd videos text is the same and seemingly too far to the left.. Its touching the blue border on the left which dosent look right.

The menu on the left is clean and sharp i like it... You need to get the buttons i mentioned earlier to this quality.

I think everything else is great as it is!

Good job

**NC Media** · 06:53 AM

Much love, that's what I call an intuitive critique, thank you Trip & GMS. We've recently taken some of the suggestions and implemented them into our site.

Again thank you in advance, if you see anything else at the revised site feel free to get it over to us.

Best,

NC

**MKJ** · 01-20-2005, 08:27 PM

Hi

My own site reflects who I am I suppose. Bit long in the tooth etc as you can see here:

Sites-4u.com

What really is the basis for your site? How have you created these great graphics? What tools have you used? Are they all Flash based? Everything about the site seems to want the person to interact. Way over the top for my site but never-the-less something I certainly want to learn.

MKJ
Sites-4u.com

**NC Media** · 01-23-2005, 12:17 AM

Hey MK.

1) The basis of our site is a community bar none attracting singles, talent, models, designers..... anyone creative/talented hot and or single. At the end of the day we are a community social networking site serving all kinds of needs and opportunities from finding your perfect match, be it for personal/leisure/coporate/career related, to entertainment, and ad campaigns that act as content i.e. our xposed dvd tour - great direct to customer advertising and using our audience to create the content they love so much

dvd tour - http://www.websocials.com/extras/eve...pics/index.asp

2) We have used quite a few tools here, however mostly you will find that the great designers out there start their interfaces in photoshop/image editing tools for concepts/color themes, etc. So count photoshop in your top 5 tools for any webdevelopment. Our key IS to make people want to go 'Hey cool what does THIS button do?', we want them to explore and learn/entertian themselves while learning about us, and the services we offer which they are using and loving, and not knowing it. Our conversion rate to signups is amazing, then again though so is our advertising and creative out of the box campaigning. So in essence we DO rely on making our audience have some fun before they can go, 'I get it, I like it! I'm signing up!'.

3) Yeah the team often tries to make the site more neutral as I would make every pxl interactive if I had the time and approval. We rely on creating a visual and interactive relationship with our audience which I believe sets us far apart from similar social/networking/dating community sites. Learning to do all this is unfortunately going to take time if you have no formal design experience or as they say 'an eye for it'. I believe all great publications be it print/web/radio/tv all start with creative direction, branding, imaging and creating appeal/trust to your audience whom are sooooooo valuable in online competitive environments.

Thank you all again for your comments, suggestions, and questions, while we can't give away all our secrets, I wouldn't mind answering a few details if you'd like. i.e. interfacing in photoshop....

best,

NC.

**ionicwings** · 01-23-2005, 01:21 AM

1. I suggest to change the color of the bg of your news section. Sky blue isnt matching your current theme.
2. Too many colors. Stick to the theme.

The site looks nice. I dig the social manager panel. Keep it up! ^_^

**flogshop** · 01-23-2005, 04:15 PM

Brent,

What a cool looking site - Im thinking we need to link exchange

**Sietse** · 01-23-2005, 09:02 PM

I LOVE the style and especially the header. The main fields seem a bit messy to me, but you definitely have it in your fingers

.. Good luck!

**mortalmadman** · 01-23-2005, 09:13 PM

Holy crap. Nice. Very professional.