Share your site.. Why? Read more..

Maybe someone has already ran a good thread like this but I don't know of it so here I go.  I wanted to reach out and see if anyone is interested in sharing their site here in this thread.

Why? First let me tell you what I don't intend.  I am not asking you to share your site so others can judge what you've done.  This is not a review!.  Now tips and advice to move forward is great but I am not sure anyone wants to hear how awful you think their site is.  That is not very constructive.  What if we show what we've done with the platform and share that with each other?  If we had a chance to see what one another has accomplished or vocalize what we struggle in then we have a better shot at getting a lift off above where we are now.  Maybe you have a successful site and there are some key reasons its doing well you would like to share?  Maybe you have a site that seems like the plague and nobody is showing up anywhere near it and you are looking for answers?

How beneficial would it be if some of us share our downfalls and upsides?  It could help others avoid those pit falls who follow behind you.  Just being able to take a look at each others sites could spark imagination or solutions to your own struggles.

Ill start and if anyone wants to join in on this then please do since that is the point and I hope you do.

- I've been doing this for about 2 1/2 years.  I've learned a ton but I guarantee nobody is praising me for knowing what I'm doing. lol.  I have a couple very small membership sites though I of course wish that was a larger audience.  I will list them below.

-My Pitfall- I've spent a lot of money here in the Market because I became obsessed with features that would appeal to more and more people.  Now I have a couple hundred dollars in mods I don't even employ.  I've only recently started cutting back the amount of features on my site.  While I became feature hungry it was only overwhelming visitors into not even understanding what they were looking at.  They did not understand  how the site works and what you do there.  I still face that problem to a degree.  I assume the name of the site is a bit telling being able to create your "Hunt Profile".  I am continuing to simplify things but some stuff has to come with Dolphin updates.  I am on a "KISS" mission now with my outdoors community/social network site right now and I am not talking about makeup wearing big hair band.  K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid).  I have so many blocks going on everywhere and I just feel that visual style and overwhelming look grows old and not functional but maybe I've just been staring at it being over critical.

My traffic is anywhere from 50,000 visitors to 95,000 visitors but if you are familiar with web stats that is of course counting every bot in the local galaxy.  The FB page for this site has 528 likes approximately but because of the "Facebook Effect"  I'm calling it, I am not having any luck converting those people to free membership. It seems Facebook is the only thing that exist on the net to some of this crowd so its challenging to get them involved unless you want them to like or share something they are not interested. I only have 70 members including myself and a test account. 

I want to share my sites and if you have any discussion that might be helpful for you or helpful for me about something you see then let me know.

Site #1 My Hunt Profile - This site runs on a paid license (not prime). 2 1/2 years old. Its target audience is people who enjoy hunting, fishing, and general outdoor enthusiast.

URL: MyHuntProfile dot com

Site #2 Sports Nerdz - This site is a partnership with someone else and is modeled from my learned experience with site #1.  This site still runs on a free license after the big license change ordeal.  This is a sports community/network for sports enthusiast of any relation.  This site has propelled nearly to the same membership level as site #1 and is only a year old or less.  This is because I learned from a lot of mistakes with site #1. This site has one partner fully dedicated to marketing, funding, and manual content.  The other partner (myself) does all the development, integrations, and graphics design.

URL: SportsNerdz dot com

Maybe there is something in these you find appealing or off putting you want to discuss.  Its facinating to me to see what people do different.  It could help turn things to a positive direction learning and sharing.  Thanks.

Firstly, I like your designs, particularly the first one. I'm not going to post my site here as it isn't live yet but one thing I won't be doing is adding anything to do with Facebook. I have used other platforms & connected Facebook to them & I find they simply slow the site down. I have lost count of the number of times I have loaded sites & it's taken an age to load "fb-static..." this, that or the other. Forget it, to me it serves to assist Facebook more than me.

The other thing I don't plan to do is allow ANY unregistered member to see content. How do you think Facebook became so successful? It's only now it's got it's millions of users that it has started messing with Privacy settings. I remember the early days when everyone was switching from Myspace to Facebook you couldn't see anything of Facebook except for pages which were used to bring in users to Facebook. Now they have conned all pages owners who have built up audiences over time because only a tiny percentage actually get to see your updates unless you pay. My point here is, show everyone your content & they have no reason to register. Show them nothing & curiosity sets in every time provided the site looks good & professional to start with.

Don't take my comments as being critical of your sites, just my personal opinion how I have found things. I believe the same will happen using connections to Google Plus, it serves to build their user database more than benefits yours. Sites like YouTube & Twitter are different as YouTube provides content & Twitter is a great instant marketing tool with no real Social Media capabilities.

Thanks for your comments. I am going to comment on some of your good points just moving my way down through your post.  Firstly FB slowing down your site.  I am universal in opinion somewhat on this.  I am like you in a sense that I really avoid most 3rd party content loading on the site.  I really dislike my site being loaded but hung up waiting on 3rd party content to connect.  For example, google analytics I tried in the past.  While it offers some great insights and useful information about your site it seems to be the last thing still turning the loading wheel.  Banner advertisements whether it be purchased ad space or an affiliate banner I avoid running their embed code in fear of their server being down or hanging up my load time.  I host everything possible local.  Now arriving at FB Connect  I never have problems with this for a couple reasons.  #1 the server is not called upon page load unless you initiate a FB Connect.  #2 moving to a VPS really brings a site to the standard expectation of performance in my case.  There is not much that drags it down to bad. Integration mistakes in the past have caused my site to hang simply because a 3rd party content item would not load.  I now only utilize things that will fail loading at worst case scenario and my site continue to load up but mostly avoid it all together.  I am no Facebook fan and never have been.  I would be pretty content if it just vanished tomorrow or I woke up tomorrow and it was all just a bad dream.  Perhaps my personality of not wanting to know what my friends and family are doing every minute of their lives (though I still care) creates my pet peeve for Facebook.  This is a whole other topic really though.  As for the social icons on the left of the page where you can connect to the sites social accounts, they do not load either unless you initiate pulling them out.  So many people avoid signing up somewhere else sadly because they are not willing to take the time to fill out a join form.  FB Connect pre-fills the form for them or auto creates membership depending on settings.  A sacrifice I am willing to make to tend to member needs. Though my membership is small a large number of that group have used this method to register.  After all the sites creation is ment to cater to the members needs because without them the site is nothing.

Moving on to unregistered content and viewing.  I see a lot of sense to be made in your view of this and have battled the idea myself in the past.  What I've come to terms with is a splash page would look much cleaner and more professional in my opinion.  However, neither site is not widely popular that people are flocking to sign up on.  My thoughts have been if I do not show them what they can do on the site then why would they sign up to an alluring mystery of whats behind the wall?  I can compare this to playing the lottery somewhat as a metaphor.  I love the idea that it could turn out great but I know the odds are I will have just wasted my time and money.  This outlook changes once the site is booming and new members are showing up daily.  At that time I feel for me in my personal case its safe to get them to register a key before they can open the door and still be successful.  You spread this to other categories like dating applications then its typically standard to block content until they are a member.  Because in this case they already know why they are there and what they could achieve by obtaining membership.  In my case the concept is not broad and they may not know what it is they are even looking at without showing them what others are doing.  I am not sure what your project genre is but you're right, often its a smart thing to really control content this way and in the future I am sure we will.  ilbellodelweb has caps locked me a few times saying the evo wall on my homepage is not intended to be viewable by the public. lol.  While I appreciate the work and its original intent to model and early version of Facebook in the way its supposed to function I instantly seen a different way I wanted to use it.  Though guest can see EVO wall they can not interact no more than reading and viewing through permissions.  Rather than model the sites feel to be that of Facebook I seen the potential to have it on the homepage publicly to show guest who are potential members that the site is alive and has activity flowing.  Most interactions on the site show on the homepage for everyone. So I've made EVO wall on the homepage nothing more than a interactive site activity of whats happening now block.  Everyone also has EVO wall on their profile page that only includes content of their friends and those they favorite/subscribe to.  I think it helps when a 1st time user lands on the site and can see that people are there.  But its just a concept and what you see there is me testing that concept.

Thanks for your insight coremedia I appreciate it.  I did not take anything overly critical (this thread is for this type of discussion).  I hope I did not come off as defensive either, I only wanted to showcase my directional purpose with why things are they way they are.

**I received a private message about this thread**

It reads:

"Hi

I wanted share this comment to further discussion and help anyone who may be on a path of interest for this as well.  This is a custom php script I integrated. It does not belong to me. I purchased it and itegrated it into dolphin.  Again it has its own admin panel.  With this integration in place you have to stay aware that each template has to maintain a couple lines in the < head > section of the _header.html file in your template files.  It's not hard to do if you have basic knowledge installing scripts or following installation.  It does have a small touch of initial confusion until you figure out exactly how the script functions.  You can install it and plug and play it anywhere that html can be input.  The script is located HERE. Its called Universal Banner Manager. Rather than my explain it the link there does better than I could.  If anyone is serious about it and needs help integrating it if your a beginner or unsure we can work out a small fee.  I am not looking for work because lord knows I have enough of it but I am willing to help out for a pretty small compensation.  The banners on the top, bottom, and right column of my sites are all controlled by it and advertising is automated. It is very new but functions perfect. Site#1 requires approval after payment for ad to show but Site #2 is instant showing until that method proves problematic anyway.  The point being there are options.  It supports any size banner you can come up with.  I've been looking for ways to monetize the site as VPS is not particularly cheap nor are most market place items over the years.

Thanks.

In many ways I agree with your comments but I think it boils down to basic web design & nothing specific to the Dolphin platform. You need to have a clear subject & know your target audience. The reality is none of us will create the next Facebook or Google Plus but why would we want to try to compete with them when they have millions to sink in to their businesses?

My project has a target audience & I have a ready made audience which I have built up over the past 8 years. I have to ensure everything is perfect, professional & spot on as I know I get one chance at this, if my target audience are not taken by the design they don't register & I have lost what I have spent years on building.

It's interesting to hear your comments on the wall. Have you canvassed your existing members? Again, I think it depends on your target audience. My audience's profile displays personal data such as their real name, location (town/city & country) as opposed to a username therefore I would anticipate a lot of my members wouldn't want their data visible to just anyone.

As with any website, you have to engage with your members & give them a reason to participate on your site. Incentives is a good way, whether that be incentives to bring in new members, incentives to participate in your community & provide content or both. After all, with a community, it is in their interests as well as yours to bring in new members. A community is only as good as it's members.

I have to agree with you, I prefer not to include any third party involvement as you are forced to rely on their services fully working & not slowing up your site. Content wise it's the old disk space & bandwidth arguments when your site is centered around Sound & Video. Do you have enough of both or do you have to rely on such sites as YouTube? Things like this are crucial in your planning before building your community. Ideally as you rightly say, shared hosting is not ideal for a Dolphin Community unless it's a small gathering of friends you are catering for & have no plans to grow a member base much. Having a clear plan before you start is key to how easy or difficult everything develops.

I like the advertizing you have in place. I was thinking of using something similar when I am ready to implement that side of things. Good job on that, I know where to get help if I need it! ;)

This thread is helpful already just discussing concepts, thoughts, ideas,etc.  After further discussion with the Sports Nerdz partner we are going to test a splash page landing controlling content access until membership is acquired.

You could try using 'teasers'. I know there are plugins on WP that do this so I am pretty sure it would be easy enough to create this sort of thing on Dolphin. Basically you give public access to the opening sentences of your content with a 'Read More' link which shows the rest of the content to logged in members. If the visitor isn't logged in or a member it would show a message saying something like "The full article is only available to our members. Please join us or login to read more". That kind of gives your visitors an insight in to your content without showing it all. If your content is interesting enough they will register.

 RE:

 Pardon my brutal honesty, but I've always thought those Unicorn templates are a chaotic mess.  I found myself staring at your home page, not knowing what to do next because of all the visual confusion.

That template strikes me  as something that may be appropriate for a Gamer site, where game players are used to a bunch of stuff cluttering up the screen.

I don't think it's a good fit for your site, or the people that would be interested in your site.  I know that's probably something you didn't want to hear, and you may not agree with me, however, those are my honest first impressions. 

I like the site 'MyHuntProfile' and was looking at it 2 days back ...

I do agree with HL (grrrrr!) that when I first saw the site, I also thought it had a gamer feel to it, but still a nice site there!

Well i would love some input on my site

http://vi-bin.com

 RE:

 Rather than comment on your site, this blog post from your site, sums it up nicely:

Call me ludacris, or retarded or whatever, but I am a believer in trying to keep it simple. Nothing against your templates (they are nice) but with all the extras, I found myself spending more time looking at the design of your site rather than what your site had as far as content.

WIth that being said, I am curious what HL thinks about my projects. His brutal honesty (I believe)  can only serve to help me make the sites better.

https://mytherapysession.com

https://caredesign.net

(hides under couch)

So basicly you think my layout sucks?

I apologize, I was not referring to your site. In all honesty, I had not looked at your URL yet. I should have stated which one I was referring to (myhuntprofile).

 What's the width of your site set to? It seems massive on my screen, I have to scroll half the screen again sideways to reach full width of your site. It's too wide.

 okay i can correct that my monitor using hight resolution so it looks normal for me

 looks like the min width is set at 1448px

@smokingredone - your template is simple - which for me, makes it easier to view your site

 RE

 caredesign.net looks OK       mytherapysession.com makes me think about Christmas for some reason.

 RE

 I fail to see what that rapper dude has to do with anything

 my bad - ludicrous

 you HAVE to assume that you're average user is an idiot so just because you can do something doesn't mean they can or will.  I also had to horiz scroll (and I have a big laptop).  I also had to give QuickTime permission to run, which my natural reaction to anything of the sort is to decline...so I went to your "About Us" instead of joining.  When I saw the grammatical error and misspellings there, I left your site.

To the OP, I like threads like this.  I'm not going to share mine either as we are still in dev, but we spent a LOT of time and energy defining the look we wanted and how it would relate to the image we want to project to the marketplace.  I like both of your sites, even if I wouldn't have done the same.  I am (probably) going to use that banner program you posted.  I just sent it to my developer for review.  We are going with a Freemium economic model and will mostly use third party vendors to fill our Ad space so a simple and easy way to run some of our inventory directly is appealing.  Thanks again for that.

I'm not HL so you may not want my opinion at all, but here it is anyway.

Bear in mind, this is a very quick/no join opinion.

The logo on your green site obscures the green portion of the logo.  either change the shade or alter the logo a bit with outlines around the figures/puzzle pieces.  also, the content on the site is pretty thin.  you certainly have the space to run more (maybe related articles).

Speaking of related content, what the hell does an Eagles music video have to do with a "HIPAA - Complaint Health Care Professional Network?" (Blue site)  A quick view of the site showed a bunch of fun content, but not related to you site's apparent mission.  The site itself looks pretty good to me, but I'd change the font/styling of the text in the slider.  Its pixelish and looks a bit amateur to me.

[/my2cents]

 RE:

 I don't know what the QT content was, but it is not properly embedded.  If it were, I would have not seen that incredibly annoying popup reminding me that QT it not installed on my laptop.  If that content were properly embedded, I would have been prompted to download/install the proper plugin.

Embedded QT content on a web home page isn't very mainstream.

most of the current content was added by a Psychiatrist. Those listed "Resources" are songs/videos that he feels are relevant and that he has suggested to his clients to listen to/watch. You would have to ask him how it relates. If you look at the description though, he has given some indication.

He wanted to add "Not Afraid" by Eminem.

I posted a thread in your stomping grounds.  I was counting on a reply from you. lol. I knew what I was doing before I did it. I appreciate your reply.  I am in agreement with you.  I've never assigned it a title such as "gaming" but I've always knew it was wrong for the site.  Now a little rebutle and explanation.  I will have to disagree on the on the template itself being a chaotic mess but rather its equipped for the user to create a mess with it having boxes going every which way (and perhaps I have).  The template itself has been the best I've had to date for what the market has to offer.  Lets face it most everyone is designing for a datings site, porn site, or nothing specific at all.  There has been one template that I like but have several hang ups on that pertains to my niche http://www.boonex.com/m/wild-nature-responsive-template which I could never commit to trying.  I have several graphic hang ups but I do like it and appreciate what ecity done.  I've considered working with someone on a template but afraid of the budget they might want as well its my experience people do not connect with my industry or I explain poorly what I need.  So I went with something more universal in theme like the unicorn template.  I agree it is not a fit for my site right now. Getting to a template that is relevant and workable for me is longer bridge than I expect.  It's up to me to get content delivery right for now.  I can only hope to see something come across the market.  I really like being able have design boxes with unicorn, its been very helpful for different task.  Thanks and I hope I can get on the right direction.

P.S. I am on an old computer sporting an old version of IE at work and there is no spell check and the one in TinyMCE is not working.. So that is that. Too lazy right now to copy and paste it to a 3rd  party check. 

I understand what you are saying about templates. My site is a specialized topic too so dating or porn templates obviously not relevant. However, no matter what template you choose you don't have to use every single block they do. I chose a template & completely rewrote the menu, added my own because I don't see the point in having a Groups Home, My Groups, Top Rated Groups, etc & the same for Blogs, Pages etc all filling up the menu when it's not necessary. They all relate to the same thing so I have the home page for Groups, Pages, Blogs, etc & took out the Top Rated, My whatever & all that!

Likewise, I have stripped down the blocks because it's too much. I don't have my members showing anywhere. I find it strange why any site would display it's members because if you have a thousand or even a hundred members, you are not going to display them all so why bother with any? Just my personal choice though, I guess. As I say though, some templates can still look good stripped down minus overcrowded blocks & work well, in some cases look better too! :)

Thanks for your comment.  It is also my feeling that a lot is going on.  I need to work on content placement and something better themed to my niche.  What if the site had a splash page? Would it be more acceptable to be met by that content after something simple as a splash page brings you in?

I've thought about stripping the menus as well in the past.  Seems like I got occupied by something or another project and forgot. It's a good idea.  I think I am really going to have some progress through the discussions here. Great idea and thanks!  As for the members block its truely a preference.  I would say my view on the member block is quite opposite.  Its a great way to showcase a new member to the community or network.  Its a sign of activity showing the guest if you sign up you wont be alone. These are things I've looked for when joining non-main stream networks in the past.  If no one is there then I don't want to waste my time talking with nobody. Again this type of thing differs from niche to niche.  My members are everything to the site and when I can show case them I will.  If I had a site where they are just a "lead" or "subscription" then maybe I would not care so much about using opportunties to make sure they have a homepage presence. 

 RE:

 That one looks amateurish.   Well done sportsman sites are not very common.  A few that I think look decent are http://www.mossyoak.com/   and maybe   http://duckcommander.com/     http://sportsafield.com/ is gawdy looking.  Other sites like Orvis, Field & Stream, Sports afield, Gander Mountian, Cabelas, Basspro, ... etc, all have a corporate look about them that offer little inspiration for your type of site. 

Maybe one of these days, I'll put some thought into a template for sites like yours.  After seeing that wild nature thing, it's obvious somebody needs to do something.

I have to admit though, it was kind fun clicking the right arrow like mad on the wild nature template demo, to see all the different animals go flying across the screen. Try it... it's fun: http://socialdemo.net/ecitycreative/index.php?skin=hunters

You seem like you get the point I was making.  Now that I am home on my personal PC I can discuss some of this further.  You also seem more versed in the outdoor market than I expected or you done some quick research.  It is a known factor that graphics and design is not a strong point in the outdoor market.  I have seen countless design struggles but that is with any industry I suppose though it seems a pretty heavy occurrence in this case.  I do not want to be over themed.  I do know some design outfits that market their services as strictly outdoor graphics like hunting and fishing.  The problem is you can not ask them to learn how to create a dolphin template and still afford to buy gas.  It is also a tough communication when you know someone worked hard to help you meet your design request and your not happy but that comes with the territory.  The bad part is not only are you not happy you realize by their first attempt there is no way they will get it a 2nd or 3rd time.  Its tough for people who are not involved to relate to the outdoor scene I suppose.  I need to hone in my Photoshop skills better and learn to create my own dolphin template or at least how to maneuver my current one to be more in tune with my niche for hunting.  I can't complain about my current template because its the best of what my particular needs were and it correlates with my logo colors.  Also I can make it look better with a lot of good advice here.  Lastly, I would have to compliment Mastertheme on setting the bar high for post-sales support.  So with that said I am not in regret.  My only apparent options right now are to refine what I have for now.  I have inquired in the past with a template designer to see what we could do to create more of an outdoor presence to the template but because they are not familiar with the industry and my desired direction all they had to offer was planting stock art of hunting game in the template but having a camouflage background and a picture of a deer is not what I am after.  It's understandable to have these barriers in workflow.  If I was asked to create a logo for a vegetarian website my first instinct would be to have a picture of a vegetable I guess.

I'll always have work to do that is without really needing saying.  I am just glad that I do have a small population on the site that enjoy it and count on it being there from feedback I've had.  They deserve the best outdoors community I can deliver them and I will keep striving to get it up to speed.

Here's my 5 cents.

Personally I don't like any websites I saw in this thread. Here are the reasons for most of them:

1. When you open a home page, it's not clear what this site is about and what do I have to do next, mess with all things together in one spot.

2. Horizontal scroll, huge and bold fonts, huge header with a lot of useless spacing, green or gray font on gray background is not readable, beveled\embossed and "shiny" titles with glares, etc. makes me think of websites made by amateurs in '90th, using all possible Photoshop 5.0 filters at once and working on 14" CRT with anti-radiation protection lead glass.

3. A lot of ads, splash page, which doesn't allow you to see what do you have to join for, quick time players asking for permission to run just to show me simple video, confusing design is made of lot of "squares", etc. 

4. Embedded in iframe OpenCart store with its own footer, doubling the main site footer and a separate join/login is confusing.

The only website I could highlight from mentioned here as less or more normal to understand, is caredesign.net and here are the main reasons why:

1. Simple readable logo writing

2. Under the logo and in a separate block it says what it's all about

3. Clear, simple, readable layout

4. Simple way of providing information 

Just my opinion.

Hey smokingredone thanks for posting in this thread I hope we can all share some insight and help each other grow with some good advice.  I loaded your quick time content and seen the video of the girl giving a description of the site.  I like that concept and I think it is key to helping get guest past your splash page.  I would highly suggest converting this video type to something else.  It does show up blank for most people and prompt them to download Quicktime or the latest version of it.  This is a lot of work for a visitor to do before getting this message.  Even a simple embedded YouTube video would be much better though a local hosted embedded video would be even better because you can rely on your own auto play settings and server. 

The page width must fit on the users screen without a scroll bar.  This is key for first impressions.  At one time in the 90s this was acceptable and common actually but with advances in responsive design, DIV properties, and the general way we deliver content people will not trouble themselves to make horizontal scrolls anymore.  They will just leave.  Not everything is responsive so moving from a computer to a hand held device creates a different kind of horizontal scrolling so its not quite the same as you can scroll in circles and zoom on command with touch screen enabled devices.  For the mouse using pre-set screen resolution computer user the width has to change. 

Double tapping on topics others have already mentioned I went to your about page as well to see more and avoid membership just for testing and taking a look around.  Sticking with the design width and sizing your logo runs up and under the search box making it obstructed.  It is also very close to your join link without margin.  On my handheld device it runs into your join link.  I love a big logo as much as the next person but I would consider scaling this one down a bit to work with the space available not to intrude with surrounding content.  I do however like the Logo font and color.  I don't know it reminds me of a fancy skyscraper facility or luxury time share service.  That is probably not the message you want to send because you are not about either of those services but my point being is that it does not look bad.  It is simple and names the service.  It is not a bad working logo for getting started.  I would look in the future at the idea of finding a marketable image that is recognizable.  The current one tells me what the site is called of course because it spells it out.  Maybe some sort of slick incorporated icon or special arrangement of the words that create brand awareness.

Staying on the "About us" page I have another note.  This one is the most important of everything and carries on through out most of the website.  There are an overwhelming amount of grammar and misspelling instances in your text.  When I read through it sometimes it suggest maybe English may be a 2nd language missing filler words like "and" "or" "the" "a".  As well there are many plural/singular mistakes where words should portray either one or more item(s).  Instagram is misspelled at the bottom of the page and this is a major service people relate with. It should say something like "Instagam -yes that is also integrated" rather than "Intragam -yes that integrated too".   There is no filler words often in the text that connects sentences like the one I've provided as an example.  I only suggested that maybe English is a 2nd language because these  filler words that connect a complete sentence are often a common language learning curve.  Often when someone speaks not fluent in English they leave out these important words that bring a sentence together.  This is fine for verbal communication.  I was born and raised speaking English and a lot of people would probably say I talk funny.  However, for text purposes there is no dialect and these are the most important changes that need to be made.  Please Please Please do not take offense if English is your native language.  I do not ever mean to insult in any case.  Sometimes we all just need some helpful pointers to help us better succeed moving forward into the future.

Thank you for sharing your site. Consider some of the suggestions and i would love to see you check back in with some updates.  Remember everything is just my personal opinion. I just want to try and be helpful. After all, I am just a guy looking for help myself.

P.S.  Is "blob" a misspelling of "blog"?  I thought it was but the word continues through out the site as well I am pretty sure the girl in the video also says "blob"?  Is this a lingo you've created for the blogging feature specialized to your site?  I suppose it could catch on to users who are common to your site but I think the masses may be confused as to what it is.  Or.. Maybe its the trending new thing and I have not heard of it yet? That's very possible.

You also described a downfall with the Dolphin CMS  such as confusing design is made of lot of "squares".  I agree with a lot you've said to some sort of degree keeping some important things in mind.  For some audiences the overly enhanced graphics you refer to appeal to their aesthetic.  Others appeal to a more simple short cut and clean interface without the visual pops. You get into these side roads of personal preference with stuff like that. Hard to put a label on right or wrong sometimes because if everyone followed the same blue print the internet would be pretty horrible lack any luster since we would all fall under a blanket expectation of appearance and how we deliver content.  I also know sometimes the spark of a good site can be the fact that it is without the graphical distractions.  Diversity makes me want to see what happens next.

Most importantly this thread is to recognize we are amateurs in some sort of light or another and can use this discussion to help each other advance in a positive direction.  People subject their sites for viewing to get some good advice or to help others gain something from it. Some people have longer roads than others to get to where they need to be but if we can help each other for a change instead of bashing Boonex blog posts for every update they do then we are making progress.  I assume you have something your proud of that falls in place with your vision of things you did not care for in others sites? If so that is great and we would like to see it! It would really help people like myself and other grab inspiration or imagination of what could be possible for our own implementations.  Anytime you ask a crowd to share their work you are going to get a mix of things that really need some work and others that you would like to learn from and compliment.  Its just time for those wiling to help each other who want to gain ground.  A new set of eyes sometimes is all you need to see where you need to be. 

I fear this thread will turn into people making a list of things they don't like about one anothers site rather than my intention creating this thread for an opportunity for learning and personal growth.  Thanks.

 There's  nothing "right" and "wrong" with anything in the world. :) But when one thing makes 90% people happy, another one satisfying 10% — this is what we call "right" and "not quite right". There's a lot of basic standards for making anything, even if you think out of borders. For example, if you write yellow text on white background, it will be not readable. If you write all text in bold CAPITAL LETTERS it will be simply annoying. If you'll make a huge distance between        the         blocks    or     words     in     the      sentence     or misspels end mistekes in wodrs ewrywere on you'r site, most people will not take you seriously.

There are ~2 billion Internet users today. They are from different cultures, have various life experiences, interests, genders, etc. We are also see colors in different ways: for instance, what you see as a yellow color, I may see as a green, but I know it calls "yellow" and vice versa. If you will get lucky and guess what most people will want to pay attention to — it's a start of success.

If you will think only about making money with your project (like putting tens of banners on your site home page), it will be really hard to achieve anything good.

If you really love what you do — most likely other people will love it as well.

Content delivery must be easily understandable for the end-user: If you want to say something and want to be heard, it's better to spend some time to prepare and then to pronounce it loud and clear.

 Sometimes it's more useful to know 100 things people don't like, rather than 100 things they like, or to get a bunch of replies like "wow, this is a great site, man!" :)

"Sometimes it's more useful to know 100 things people don't like, rather than 100 things they like, or to get a bunch of replies like "wow, this is a great site, man!" :)"

I totally agree.

My father was a first sergeant in the military. He used to talk all the time about his staff meetings. He would never ask what was going good. He only wanted to know what went wrong so they could learn and correct those things.

I think it's good to say what you do or don't like about a site provided you are giving constructive criticism otherwise it's pointless contribution which helps nobody. The OP clearly wanted to use this thread as feedback on his own sites & get an insight in to what others think in the hope he can gain some inspiration from their thoughts. In addition it can provide a useful thread for others too.

I think a common theme with Communities made with many platforms like Dolphin, WP, Joomla, etc, etc is that these platforms give people who are not web designers a relatively easy way of designing a website. The key thing with most though is the lack of direction. Too many are thinking along the lines of Facebook but it's been done, you could never compete with them now so forget it. Only Facebook can get away with being a Social Media platform with no specific topic simply because it was the first. Trying to lure people away from Facebook is not going to happen unless they tire of Social Media altogether.

So what will work? You need to have a target market with a community all interested in the same subject. Maybe expand that subject over time to a broader topic. For example, to use Sport as a topic, start with a popular Sport build a Community based on that, expand it to include another popular Sport then another and so on. That way you give your site reason to grow.

Lastly, threads like this are useful to us all for discussion & feedback, however, don't lose sight of your members too. They are what will ultimately keep your site going & hopefully growing. Always make sure you include them & ask for regular feedback. Using Facebook as another example, how many of us have got pissed at a change Facebook made we didn't like? I bet most of us but they are huge & can afford to do it. Make your members feel at home & involved & get their feedback too!

I just spent 20 minutes typing up a reply for you.  Then my computer decides that when I click back space it will act as the back button several times and erase everything I said.  So.. Here are the highlights. 

I found value in your feedback.  I hope you did not assume I ment otherwise.  I was only trying to push for something a little more to offer alternatives and opportunity to learn from the plausible mistakes made .  I know some of those things are self explanatory to fix of course.  Do you know of a dolphin based URL (does not have to be your own) that you feel has done a really good job and put together well?  Something I would be personally interested in to see and learn something from.  Thanks.  I appreciate you contributing to the thread especially since you have a hand in graphics.  Its a good background to hear from.

 If you are talking about my previous message, so it was about all websites mentioned in this thread.

 Fully agree. Making any website without any special point, without having money to invest and no knowledge, it's not the way to go far. 

 100%

  It used to happen to me a lot of times. There must be some javascript check asking if you are really want to close current page.

I didn't assume that you mean otherwise. I just explained more on what I've wrote before, just for better understanding. :) 

You are full of wisdom thus far in this thread that I agree with anyway.  I've practiced it in the past but not so much lately. I've just created a poll that I will push some attention to in efforts to try and canvas the members if they have any off putting views or experience with the site.  As well your clarification is right. I made this so we could all maybe learn some insight from one another (not just for myself).  Whats been even better is people who have a confident direction, a plan, some experience, and willing to share their experience here.  Thats what you have been doing.. Thanks.  I've taken plenty from it.  I know a lot of it already but keeping it on the fore front of your mind and being able to execute it are different things.

Just wanted to give a quick explanation about my 2 sites. Caredesign.net is for doctors only. Mytherapysessin.com is for patients only. They both work hand in hand. Technically, a user would only access mytherapysession.com if they were sent there by their doctor, thus no explanation on home page because it is not for the whole world anyways. Their doctor would explain what it is they want them to do on mytherapysession.com either in person, over the phone, or email.

But besides that. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes. We will never be able to please everyone all of the time, so our best we can hope for is that we can please as many people as possible. But, then the question comes up - how much should I sacrifice to make people happy.

You may have 100 people on your site - 80 of which like it, but wont pay a dime, while the other 20 would like it and pay if you made some adjustments. For me, I would have to make the 20 who are willing to pay happy before I worried about the 80 that wont pay.

We have spent several years on researching, developing, changing, researching, and more developing in an attempt to please as many as possible. Then - most of our work gets thrown out of the window. Why? because we have tywo organizations that have thousands of members wanting to use our sites - with some modifications. We were originally looking at just mental health professionals, but our (crossing fingers) new friends our obgyn and other medical related fields that are not mental health related.

Does it suck to have to put all that work on the back burner. Heck yeah - but if it is going to bring in thousands of users and loads of money then it is what it is and must be done.

 It's easy to lose sight of your main goal when you get going. You can look at modules on here or see other people's sites & a particular feature & think "that looks cool, I want that for my site" but you've got to be sure it fits in with your subject. It's easy to lose sight of things that way too, lol!

@Boonexpert Sorry, my comments weren't aimed at you personally. It's a good thread & makes an interesting read of different people's opinions & I was just trying to keep it constructive & useful to us all. :) No offense meant!

"It's easy to lose sight of your main goal when you get going. You can look at modules on here or see other people's sites & a particular feature & think "that looks cool, I want that for my site" but you've got to be sure it fits in with your subject. It's easy to lose sight of things that way too, lol!"

Most definitely. I saw myhuntprofile and did like some things that I saw, but had to discipline myself not to try to research and implement them because our market may not like all the goodies. For another project, they may come in handy.

What a constructive topic!

I'll share my first site: http://interlinenetworking.com/

It's a community for aviation/airline professionals. I'm the tech/web guy, my partner is a pilot for a major airline.

It's only been live for about a month. Still a lot of tweaking & additions to work on.

Love the software so much, I am converting 2 of my oldest websites (15+ years old each) to dolphin in the next month.

 Agree with you 100%. You have to go with your gut feeling & 'paying' members input because listening to the web design media will cost you a fortune. As soon as you implement the latest craze it's outdated & something new has come along. It's like buying a brand new car & it losing it's value as soon as you drive it off the forecourt. If it works for you, stick with it!

Interesting comment you made on the two organizations. Personally speaking I'd say to them you partner with us & fund it & you can have as much input as you want otherwise stick two fingers up at them. Like you say, you've done all the hard work & research, they just want the glory! This kind of thing is why I'm all for a 'closed' site so your content isn't exposed to just about anyone. That way your content remains yours & not used by others. There's a fine line between giving people enough to want to join & giving too much away & having it taken in my view.

 Nice site...that's what I've been talking about! It's clear to any visitor this site is about aviation. Good job! My one slight gripe is that I have to scroll right to see all the site. It seems to be a common thing with many Dolphin templates. Aside from that, it looks really good :)

 what size screen resolution are you using because i don't see a horizontal scroll and to me it looks like the dolphin standard 1140px width?

Thx! :)

I have the same question. What screen res? We've tried it on every device under the sun and had our initial members do the same. No horizontal scroll (even on apple tablet and droid phone).

That said, I am crossing my fingers and toes that one of the next Boonex updates makes the templates responsive. Sooooo overdue.

in reference to: http://interlinenetworking.com/

I too like this look. It is simple and understandable and explains what is going on in the Above the fold area. I do not have to scroll horizontal though and my screen resolution is 1400 x 900 on a 19 inch screen. My only personal feeling is the amount of vertical scroll. I personally hate having to scroll that much to see what you have. But, for your site you may not be able to get around that because all of what you have is relevant.