We are just about ready to launch and I could do with some feedback on all matters from load time missed errors/typos and any other constructive critism best viewed 1024 x 768 and we have just started load testing the server prior to broadcast

http://www.dirtydisco.net

Maybe I missed it, but there doesn't seem to be much actual content. Looks like the template's ready for some information to present. The pages are really pretty bare, for the most part.

Load time's fast -- of course I'm on 1.5 Mbit dsl.

Donations page:

Once we are broadcasting we would appreciate donations
this will help cover our bandwidth costs and licence fee
£1 or 1$ from every listener would be great

that could use some grammar help....

Once we are broadcasting we would appreciate donations.
This will help cover our bandwidth costs and licence fee.
£1 or 1$ from every listener would be great...

And it's weird having the donate links on the other side...I'd expect them below the text on the left.

Your menu links change their order on different pages. That makes it really hard to use.




I think before you launch you should try to go through and organize things better. Move the menu to the left of the page and keep the content together, make sure that the menu is in the same order on each page, make sure that each page has the same structure. Run things through a spelling checker. Then once you've done that, post here again so we can check out the final product.

As to the design itself, it grows on you. Especially the top part. I like the logo. I think the menu's a litle too much orange on black (with the underlining and all). Maybe you could change that up a bit so that it wasn't so hard on the users to read.

Rick

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my grammar has never been my strong point

taken under advice

most of our content will come as soon as we can broadcast and until I have the licence from the PRS in about 28 days im limited to what I can put on the site

thanks for the review

I forgot to say the menu is staying in the middle as thats not the norm and we wanted to be unique and not use a paid for template like every other site on the net seems to plus the website is highly geared towards a certain market that are probably less than coneventional

although I think at some stage we will cross over to a flash site mainly because of the way text is rendered and how smooth they look by comparison

Agree on the underlining of the menus and Inconsistency of them and my poor grammar

I understand what you mean about the menu. It certainly is unique. Perhaps you could fill one of the sides with a color and display "fun stuff" for the users or at least large ads or something else there to take up one side? Then you could keep your content together and still have the unique look. The important thing, I think, is just to have all your content together or somehow set apart so people can see it. If there's nothing saying that both sides of the page go together, it's a little confusing.

Let me know when you have some more content and stuff and when you're ready for another run-down.

Rick

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http://www.ristmo.com/ -- RISTMO Designs: Professional Web Design at Discount Prices

I do know where you are coming from its quite frustrating not being able to put all the content up as its all mainly music related all will allmost be totally driven from that

cheers fella

every one has a unique view and more reviews of http://www.dirtydisco.net would be useful

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music is my escape from lifes diversions

DJ Promotion
London web design

Hi. I appreciated your comments on my site (www.japanese-name-translation.com) and here are some of my ideas about yours:

* Maybe it is because I am using Firefox, but I find the way the statistics thingy appears at the bottom of the page annoying. For my sites I use Statcounter, which allows me to set it to be invisible. It just seems a shame that you have optimized your site nicely to fit the 1024*768 user's screen and then that extra bit kinda pokes out the bottom.

* I know grammar has been mentioned by another poster. I would also look into the length of some of your sentences.

Eg. "We have been researching ways to make a radio station pay and as much as we would like to we cant just play music as this just sucks bandwidth and money so in order to stay online without going bust which seems a common thing with web radio we need to raise money by doing the following"

This is a huge sentence!

Maybe you could rewrite it with shorter, punchier sentences like:

"We focus on bringing you the best dance and trance music. But there is no way we can stream our bandwidth away free forever, so we are looking into adding the following related services:

....................

Interested in any of these? Email us and tell us what you think."

* I am not sure I understand about your licensing situation. It seems like you need a license before you can transmit live over the airwaves and I understand why that would stop you doing radio broadcasts until you got one. But why can't you start broadcasting just over the net before then? I have not heard of a license for internet broadcasts. This would be a great way to test out sounds, program formats etc. and to build listener loyalty in advance of your "official" on air launch.

* For things like the "pictures" link, you can upload your own to get things going. If people come along and see nothing there, they are probably not going to stay. Get your friends to get the ball rolling. Then visitors will come along and sense a community that they would want to be part of.

* Same applies to the Forum. 1 registered user = dirtydisco. Seems kinda lonely. Again, get your friends involved.

Hope this helps.

Stephen

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Just had another couple of ideas that may help with promotion:

* Club / event reviews: Write reviews of London clubs and events. Nice material for your visitors and juicy spiderable food for the search engines. Also has the knock-on effect of establishing you as an authority in your field, increasing trust.

* Blogs: Each of you should set up a blog. Write about the music scene, clubs and anything related that music lovers in London are going to be interested in. Host on your site. Again, this will provide great material for visitors and search engines.

* Upcoming events: Create a schedule of upcoming events in the London area that will be of interest to your readers. Not just ones that you will be involved with. This will establish you as an authority, give you nice spider material and increase visitor loyalty.

* Cross-promote: When you start broadcasting, make sure you coordinate what goes on on air with the site. A simple example would be, "A lot happening this weekend on the dance music scene. Find out more online...."

Hope these help.

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the stats for the moment are just for my benefit I have them availble on the server but its quicker to see them on the website

perhaps I should say aswell the site is designed for a screen size 1024 x 768
Your grasp of english is obviously better than mine do you mind if I use the suggested text in places?

you also have suggested some very good ideas

as for the licence its more like a permit and im my case as im governed by UK law therefore I need to pay a fee to the prs which is the performing rights society and there are two elements to it one is actually called prs and the other is mcps essentialy they collect royalties from any establiment or organisation that play muic in the public arena and without it I would get savaged by a deluge of law suits in a flash, plus if im caught broadcasting without paying the fee I would never get licensed the fee is calculated on hours seconds/minutes/hours of broadcasted content. The fee is @ £800-£2000 the same applies to the US and there is another organization that deals with it over the pond

primarly thats why napster has so many problems because all music that is sold is copyrighted and licensed ,rights, world rights the list goes on and on and , the authours of said music were not getting thier royalties neither were the record companies

The forum that were using is quite new we lost the old one in a server change over about a month ago
and I am rather lonesome in there

point taken

without a shadow of a doubt possibly the most useful feed back ever !

Would it be of any benefit if I was to link to your site my audience will be 18-30 year olds and quite a captive audience and I would think quite likely to purchase some of your produtcs

I originally did have a review page and have taken it down for the moment as we are not reviewing clubs at the moment

we are also in the process of making a short video
with some music which can go on the site as sooon as its done without licence as im the author of both


And we had a massive links page with all the relevant links to clubbing and music but this has been taken down until im happy with the feel of the site ,once I have achived that All the content will go back on ,

when we are ready we will flyer london ie ,clubs,record shops and selected clothing retailers that is our direct and local market and according to my research there are over 200,000 regular clubbers in the uk alone

we also have djs lined up that are begging to come on the air as soon as were ready that have audiences of 2000+ per show

It really is a massive thing over here

thanks again

J Roberts

__________________
music is my escape from lifes diversions

DJ Promotion
London web design

I have just put up a test video with music
very short if anyone cares to check it and see if you encounter any problems

http://www.dirtydisco.net

directlink for video is http://www.chavformer.com/video.htm ( our test site)

__________________
music is my escape from lifes diversions

DJ Promotion
London web design

I saw your countdown and a few quick splashs of video but the rest was black screen; your audio file played continually with mostly a blank screen. (I'm on a 3mb cable connection so it loaded quickly.)

You might want to consider streaming the video using a .wmx file instead of embedding - that way visitors on a slower connection will be able to view your video in psuedo-realtime instead waiting for a download.

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Marcie Wolf
AlphaGeek Web Design | MarcieWolf.com

you saw it as its intended then

we made a decision a long time ago to cater for the broadband market I dont know any people at all that dont have it and the quality of music on modem speed is not worth listening to

take it you viewed in firefox?

I use IE6 and im on 1GB and its instant for me



anyone else with differnt browsers?


or 512mb connection speed

__________________
music is my escape from lifes diversions

DJ Promotion
London web design

I had a bit of a re design moved the the nav over to the left and tidied up a bit any comments on the new and improved site? would like to hear back from those who have already had a look

cheers people

JR

__________________
music is my escape from lifes diversions

DJ Promotion
London web design