Starting A New Hip Hop Website

[Liu Kang]

Looks nice honestly.
Although, I'm not sure about News being at the bottom. If it was me, I'd put the News under the video carousel and let the rest in the same existing order (vids > mixtape > music).
Good luck.

 

[KG1]

Looks nice honestly.
Although, I'm not sure about News being at the bottom. If it was me, I'd put the News under the video carousel and let the rest in the same existing order (vids > mixtape > music).
Good luck.

Its funny that you mention that cause we were honestly thinking about the same thing. Just want to make it as easy as possible for users. The website will be a one page loading site so when you click a section it will load up instantly like drop down menu

 

[Liu Kang]

Its funny that you mention that cause we were honestly thinking about the same thing. Just want to make it as easy as possible for users. The website will be a one page loading site so when you click a section it will load up instantly like drop down menu

Depends on what will be the main purpose of the site. If it's all about videos then music then news, keep it that way. If it's more an all-round type site, news are kinda important to "feed" the audience so it would be better for them to be more visible.

And beware also about a one-page site : you will need it to load fast and therefore will have to optimize every thing weight-wise (css, scripts, images and so on).

 

[KG1]

Depends on what will be the main purpose of the site. If it's all about videos then music then news, keep it that way. If it's more an all-round type site, news are kinda important to "feed" the audience so it would be better for them to be more visible.

And beware also about a one-page site : you will need it to load fast and therefore will have to optimize every thing weight-wise (css, scripts, images and so on).

You are def right thats what we are working on right now. The site's purpose is to be the online destination for everything hip-hop. We are not going to be like others where they just regurgitate what is said on other sites, we plan to focus on exclusive content, inteviews, and working directly with artists, celebirties. A key to the layout is the user experience. Alot of sites now a days are just cluttered with so much stuff and trying to make a dollar off of ads, that they forget the orginal purpose of the site to begin with. Those banner ads that are on the layout will be gone aswell. Are you a programmer? Would like to talk to you in more depth

 

[Liu Kang]

User experience has a wide meaning, be careful.
Try also not to get lost in that "everything hip-hop" concept, because it's wide. Sometimes it's better to be excellent at one thing than to be so-so in everything. It's a hard thing you try to do above all if you don't already have a solid network to back you up, because those exclusivities you want will be rare in the beginning. You will have to leech off other hip-hop sites breh if you want a content dynamic enough.
And those banner ads, you should at least keep some except if you rich enough to support the cost of the traffic and its weight on the servers when it will increase.
My humble advice (for what it's worth) would be to focus on 1 or 2 parts of your project (vids and news for example but without neglecting the other parts I mean) then fully expand when you'll reach cruising speed in the parts you're good at.

I know about programming a little (html, css and a bit of php and sql) and I once succeeded in tweaking a wordpress theme but I am no programmer. That's more of a hobby. It's not that I don't want to help, it's just that I will more likely not be able to because I'm very limited for what you tryna do. Take a look and ask there : http://www.thecoli.com/threads/it-certs-and-careers-lets-discuss-it.9043/page-41

 

[KG1]

I truly appreciate all feedback, especially as detailed as yours. Exclusive content will slowly build as it depends on your network, fortunately for me I have a few contacts since I have been working in the industry for several years. User Experience does have a wide meaning, but what I meant was an easy to navigate site, a great search engine, fast speeds, without any of the bs ( corny ads that dont relate to anything about the site, tons of user submitted content, etc) I know it will be expensive to launch properly with a dedicated server, but I feel if this is done, it can blow alot of the other site out of the water.

 

[LordFendiMane]

@bk is being typical... Put the damn thread back in The Booth. Y'all let Mollywatr live so let this man cook b1tch.

 

[cook]

Oh yea i think BK got mad?

na, i havent been online since last friday. i didnt know anything about this until i got @ed. someone probably thought you were spamming.

you seem to be getting good feedback here, i can move it back to the booth but it'll probably be on page 2 rather quick



i think the layout looks good but how will your site differ from any of the other existing sites that offer the same thing?

 

[KG1]

na, i havent been online since last friday. i didnt know anything about this until i got @ed. someone probably thought you were spamming.

you seem to be getting good feedback here, i can move it back to the booth but it'll probably be on page 2 rather quick



i think the layout looks good but how will your site differ from any of the other existing sites that offer the same thing?

Thanks @bk I mean there is alot of other sites but I feel that those site just focus on the monetizing portion with all the ads and user submitted content. I just want this site to offer what the people truly want, new music, videos, news, mixtapes, entertainment with a clean layout and super easy to use functions.

 

[cook]

Thanks @bk I mean there is alot of other sites but I feel that those site just focus on the monetizing portion with all the ads and user submitted content. I just want this site to offer what the people truly want, new music, videos, news, mixtapes, entertainment with a clean layout and super easy to use functions.

Who are you hosting with? Are you offering direct downloads from your server? If you are, how are you going to afford the server if you dont plan to monetize the site as much as you can?

I'm not trying to discourage you but a lot of websites fail because the owners dont have a plan. A clean interface is a good start but plenty of music blogs are successful without a nice design. do you think your design is enough to take visitors from one of those sites? Also, how do you plan to reach new people? Advertising? Word of mouth?

 

[KG1]

Who are you hosting with? Are you offering direct downloads from your server? If you are, how are you going to afford the server if you dont plan to monetize the site as much as you can?

I'm not trying to discourage you but a lot of websites fail because the owners dont have a plan. A clean interface is a good start but plenty of music blogs are successful without a nice design. do you think your design is enough to take visitors from one of those sites? Also, how do you plan to reach new people? Advertising? Word of mouth?

I will be hosting with Amazon Web Service, and I know that the server will be expensive to run, however if thats what required to run the site properly than I have no problem forking out the money. I feel what will make my site better than the other sites is its mobile capability, along with clean interface and content. Also reaching out to new people will be a slow process, however the exclusive footage that we are currently working on right now will also jumpstart the launch of the site. I also will have a launch party at greenhouse for the night of the launch, and will engage in some advertising and collaborations with other sites I have relationships with.

 

[cook]

I will be hosting with Amazon Web Service, and I know that the server will be expensive to run, however if thats what required to run the site properly than I have no problem forking out the money. I feel what will make my site better than the other sites is its mobile capability, along with clean interface and content. Also reaching out to new people will be a slow process, however the exclusive footage that we are currently working on right now will also jumpstart the launch of the site. I also will have a launch party at greenhouse for the night of the launch, and will engage in some advertising and collaborations with other sites I have relationships with.

If you can provide exclusive content then you'll do fine. thats really the key to standing out. Exclusive content or an exclusive feature.

Read up on seo and start with that as early as you can

Good luck, hit me up if you have questions

 

[KG1]

If you can provide exclusive content then you'll do fine. thats really the key to standing out. Exclusive content or an exclusive feature.

Read up on seo and start with that as early as you can

Good luck, hit me up if you have questions

I most certainly will. But you are 100% right on exclusives, its just the most time consuming/expensive part of the processes. Will def look into SEO aswell. Gotta say TheColi is one of the reasons why I wanted to make the site. You guys have always given your A game!