Feeback on my new site, please... | Hacker News Reader

Feeback on my new site, please...

digidorm.com

10 pointsjamesvito20 comments

I like your cool retro logo.

First impressions:

- It just looks like a blog, and I didn't immediately get it.

- Seems to be a group-blog-per-university (isn't that market stitched up by facebook?)

- I looked around, still going "huh?" and clicked on your intro video, watched it for 30-40 seconds of cartooning, and I still didn't get it.

Hey Gstar - essentially, Digidorm is a tremendous blogging system. But members don't just comment - they create the content - kind of like Allvoices, which, along with Digg and Technorati, were models for the function of Digidorm.

The University List is HOPEFULLY the first clue to visitors that the site drills down to many individual universities.

"Hmmmm" on the video not communicating the sites intention. Perhaps you have some advice on how to amplify my efforts to communicate that?

And I think - professionally and personally - that FB has bascially become Twitter Jr. I don't think the groups satisfy the need of both the community members (students, faculty, parents, advisors) to be forthcoming about their real experiences (one big reason is anonymity, which Digidorm provides) and the universities to engage in well-archived citizen-journalism about the university.

Does that make sense? I'd enjoy answering any more queries/critiques.

It might be worth making those about/university/help links under your logo significantly bigger - I missed them on first view.

You don't get much attention time on the web, get in there -fast- .. a 10-15 second video is probably much more appropriate for an intro.

Oh and thanks for the logo compliment. I actually had the font custom created.

I agree. It looks kinda messy and confusing.

unreal. I had same experience and comments. -thought it was a blog (because it is) - didn't get it - watch the video for half a minute - bailed

To jamesvisto, I don't mean to to be negative. I just think you need real feedback. good luck with it!

You need my "ancestry" for me to register. Is that user driven or do you just get more money for the db with ethnicity info, it has a "*" in the sign up page; http://digidorm.com/user/register .

The page loaded very slowly for me, YSlow report 5000 DOM objects on the registration page ??

Asking for a matriculation or student ID might reduce signons from non-students even if you can't verify them - once you have some you'll be able to create a pattern.

I was impressed you had an apparently comprehensive list of uni's - I thought Open Uni might catch you out - you should play this up "every Uni" and emphasise the global nature of the site.

Your CC link at the bottom strongly suggests a CC-license but none is made clear; this suggest to me you're trying to con me in some way.

Advertising being the top of a main menu listing (Services) suggests that the point of the site is to make you money with targetted ads. That may be true but you perhaps want to be more subtle about it.

Edit: the logo ain't retro it's horribly 80s corporate looking. The colour scheme is bland. Align that search box or I'll go mad! The guy in the suit is not a good try at a hero shot - hot coeds is the standard. What are you doing to avoid astroturfing?

Just my initial thoughts from a couple of minutes contact.

Hey - I wanted to add a bit about my post to have my new site Digidorm.com critiqued by the Ycombinator community. I'm a brand spanking new start up - went live a little over 4 weeks ago. I spent 3 years working at Arizona State University, did my masters in social media marketing, and then consulted for a while with universities around the country. I realized that ALL universities want social media, but for copious reasons cannot accomplish a coherent presence (lack of resources, silo-ed workflow environments, high turn over, et cetera). So I created one core social media site for EVERY university on the planet that I could find. I'd like to have feedback about the function of the site mostly - is it intuitive? does it add value as a core social media presence for higher education? Yes, it's light on content, but I just went live - does the site somehow communicate its intended values? would you use a site like this?

I'm not one to nitpick over spelling, but since it's your tag line, I thought I'd mention that "Its your university" should actually be "It's your university" - as in, "It is your university".

I mean, geez, what are they teaching in university these days anyway? ;)

Do you need ads on there right away? I think you should try to build up some readers and contributors first. When I see ads on a brand new site, I really question their motives.

It's fine to monetize your site, but wait as long as possible until you do.

The "Share/save" thing automatically popping up is really annoying. If I rest my mouse there for a second, it pops up and confuses the hell out of me and usually gets in the way of the video I'm trying to watch. Have your viewers click on it to bring it up.

Brutal honesty: the site's design is terrible. There is no call to action, the page is WAY to cluttered, and there is no sense of visual consistency.

UI aside, what is the goal of this site? Why would a college student use it? I couldn't find a good reason from the 10 seconds or so I spent poking around (and that's more than most people will spend)

What you currently have is a blog.

From reading your comments, you want to let uni folks open share stuff. I'd start with working at a grassroots level with people at a COUPLE of unis to make the site useful on those campuses.

I am against the idea of mass launching on a million campuses. My experience says it's a recipe for disaster.

way too much text. Users don't read[1].

[1] : http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062....

Nice name, gutsy vision. I see this is for anyone associated with a school, to participate in a group blog. That's a big group of potential users. I drilled around a bit and notice you've put a lot of work writing copy, under the hood. There's an inherent chicken-and-egg problem with these social forum projects but with your social media skills I'm sure you could climb that mountain. My focus on the site itself would be to think about how to articulate message in a more obvious way up top.

Like many have said, it is unclear what your site does/where the content comes from.

Also, fix your spelling - the sub-banner "Its Your University" should be "It's".

What problem are you trying to solve by creating this site?

First, its supposed to give students/parents/advisors/alumni - the REAL people - who have to navigate a universities multiple obstacles/administrative hurdles the power to publish about what is really going on. Essentially, it is meant to take the 100% share of the authority to project the universities reputation away from the marketing dept and distribute it more evenly amongst non-employees who have lots of information to share.

Second - after years working with universities, specifically on technology, social media, and their intersections for broadcasting authentic messaging about the university - I realized that many universities wanted/needed this type of tool, but were lacking resources to build it and keep it coordinated. So I built it for them...and for the students/parents/alumni. Like many social media sites, Digidorm.com is meant to create a place where true stories about a service/products can be shared and learned from.

I still don't get it. You've described an abstract issue: universities have a fair amount of power to control what messages about them are disseminated. But what are the use cases? Why would I want to visit your site? Give us a couple of specific examples, preferably in the form of stories.

Also, I would say that the interface needs to be revamped. Right now it's just confusing: it looks like a blog, none of the posts are even marginally relevant to me, and I have no idea how to get to any content I want to see -- or even what that content might be.

I could see a case for the existence of some sort of university-targeted Stack Overflow-like site. Basically public Q&A boards for particular universities, structured by topic, and with a good method for pulling useful content to the top. Maybe this already exists and I don't know about it, or maybe it's not what you're going for, but I at least know why I would use it.

If you could get a list of IP addresses somehow, it would be handy to direct users straight to posts about their particular university (assuming they're accessing from on-campus). I couldn't see the university list on the iPhone - you might already be doing something like this.

Wow - thanks for all the fast feedback. I will respond tomorrow, but for now I definitely have the clue that the sites function and purpose need more in-your-face presence and explanation. I'll jump on that quickly.

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