A new born site with STEP BY STEP GUIDES FREE

[BlueThunder]

Dear member,

I finally got my site up & running now with all STEP BY STEP GUIDES
never a fee to use, all FREE now
Please check them out at:
http://dvdplanet.fateback.com
please give me your opion on how to improve it or let me know how you like or dislike it
Thanks for your time

[holistic]

...........never a fee to use, all FREE now ........

Please Click Here to DONATE today ........ nope

Really ........... then the is doom9

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=242410post#242410

][

[lordsmurf]

I can't get the site to open past that second page.

I'd suggest dumping all the fancy animated stuff and dumping that weird intro page, as it is hindering you more than not. Just the info, please. And those legal disclaimers, FYI, don't hold up in court. Just a waste of your time to make it, and ours to get through it.

Remember, you asked for opinions. I'm not trying to be mean.

[mysticgohan17]

I can't get the site to open past that second page.

I'd suggest dumping all the fancy animated stuff and dumping that weird intro page, as it is hindering you more than not. Just the info, please. And those legal disclaimers, FYI, don't hold up in court. Just a waste of your time to make it, and ours to get through it.

Remember, you asked for opinions. I'm not trying to be mean.

tell em smurf

[mickle]

Too much animation....

Too slow.....

Not easy to navigate.....

Needs some work to make it user friendly.....

[CHAOS]

I can't get the site to open past that second page.

I'd suggest dumping all the fancy animated stuff and dumping that weird intro page, as it is hindering you more than not. Just the info, please. And those legal disclaimers, FYI, don't hold up in court. Just a waste of your time to make it, and ours to get through it.

Remember, you asked for opinions. I'm not trying to be mean.

tell em smurf

YEAH!!!! who want's to look at a bunch of cool looking stuff....... let's get to the Meat and Potatoes!!!!!!! :P

[MOVIEGEEK]

I agree with getting rid of the animations and needless windows.
Here are two websites you should emulate:
www.dvdrhelp.com
www.doom9.org

[thayne]

OMG! That's one of the worst looking sites I have ever seen!
Sorry, but it's true...

Free my ass!

Sorry, but access is Denied. If you need to access to these guides, then please just spare $1 or any amount that you can spare on me for my hard work so that I can continue my work. Without your help, I wouldn't be here today. Please help save DVD Planet from fading out. Thanks for your support!

[gll99]

Once I got passed the crap, I just copied the shortcut to the guest area and could exit and return without being trapped in those stupid frames.

http://dvdplanet.fateback.com/guest.html

It's cutesy to say the least but not too practical to attract return business. I can see someone going through that stuff once out of curiosity but not on every visit.

You say "all free" but that's total bull. Only a few simple guides are free and the rest is hidden until someone makes donations to you. You are using a free service to setup your site and will be making money off the traffic.

Free web site hosting --- http://www.fateback.com/

I would think that you would not want to hinder visitors but rather make it easier for people to join. You make it obvious that the only members you want have to pay to join since there is no join link except after you pay.

You say in the faq that you steal nothing and knock DVDRHELP and Doom9 for not having good guides. You mention the graphics that you made but it still appears that all you have done is added different graphics to guides already available here, Doom9 and elsewhere on popular sites.

This topic could easily be viewed by a mod as advertising for profit and this thread and your url link could be edited out and locked.

[lordsmurf]

Then I didn't miss much did I, not being able to get past the 2nd page?

[gll99]

p.s.

Don't be surprised if these guy's come knocking on your door someday.

http://www.dvdplanet.com/main.asp

[thayne]

If he did steal any guide I know guys here who will tear him a new one

Oh by the way, I emailed dvdplanet.com and told them how you stole their name Did I mention I really hate SPAMMERS!

[Popee]

Sorry, but under the SHINK(sic) section, there is a sub-heading that lists DVDShrink, DVD95Copy and DVD2ONE. If you click on anything but DVD2ONE, it is written "Sorry, but I do not recommend this program, etc. Instead use DVD2ONE".

I guess that would make it a biased site, and not open to independent appraisal like DVDRHELP.COM

Sorry, I only frequent totally unbiased sites, flame wars and all.

[gll99]

lordsmurf

Your a contributor to this site and haven't tried to fool anyone. There is nothing wrong with charging for a service but the rules on spamming are pretty clear. Advertising a free member site probably wouldn't attract any negative attention but BlueThunder is being deceitful. It's pretty obvious that this guy joined just to get some paying clicks on his site and some free publicity. He's probably PurpleThunder on DOOM9, PinkThunder on the divx forum etc...

He even admits that most of the "paying members only" guides are just links. Can you guess where those links are probably pointing back to.

[thayne]

Sorry, but under the SHINK(sic) section, there is a sub-heading that lists DVDShrink, DVD95Copy and DVD2ONE. If you click on anything but DVD2ONE, it is written "Sorry, but I do not recommend this program, etc. Instead use DVD2ONE".

He probably couldn't figure out how to use DVDShrink

[LSchafroth]

Did you get a new version of Frontpage??

LS

[i_am_dave]

It won't let me use my 'i_am_dave' user name. Says it's invalid. Oh well, I guess I'll just register as TGPO instead. Or Baldrick

EDIT: I am having trouble finding the Off-Topic section.

[housepig]

after waiting for it to load for 3 minutes, I think I'll pass....

[Will Hay]

If he did steal any guide I know guys here who will tear him a new one

Oh by the way, I emailed dvdplanet.com and told them how you stole their name Did I mention I really hate SPAMMERS!

Yeah, you made that clear, but I would have thought it was enough that you reported him here, rather than constantly making unnecessary comments in the thread too.
For instance, comments such as....

He probably couldn't figure out how to use DVDShrink

...could be construed as childish.
Will

[pacmania_2001]

Here's some free advice:

1) The average internet user allows 10 seconds for a page to load before they will leave. That is 10 seconds by the way on dial up and I was experiencing that sort of time on my cable connection.

2) Never use image based navigation on your site unless you provide a text based alternative. A significant portion of users browse the internet with images switched off therefore your site becomes useless.

3) A site (unless heavily content based) should have all it's pages accessible to the user in 5 or less clicks. Any more and the average internet user will leave.

4) Intro pages are a no-no for most sites. It just adds to the number of clicks and most people will react negatively to the idea that the first page they see on the site isnt the home page.

5) At least add title tags to your page. If you are trying to make people pay for a page at least give them some level of professionalism.

6) 'Cutesy' graphics aren't good for a professional site. They may seem cool to have an exploding barrel or some other equally awesome graphic on your site but all it does is discredit the information. Images are best used sparingly.

7) Do a SWOT analysis. If your competitors (DVDRHelp, Doom9) are offering their information for free what would make your visitors pay for your site unless you are providing something different.

8 ) Do a copyright/trademark/registered business name search if you plan on making money from the site. Most companies who register copyrights don't mind a little personal homepage using their trademarks but when you start trying to profit from them, that is a different situation.

9) Don't bother with a guestbook. All it does is clog up your site with useless comments that are either (a) made up by you or friend of you who help give 'credit' to the site or (b) made up by someone with too much time on their hand and have the potential to warn others that sites like DVDRHelp and Doom9 exist.

10) If you are going to have a "Last updated" message on your site at least make it current. Your current one, "August 10, 2003" isnt exactly going to draw in the visitors. Even if you haven't updated since then change the message to a current date.

11) Don't have a counter. No one wants to see that you have X number of visitors unless that number is a huge amount. Also don't use a fake counter either, most people can tell.

12) Choose one or two colours for your fonts/backgrounds and only use them throughout your site.

13) Load your page into frontpage (if you don't already use it) and turn on the option to hide your frame borders.

14) Keep some consistency to your pages. Build (or download) one template and customise it to each individual page. That way the site doesn't look like it was thrown together by cut and pasting.

15) If you want to make money on this venture you are going to have to get to users before they see sites like DVDRHelp and Doom9. This is virtually impossible however here's a tip. Read up some on how to optimise your pages for search engines, get prepared to pay Google and other search engines money to have a sponsored listing and/or start making alot of friends with webpages so they can link to you and draw your rating up.

If I can remember anything else from my eCommerce course I will post again.

[pacmania_2001]

Just another note to the users reading this thread saying that it might consitute advertising. Whilst it probably does I wouldn't close it due to the high likelihood that anyone who is reading this post here probably isn't going to go from this site (DVDRHelp) to paying for this guys site.

[peregrin]

Free, what definition are you using, Pacmania_2001 has it right , i'll stay where's it's free and helpfully, the animations are cute, but who likes cute, just a waste of bandwidth

[thayne]

Yeah, you made that clear, but I would have thought it was enough that you reported him here, rather than constantly making unnecessary comments in the thread too.
For instance, comments such as....

So are you the guy who decides what comments are unnecessary? I'll make as many comments as I like, thank you!

BTW, I think your avtar is childish

[FOO]

Sometimes in companies that are stupid enough
to think that pep-rallies actually improve morale,
there are "Staff member of the week" postings on
bulletin boards. I propose we give Blue Thunder
the "Stiff Member of the Week" award.
...and that's not a misspelling.

[holistic]

It is a little unfair to be hard on him.

[Gees]

You GUYS!!! :cD

[i_am_dave]

Website is pretty and all, but somehow feels wrong. BlueThunder, are you really King John?

[g_shocker182]

Like pacmania said:

1.) The intro is horrible
2.) The intro is slow (I even have cable and it takes forever)
3.) To many graphics on main page
4.) Some guides incomplete
5.) You use DVDPlanets trademark
6.) No, your site is not my number 1 backup site. That title belongs to this site.

[gll99]

To anyone who thinks we are too rough on this guy.

His topic line and the statement "all free" are misreprentations since most guides are not free.
He did not produce most of the guides but says he will provide links to them since they are all over the net but first you must make a contribution to have access to this information.

He asked for feedback and got it. He succeeded in attracting some very helpful comments.

A commercial site should approach the owner of DVDRhelp for permission to post advertisement and be willing to pay a set fee or royalties on generated business (it's up to Baldrick to decide if he waives it) anything else is spamming. Lots of commercial products are already featured on this site by permission. The judgement of the mods is probably swayed by the novice looking site and out of pity and largesse have granted him some latitude.

My previous comments:

This topic could easily be viewed by a mod as advertising for profit and this thread and your url link could be edited out and locked.

These comments indicate my assessment of what could happen not necessarily what I think will happen since I have no control over the interpretation or actions of the mods.

[lordsmurf]

7) Do a SWOT analysis.

You impress me. That's not easy to do. You know your stuff.

I've written several guides and many a Web site in my day, all using similar marketing/communication aspects as learned from the real-world and college courses.

Anybody reading this page, and wanting to learn more about building Web sites, should DEFINITELY give that post by pacmania_2001 a looking at.

The only cardinal rule I've broken is uploading dead/unlinked links. I knew that, but the benefits of providing some material upweighed posting none. But since mine's not a business at this time, not a bad choice.

It's nice to see others have knowledge on Web creation and design. Next time I am uncertain about something, don't be surprised if I come knocking on your door to collaborate/brainstorm.