Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

First thing - I do not see any reason to join your site. Another is check your spelling. Instead of "ever" you have "every" on the about button towards the bottom. There isn't much to navigate to on this site either and I only see about 5 people on it, one posted over and over again.

As far as the colors, I think they are great. The people outlines are distracting though. They seem somewhat disfigured. What about shapes like the circles in the fly or something else like your logo transposed in the background with a little more transparency so that it does not take away from the text?

I agree with everyone else as to why you would advertise so many other sites like yours. It is great that they can add their profiles to other sites but I would make that less apparent. Keep testing!

Good Luck,
Promo Chic

I like the graphics, colors, and simplicity.

I am pretty familiar as a user with social networking sites. I think that the most valuable part of the site is sharing your bookmarks. Can you share entire articles, or provide a summary for each bookmark? Is there an option to rate articles, give/get feedback and discussions? It strikes me as a social profile aggregator + address book + Furl or Magnolia-type bookmarking site. Also, can you send emails to friends (whether or not they're users) with a digest of your bookmarks? Also, can you share photographs, or link to your photos on Flickr? How about blogging or linking to your blog?
These are features that I believe are available on sites like Furl and Magnolia.

I think you should make the "About" link more prominent and put more information into it. Maybe add a button (in addition to the bottom link) that says "What is profilefly?" In the About section, I would add enough info to satisfy a geeky audience. They'll want to know about security, setting user preferences, can they make their own widgets, how much can they personalize their page (can they put in their own code?), and a lot more detail on features.

And finally, the content featured on your front page might turn your audience off to signing up. Right now, the "hot bookmarks" featured are only by 3 different people, and 5 of them are from 1 user. That makes it look like you don't have many users. Also, the bookmarked content looks pretty dumb -- e.g., "Yes, retards are funny." Seems like that kind of thing would appeal to the typical myspace crowd, but not the typical Furl/Magnolia, Del.icio.us crowd. Hope that helps.

The first thing I would do is take a look at is the title of your website. Be Found, On the Internet's Profile and Contact Directory. This title is too generic. It sounds like you are www.411.com, an information site.

What separates you from everyone else. Is this directory for Business or Personal Profiles? Make this distinction from the beginning and you will find the right audience. Based on just reading your Banner links, if I were looking for business referrals I would not use Smack that Ass till you get sore. This sounds like another hip profile site. One of thousands on the internet. Be direct with the audience that you want to attract.

I agree with everyone else regarding links. Why have links to other directories that take people away from your site. If you are looking for reciprocal links for search engine marketing purposes there are other directories that can be found.

Regarding the colors and overall look. The watermark of the people in the background is not needed. The death of a site come from misspelled words and boring hard to read content. Please check over everything you post to your website to make sure that it is spelled correctly and is easy to read. I like the colors.

Sites like this become popular because of word of mouth. Don't hide your Tell A Friend button. Make that button stand out on your home page. I would even recommend putting it next to Search. You want to build excitement around the site. More traffic, more listings, more word of mouth about ProfileFly.

I hope this information helps. Please let me know if you need any additional clarification on my suggestions.

Brian

Hi Michael,

I have not heard from you in a while but glad to hear that you're working on some more projects. How is that project you did a few years ago with the New York Public schools going? You can shoot me an email off line just go to my profile. Well I just want to make a suggestion. That you strongly consider why would people chose to come to your site out of all the other social site networks there are? Once you figure out how to get right down to the why part then use this to revolve all of your online and offline viral campaigns around. Remember the whole goal is to determine what are the needs of your profilefly viewers and how can you continue to feed them what they need. Once you tap into that you can build your social network as large as you desire. REMEMBER... our only real problem in life is our failure to be "MORE Creative" than we’ve ever been. If you “Invent” your opportunity YOU WILL
most definitely create your future. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant,

Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

Caring Promotes Exuberance