Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I like the site as well. It`s fast, easy to understand, and gives immediate feedback. 

From what I`m seeing, the money will have to come later and it will totally depend on the questions you ask (or are given to put on the site).

What you`re creating is a very fast polling organization, and as you know, polling is becoming a central management tool for many companies and political groups.

What I`d suggest is that you develop major categories so you`re prepared to take on contracts for Web polling. You`ll want one for politics, for sure, and one for social issues.

For marketing, you`ll want to have solid marketing expertise available to you so you can build a system that`ll quickly help a company test a new product idea. For example, "Would you buy Kentucky Fried Chicken if it was broiled instead of deep fried?"

You`ll need strong demographic categories so that businesses can determine who`s answering yes or no.

I`d also set it up so that you provide "private" polling. I`m thinking it could be something like WordPress, where for a fee, someone could put your survey system directly onto their own Web site.

Some content would be helpful as well, later. You`d develop the idea that you`re totally unbiased, and the results are entirely "pass-through." Whomever comes to the site "votes," and that`s the end of it.

If there`s a way you can provide the same polls via cell-phone, I think you could market specific short polls to businesses who want to reach out across the phone system.

Yeah, I`m getting sold on the marketing insights opportunity. I had kinda thought about that but having heard all of you talk about it, it sounds like a viable idea. I definitely would need to get in though with someone with some marketing background.

Thanks everyone!

Hi there Roberto. I like what everyone has said so far... and I agree. I am now going to come down hard on the design angle, hope you don`t mind, since you asked for feedback. *smiles*

Firstly, when I hit the home page, I see the poll.  That is a good thing. However, in my opinion, it takes up too much space, and there is not enough room to really sell me on the concept. In fact, I actually closed your page and came back here to read what others had to say before giving it a closer look. I was just not "drawn in" at first glance.

Most of us here at SuN are relatively savvy about the web, so will see things other users may not, meaning, we`ll try out new things without an explanation. Many web users will leave (as I did) if the immediate benefit is not clear.

Also, I understand your desire to monetize - it is the nature of the business, after all. Putting ads on your home page is not the ideal. I expect to drop into a homepage and be wowed by what you have to offer me, not to be given the choice to leave your site immediately.

I feel the same about banners in your header and footer. There are better options for advertisements that will get you better returns, especially if you can tie your ad servers into the different topics of questions.

For example, ads on the page of the Angelina Iolie/Jennifer Aniston question can take you to subscribe to People magazine, or Perez Hilton`s site.

Also, looking at the site, I`d like to see a more cohesive design. Your logo is fun (I`d make the colors more vibrant, but that`s a personal issue), drawn flat and cartoony. That contrasts with the "web 2.0" look of your checks, Xs and meter. Pulling these all together into a consistent look and feel with a contraolled palette of colors would look more professional to my eye - and would help you with the corporate ties as well, if/when that time comes.

Looking good is a major factor to getting people to trust your site.

Also, in Firefox on the Mac, the search box is not quite in the header bar.
Sorry to be the downer here... I think you have a great concept, and look forward to seeing you move forward with it.

It`s a lot of fun to vote. *smiles*

Awesome! I love your feedback. Its great to get these kind of comments as well. Don`t worry.

Some of the things you mentioned I had already been thinking about already. Let me address some of your points:

1. I want to change the words on the home page under "Start answering now" to have 3 or 4 clean, large font "call to action" or "here is whats in it for you" messaging. I might think about moving the leaderboard to where the right hand side ads are to get more space.

2. Too many ads and ads that arent relevant. Point #1 answers a bit of that... but also getting ads that relate to the questions would be awesome. I have NO IDEA how to make that happen though. I just kinda signed up to AdSense because it is easy... How would I go about specifying what ads show?

3. Funny you mention that logo. That was designed by a family friend. She`s a graphic designer and we love it. The check and the big x were not. I think based on this I`ll see if shes up for trying to design an X and a Check that match that feel. QUESTION: what do you think about the rest of the design? Honestly that was built by me, mostly, and im not really good at this stuff...

4. Browser issues. Gosh, is this a pain or what? Seems like CSS likes to look different on different OSs and browsers. How do you get it to look the same? Im using different computers and checking IE and Firefix and it looks mostly OK there... but always something messes up somewhere else.

I guess if I had a) more skills, b) more time and/or c) more money I could get more help and deliver a more professional site.

My idea was to get something out there as functional as I could and then work off from there if it works out or when I have more money available.

I`m glad you find the site/concept fun! Thats the main most important goal!

THANKS SOOOO MUCH for your feedback!
Thanks,
R

Based on everyone`s feedback I`ve made some changes to the site. I ws hoping you guys could check it out?

http://www.ithinksotoo.com

In particular, new front page layout and graph colours. I also fixed a bit of the formatting that was causing some errors in some sites, but I suspect that it still doesnt render perfectly in every browser/os combination...

Thanks again everyone!

I took another look and got confused with the "Filter" option. When I clicked the default, I expected to see all the questions, with a report in a table format of the polling results. From there, I figured I`d re-filter and "drill down" into the table.

That might be a fund option to add: to browse all the current questions that have been asked. :-)

Similar to the "Question History" option for registered users? Or, if you search for *space* in the search box and all the questions come up (but without the polling results...)?

Interesting... let me think about that.

1. I want to change the words on the home page under "Start answering now" to have 3 or 4 clean, large font "call to action" or "here is whats in it for you" messaging. I might think about moving the leaderboard to where the right hand side ads are to get more space.

You have a start on this. Keep at it. Take a look at a few of these sites:

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/04/50-excellent-corporate-website-designs/

You will see how they get the point right at the beginning, and the entire site feels like it is designed to serve (most of them).

2. Too many ads and ads that arent relevant. Point #1 answers a bit of that... but also getting ads that relate to the questions would be awesome. I have NO IDEA how to make that happen though. I just kinda signed up to AdSense because it is easy... How would I go about specifying what ads show?

Well, My first step would be to research the CMS options that are out there. I am most familiar with Joomla, and I know that the FREE Flex Advert component would allow you to choose which ads go where.

If you can wrap Joomla around your questions programming (shouldn`t be too difficult), you`ll have it made, IMO. Excellent templating options for Joomla as well.

3. Funny you mention that logo. That was designed by a family friend. She`s a graphic designer and we love it. The check and the big x were not. I think based on this I`ll see if shes up for trying to design an X and a Check that match that feel. QUESTION: what do you think about the rest of the design? Honestly that was built by me, mostly, and im not really good at this stuff...

LOL! I can tell. I have spent nearly all of my adult life online, and what I have to say is this: Very rarely will you find someone excellent at everything to do with a website (or a business for that matter). Coders don`t design. Designers don`t code. Those that do both rarely do both excellently, or cost WAY too much for small businesses to afford.

I do both passably, and know enough about both to know when to hire out and when my skills are enough to get the job done (in 80% of the cases I work with).

Find a partner to help you... look at the examples I posted, and try your hand at copying without cloning.

4. Browser issues. Gosh, is this a pain or what? Seems like CSS likes to look different on different OSs and browsers. How do you get it to look the same? Im using different computers and checking IE and Firefix and it looks mostly OK there... but always something messes up somewhere else.

It`s not fun. It`s just a matter of checking them all, and tweaking until it`s right. It sucks, and it`s mostly thanks to IE not wanting to follow standards.

I guess if I had a) more skills, b) more time and/or c) more money I could get more help and deliver a more professional site.

Or a partner. Or patience. *smiles* We all have limitations. Those that figure the way around them succeed. I think you`ll do it.

Hi everyone. I did a pretty big (at least for me!) redesign to the site and would love to know what you guys think now. It should be more browser friendly this time around!

The site is live here: http://www.ithinksotoo.com

I implemented many of the suggestions from people in this forum, so thanks everyone for your extremely valuable feedback. I wasn't just ignoring all of you... I was trying to figure out how to work on the site given my full time job and other commitments.

Also, can you let me know how slow the site loads for you? I'm considering switching hosts since these guys may no be providing me the best service out there.

Thanks again everyone!

I'd like to add my 2cents..

Definitely loading the site seems slow, so if you're already suspecting poor performance, it's probably a good call.

If you can, I would suggest using ajax to reload a div with the questions/results. Reloading the whole page for that small piece of screen space seems jolting.

As far as monetizing goes.. use your own site to figure out what kind of demographic / purchasers you have! Do you buy books online ? (join the amazon affiliate program display books) Have you ever tried a paid survey ? (join clickbank or whoever pays webmasters for that kind of traffic).. etc etc.  You have an amazing opportunity to gather information, just make sure you can mine it and use it effectively.

The site itself is really smart and fun, and I applaud your efforts.

Good Luck!

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