new website - work in progress

[fusilierb]

Well I finally started working on a real website for myself this weekend. I've got most of the backend finished and am just starting on the front end (interface) now. The basic look and feel is finished and I am working on content and would love to get any feedback as the content part will be where I'm weakest.Last night I bought my domain name and pointed it to my .mac account. So this is all running off my .mac account now and I'm using iweb to do the layout and programming (which is turning out to be a nice, if not a bit limited, little web development app). I will probably get hosting space through Godaddy, as I really want a database to deliver the song content, so that I can tag all the music like a real library does and allow searches off of style, instrumentation, bpm, etc, but for now I'm going to just use the mac blogging feature to post songs. There will also be a download store developed before this is all over.I've got all the social networking ties in place so that I can post to one place and have those posts propagate out to all the other sites without me having to really spend much time managing them. ReverbNation is powering all the music related stat tracking and streaming and lastFM will be the place where all the music will be separated out in albums so that I can try to build up a streaming count with them for stronger placements. And Goggle Analytics is powering all the website stats so I can see who is visiting, where they are from and track promos, etc. That takes care of all the backend stuff. So far my total investment comes out to $14 bucks to secure the domain name for two years and & $10 bucks to purchase a decent looking template. Since I'm doing all the development, I don't really charge myself that much for programming so I can keep the costs for this down to barely nothing, which is my goal. All of the other stuff, players and mailing list signups and tracking is free, thanks social networking people and google!I now need to write a bio and nail down the wording of all the pages, my real weak spot. I will also need to finish uploading all my music and will have to write descriptions of the pieces, yuck! So if you get a chance, please check out my work in progress. I'm looking for feedback on the look and feel and the navigation through the site to see if it feels intuitive.Here it is in all its unfinished glory:www.bryanfusilier.comThanks for your time!B

[hummingbird]

comments: I like the design, except the "contact" link in the text on the homepage is not really apparent unless my cursor runs over it.In terms of the writing... the homepage starts in 3rd person and then switches to 1st person. Decide how you are going to address people and stick to it. You've capitalized "Video Games" and "Production Libraries" but left "film and television" lower case. I think it should all be lower case. I also find it confusing that "Swamp Sounds" is the first name mentioned when I've gone to "www.Bryan Fusilier.com"mispelling on 'instrumentals' in the 'electronic instrumentals' link at top of page.Just a design note - I think the page is a little wide. The title "Music for Film/TV/Web/Games should be aligned so that the end of that text aligns with the R side of the widgets. Same with the (c) note at the bottom R as well.good work so far. suggest you post again when you are nearly ready to launch - always good to have a few people proof it.

[fusilierb]

Thanks so much Vikki!Yes, all the actual wording is garbage right now. I'm working on verbage now. I'll lighten up the links at the top so they stick out more. Good eye on the misspelling, that is gonna be fixed in a second.I'm kind of testing all the backend stuff out now and you're visiting the site is helping me fine tune all my reporting functions.Thanks so much for the feedback. This site won't be "Live" for at least another few weeks, so I'll definitely post another thread right before I really want to launch.B

[fusilierb]

Sweet the tracking stats are working great. Thanks for the visits whomever you are from:CaliforniaTeneeseeAustraliaCanadaFinlandThat was a huge help in making sure the coding was correct!B

[k o star]

heheheh!Australia was me & very impressed indeed ^_^Agree what Vikki said...So good to have Ur own website isn't it?

[fusilierb]

I thought it was you Kel. I've really got to figure out how to say what I want to say and how to angle this thing, but the back end is all finished as of tonight, so I can really start on the other part tonight. I'm still not sure how to present the music, ie categories. I'm thinking of taking down the music pages I have now and grouping them by genre instead of instrumentation. I think that makes more sense.Thanks bro!B

[llama]

Pretty good Bryan,My only point would be the links.....It's hard to see them until I run my mouse over them. That's a pain........I've just been working on mine too...finished it a few weeks back. Noticed you used reverb nation...I did too... I was messing with a Flash driven MP3 player that has a really nice llok to it...It looks like an iPod but for some reason when I imported the code onto my page it didn't work right...Couldn't figure it out o I ended up with reverb nation too...Anyways, if you come across a nice looking embedded MP3 player I'd be very interested....Derek

[k o star]

Me too! =)

[fusilierb]

Hey Derek,I'll lighten up those links at the top.I checked out your site. I really like the picture on the main screen! Gives the site an interesting look. But no media player showed up at all when I went to the music link. I'm on a mac, but I usually don't have any problems. Was reverb nation supposed to show up? The reverbnation player is really just there as an easy way to play some tunes right off the bat from any of the pages, the real music listings will be done out of a couple of pages that focus on style. 'm going to use the built-in media functionality of iweb for the individual files, mainly cause its easy to create.I'm a little gunshy about adding anything that is going to require any plug-ins to be installed to work, which is why I'm not looking into flash or anything like that. I'd like for the player to be seen by all the browsers on all the platforms as they ship out of the box. Of course, the reverb nation player is Java, but if they don't at least have java enabled, I'm guessing they aren't anyone who can do anything for me in this particular arena. And if they are, oh well.Thanks for taking a peek!BPS. Your signature under your avatar is hilarious!

[k o star]

hey Bryan... I just tot of an idea with the RvNtn player...Don't know if it'l work but I'm gonna try it out later after I come back from work...U know how U can create diff playlist on that player right?What about doin diff playlist for diff genres and then using that to separate genres on Ur music page...I hope that works man cos so far RvNtn player works best on most sites...It's easy to use & convenient.. and we also get paid for doin what we do anyways $=)K