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

[suzdoyle]

Hi Bryan;I think you're off to a good start. A few suggestions:1. Make the social networking links smaller -- here's a site that has a nice icon-based rollover way of accessing them:http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/li ... _care.php2. Decide about third person vs. first person in your text.3. Nice template, although graphics are loading slowly (and I have fast DSL!). 4. It would be good to add clients/ placements down the road. And think about answering the question "What makes you different from others out there?" And lean your words towards that.5. Here's a good tutorial site on all kinds of HTML coding. It's got very visual step by step guidelines to doing all kinds of tinkering with your code. E.g. how to create/ add tables/ anchor links, etc. http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/6. Cross-linking to others helps to get you higher up in search engines.7. "One stop solution" may evoke a negative response in those who equate it with Hitler's "Final Solution" slogan. Might be good to find another way to say this.8. Other than that, I think this is a good start. ! Good luck. Macs rule! ,Suz

[fusilierb]

Thanks Suz!May 24, 2009, 10:46pm, suzdoyle wrote:1. Make the social networking links smaller -- here's a site that has a nice icon-based rollover way of accessing them:http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/li ... are.phpYes, I've been finding better and smaller icons for the social networking sites. Good idea.May 24, 2009, 10:46pm, suzdoyle wrote:2. Decide about third person vs. first person in your text.The text of this thing is gonna take me the longest to nail down. I still haven't really figured out the "angle" of this thing yet. I know its my site and I want to point people to my music, but I'm still missing the focus. Till I figure that out, the text and tense are all place holders.May 24, 2009, 10:46pm, suzdoyle wrote:3. Nice template, although graphics are loading slowly (and I have fast DSL!). Really? How slow? I've tried it on a few different machines and haven't noticed a huge lag, but I have noticed a slight one as everything is coming together. I might get into the code and interlace the graphics to minimize that effect.May 24, 2009, 10:46pm, suzdoyle wrote:4. It would be good to add clients/ placements down the road. And think about answering the question "What makes you different from others out there?" And lean your words towards that.Nothing will make me happier, than to add those sections, when and if I ever get something to add there. May 24, 2009, 10:46pm, suzdoyle wrote:6. Cross-linking to others helps to get you higher up in search engines.Definitely! Gonna beat that one into the ground right before and after I launch. I figure I'll link back to it from everyplace I can get my hands on and into. And it will be included in all my sig's. And I have another site planned, which will be the companion piece to this, but that's for next year. May 24, 2009, 10:46pm, suzdoyle wrote:7. "One stop solution" may evoke a negative response in those who equate it with Hitler's "Final Solution" slogan. Might be good to find another way to say this.Whoa! I figured it made me sound like a used car salesman and was planning on scratching that line, and really that entire block of text, but Hitler?! That can't be good. Never heard of that slogan before.May 24, 2009, 10:46pm, suzdoyle wrote:8. Other than that, I think this is a good start. ! Good luck. Macs rule! I agree, Macs do rule!!Thanks for your time, I really appreciate it Suz!B

[fusilierb]

May 25, 2009, 10:08am, mazz wrote:The website looks good. Easy to navigate.What differentiates "Music" from "Orchestral Instrumentals" or "Electronic Instrumentals"? Shouldn't it all be under "Music"? Or are you differentiating between "Music for Downloading" and "Music for sale to production clients"? That was a little confusing to me.Having the little music player on the right hand side while I was on the Orchestral Instrumentals page was a little confusing. Do I listen to the music by clicking on the song in the big list or do I go to the player to start listening?At this point I don't make any of my music downloadable. I consider my site a business card/demo for potential clients. If and when I make a CD for sale, I'll probably market it via the usual channels and put a link to those channels on my main website, which is in my mind more of a B to B site.Call me old fashioned but is music so de-valued in our society that the only way we can get people to listen to it is to give it away for free? I'm a pretty generous guy, but when I go to my day gig, I don't donate one day's pay a month for free just because I want my boss to like me. This is our life's work and it's worth something!!!!!OK, off my soap box.I think you're headed in a very good direction with this site, Bryan, and you're getting some great feedback here. I'm watching this for when I jump ship from BJ!!Cheers!MazzThanks Mazz!The music pages are confusing, because at this point in time, I'm confused about how to group them. At first I was going to lay them out grouped by orchestral, electronic and rock, but after thinking about it I'm starting to think that, for this particular audience, it should be grouped more by genre, like a libarary would. So I added the extra music link page and stared at it for a while and gave up on going any further. So as of right now, I'm thinking of stripping out the designations in the nav bar and going with a set of links that are more like, Extreme Sports, Dramatic, Suspensful, etc. Still not really sure how I'm going to end up on this one.The player is on everypage cause the original idea was that you would have two ways of hearing music on each page, the embeded flash player which is easiest just to hit play and sample bits and pieces AND the more detailed breakdown of each piece on the left, in case anyone wanted to really drill down into details about a piece. That way I could write a more descriptive paragraph of instrumentation, bpm, style, etc. I'm still leaning towards doing a, two ways of drilling into the music, but I will be very specific in the text at the top of the screen that describes what the options are and why you might want to use either way. I agree with you about the giving away stuff and I know I'm riding a controversal fence on this one, especially since I claim to want to make a living at this. But I'm from the "new" school and in that school music is already devalued to that point and has been for a while. I've accepted that many years ago. I am not pushing an agenda on this topic, but in my particular case, I know for a fact that I'm not gonna make anything resembling a living by trying to sell my midi mock-up's of film/tv type cues to the general public. Who has ever made a "bunch" of money doing that? I only expect to make money by residuals and custom composing for projects and in a perfect world writing concert music that gets performed and scoring large films. I'm just being a realist for the type of music I write and the situation that we find ourselves in today with file sharing. Now, if I one day get inspired enough to write enough tunes in a particuar style that feels like it should be an album AND my midi mock ups become as convincing as yours are, then that will of course be for sale, with certain tracks given away for promo. But that's just not what I'm into nor what I'm focusing on. So in my case, if you're not gonna commericalize my music for profit, I'm just happy you like it and have at it.Ok, now off my soapbox. Thanks for checking it out! I have a feeling that this site will look and act completely differently than it does now when its time to "officially" launch it.Thanks again Mazz!B

[hummingbird]

Bryan - I think it might be confusing to have more than one way to play the songs. on my film/tv music site, I have everything on one page, organized by genre.... IMO you have to think about who is going to be going to your site and what you want them to get from it. If it's a music library or music publisher, you want them to be able to get to the music in one click. You want your track titles to reflect the style of the music.If you want to have a look at mine, it's www.vikkiflawithmusic.com , I offer a simple bio & everything is 3rd personit's somewhat different from my artist-based website for fans @ www.vikkiflawith.com , I offer a more extensive bio & it's in first person, post my gigs, and blog, etc. (PS - if you go there, please sign my guestbook)

[suzdoyle]

Hey Bryan;I like the new "under construction" graphic. CUTE! Replies to your previous posts:1. It takes about 5 to 8 seconds to load all the graphics on your home page. I've got pretty fast DSL, so suspect some of the graphics are too big?? 2. "Final solution" was a line I used in an educational handout years ago, until a Jewish friend pointed out that the term was extremely offensive, as it was the Nazi slogan for their agenda to eliminate non-Aryan races. So I'm careful to avoid using that phrase!! Yikes!3. My site is bursting at the seams right now. I'm planning on creating 2 separate sites for my Production Music and Ringtone Theatre Biz, and keep my current site as a general overview one (because I love the design of it!!). Meanwhile, I'm tinkering with some tables and anchor links, etc. to make the oodles of content more manageable until I launch my separate sites. Pretty sure I'll be an official nerd by the end of all this!!4. I like to research what other composers, music libraries and creative folks are doing web-wise (YAY! Google searches); it's a great way to get ideas, and to help clarify how to shape one's online identity. Well, keep us posted on how your site evolves. It's fun stuff to create your online presence!Bravo,SuzP.S. Just for fun, here's a pretty clever site:http://producten.hema.nl

[k o star]

Yes Sir!Will do the same pronto Be water my Fren,Kel

[suzdoyle]

Hey, this is a fun post. It's fun to watch your process of developing your site unfold -- and I'm feeling nerdier by the minute!And I agree -- 2 sites is the way to go! ,Suz

[suzdoyle]

Jun 9, 2009, 5:34pm, fusilierb wrote:HA!! I know. That's another reason why Bryan Fusilier.com wasn't gonna really be the best angle. I'm competing with that moose for google placements!! Now that I own the domain name. I hope he doesn't try to come after me for it. Yikes!BHah! That's hilarious! Of course, it might come in handy if you every have a stalker or out of control fans. Just send 'em to the OTHER Bryan. SuzP.S. There's an actress in England with my exact name. Sheesh! Small world. Oh well; at least she's not a psycho killer (near as I can tell).

[suzdoyle]

P.S. Kel, you are going to town on those animated GIFs. Fun stuff!