MY 1st Start UP..Need FEED BACK before Bloggers!!!

[wolverinegrad]

Hello Board,

I have been working on two projects the one i would like feedback on is called www.beatpaper.com Its basically a news website that allows users to write there own columns, vote, submit articles, live chat and comment on news. It still in beta so some bugs may exist...but Please give me as much feedback as possible. I'm toying with the idea of selling this site too just because I'm more passionate about my other startup. Anyways the more feed back the better. Please be as critical as possible. Thanks

[Charles Sweeney]

Good name. Forget about selling a site that isnt even live. Although the name is good for your site it has virtually no value.

I like the full width design but the header is too big and is pushing the content down the page.

You need to put descriptive titles on your pages.

Is this an original concept? Is there a demand for it? Concept-wise it seems the same as a million other sites.

Best wishes.

[arthurakay]

I get a JavaScript error when the page loads in IE7... you need to fix that.

The site also takes a while to load for me... is there a way to optimize your file sizes?

Otherwise, I like the site's layout and color scheme.

[wolverinegrad]

I will look into that IE7 java error...I know it works well on Firefox and IE6. It loads pretty fast where i have been - I will look into that aswel. I really appreciate the feedback the more the merrier.

[mycwcgr]

The image in homepage don't display correctly (http://hosted.ap.org//photos/F/f20de...5677-small.jpg) , and the right side is a little heavy, and left side is alittle light

[Cynthiab]

The concept is actually quite confusing. I thought people could submit stories they wrote but you're asking people to submit the full text on a story they found on the web which is illegal. (Yeah, I know it's done all the time but that doesn't make it right). Or maybe I'm misunderstanding.

The other issue is the emphasis on ENTERTAINMENT stories and yet you have have a story about politics on the front page.

Finally, the "how does it work" section has typos, poor grammar and is generally poorly put together.

[wolverinegrad]

Thanks Cynthia for your comments. I definitely have to go through and make the sight clearer. Users simply submit links to articles that are not posted...similiar to say a Digg. The community can then vote on which stories are most important to appear on the home page. I will add some sections to make this more apparent and make the necessary corrections. Thanks for the feedback. It really appreciated.

[dman_2007]

Design looks good, colors used as good as well. The only problem i have is with the adsense ad unit at the top, it looks out of place either blend it more with the surroundings or move it from there to the content box.

[W2ttsy]

the site is pretty broken in Safari. The input fields at the top of the page are stuck behind the logo, and it looks like the left and right content columns can't clear themselves and are all munched together.

Need to look at getting that to work properly. Site looks fine in FF Mac.

W2ttsy

[jimboready]

The logo at the top is quite pixelated around the edges.. presumably cause it's a transparent GIF. Make it a png or a jpeg with the background the same as the background it goes in front of and it should look better. The spacing between some text and its containing div also looks quite uneven.. which looks messy. Other than that it's a rather nice website.

Jim,

X

[InfodoroShopping]

Hi,

I did have a look at your site. I like the concept, but its weighed down as another website with just news feeds.

I dont know, if the website name really blends well with what you are trying to achieve. Are you trying to offer people, a place to gather all news or a place, where they can refer to their favorite news items.

Why not promote it more, in sync with the idea of a personal news reader?

Also, I think if you could add a "Quick Tour' on how to wor with it, it would be more clear and precise to the first time visitor than the set of instructions, whch might go unnoticed?

Thanks-
SMITA

[gamebittk]

The site design looks really good.
I noticed that the user icons look a bit jaggy. Why don't you try to implement phpThumb. It'll render the images to appear easier on the eyes. Only problem is that it'll have to run PHP to generate the images on each page load. That could probably be fixed With some sort of chaching system. Not sure if you'd want to get into that, though.

Also, the top submits are to close to the left of the box. Try adding a small margin or padding there.

But overall, good site design.

[wolverinegrad]

THanks for all of your comments. I'm taking the site down for maintenance...and i will take in to account all the comments.

[Buchow]

I think the 'more>>' link looks a little dull, a button style link would be nice.
The 'nation' section is also quite long, maybe it could be split into pages.
Other than that Nice work, very clear and concise.

[farrhad]

nice concept
remove the adsense box at the top of the page
it was the first thing i saw and it put me off
also i was not impressed with to color scheme

[devinjohnson2]

Looks pretty good. I'd get rid of the adsense ad in the header. I'd also give the site a more newspapery feel, I don't think a purple theme suits this site.