www.typeboard.com

[valeri]

Hi guys,

I thought I just share a website I started a few months ago, its called Typeboard.com

Typeboard is a community/citizen journalism website, anyone can register and add their articles and comments in real time.

I don't use a voting system like many other sites do as most of the times authors never get to see their articles in the front page of the site.

In Typeboard your article appears in the front page as you publish it. Authors can add articles from other news sources or their own sites as well, so if you have a blog, you can add a para of your article in Typeboard and link the rest of the article to your site, that way bloggers and anyone else can get 100% exposure from it.

I have designed the website look and feel in a very simple way on purpose because there is nothing more painful than going to a news site and look for content between videos and images, that is too busy and not friendly so I took the simplicity approach.

Anyway, I would love you feedback guys. The site is new I am still working on new features. cheers

Valeri

[ACMAir]

Its not bad. Its very clear that it is a content based site. It doesn't have much visual appeal, but that's because it doesn't really need it. Only thing is the banner and logo might need upgrading and to be clearer.

best of luck

[valeri]

I am working on a new logo as I am not too happy with it so I will fix that. The text in the banner is an 1800's typing machine type of font so it looks broken, uneven and fuzzy. I thought that would be cool but maybe it isn’t :-)

Thanks for your feedback mate, I will look into fixing these issues.

Cheers

[TrafficVault]

I like the design. It reads easily. I'm a fan of simple.

What is your plan for marketing?
and monetiziation?

[chuff1026]

i like the design and i am going to start posting articles

[chuff1026]

what kinda traffic r u getting?

[valeri]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

What is your plan for marketing? and monetization?
what kinda traffic r u getting?

The website is just a few months old and haven't done any marketing or advertising for it just yet, however I've been asked by a radio station where I am from to have an interview about the site.

I am planning on introducing adds to the website soon and I am looking at ways to give a share of the profit of the adds to the authors of the site and community groups. The way I see it is, a website of this type would only have content in it thanks to the users and so the right thing to do is to give them something in return.

I am also working on giving top authors free gifts in return for their work, for example - the top author of the month will receive soem sort of gadget. I am talking to a few businesses to sponsor that promotion.

What do you guys think of that? I would appreciate any feedback on it.

At the moment Typeboard is getting about 460 visits per week and that number is growing as more people are finding out about the site. It is not a huge amount but hopefully once I start marketing the site it will attract some more users.

[chuff1026]

yea
hopefully you can get some SEO done and get organic hits

[TrafficVault]

SEO will be an important aspect of your marketing. You are lucky, because you will have content added to the site regularly- which will be great for rankings. (Content is King!)

[Francis Simisim]

@Valerie: It's a nice website. These are my personal findings (My opinions only):

- Your website needs redesigning, it needs a livelier design and feel
- Right now, it does feel like a blog more than an aggregator
- User names of "typers" are not displayed
- The system is time based right? When traffic surges on your site, I believe people might just start bombarding your website with posts on the highest traffic times to be on the front page.

These are just some things I believe you can Improve on. But I like the concept and I admire what you've done with Wordpress (Im a wordpress fan as well).

I hope this helps

[benmaxime]

why would people read most of these articles
most are very unappealing no?

[valeri]

- Your website needs redesigning, it needs a livelier design and feel
I know it does and I am working on it.
My aim was to have a simple and clean design that would be accessible and easy to look at but I should probably give it a facelift.
- Right now, it does feel like a blog more than an aggregator
I actually don't want it to look like an aggregator, I want it to have more like a blog/news site, the new design should give it a news look "I hope"
- User names of "typers" are not displayed
I disabled that a while back but should probably add it on again.
- The system is time based right? When traffic surges on your site, I believe people might just start bombarding your website with posts on the highest traffic times to be on the front page.
The new redesign will be a little different but will still have the newest articles at the front, the reason why I have done it that way is because most aggregators or news sites use a voting system which only shows the most popular articles in the frontpage, but what about all the other people who contribute to sites and never get their content viewed by anyone? it is just a concept and I will monitor the way we will display the content as new users start putting content to the site.

why would people read most of these articles, most are very unappealing no?

The articles will only be as interesting as the user makes them. The site is a community driven site, which means anyone can add news, articles, events, reviews and so on.

Everyone has a different view on what is good content and what's not, so the site allows you to put whatever you find interesting, for example: if you are into websites you can add a review on a new website, now some people won't find it interesting but you, me and probably other people will find it interesting. That only' makes an article unappealing for some, I think

The articles can be from current news sites, your own articles or from your own blog or website, you can add a para about it in Typeboard and link the source back to your site, that way you can get 100% exposure as well, you are welcome to give it a go by adding an article you are interested about and see if users are interesting on it. The best way to know if users like your article is by viewing the top articles of the day which is on the righthand side of the website, which is just a list of the most popular articles people are viewing during the day.

Thanks for the feedback and advice, I will work on it more

Cheers