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Synerdata.Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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Oh good! I get to be the first to comment on the new homepage design!
Flash is definitely needed, for it looks funny without it, like it's not really a
homepage for a site, but once flash is activated, the site looks great, and
it's really nice to be able to see the pictures larger as a slide show.
I thought the previous array of small pictures gave the front page color and
a slowly changing visual presence. With flash installed, the new slide show
is captivating. The longer list of new songs uploaded gives each more time
on the front page, but it's too bad there can't appear a non-flash list of new
songs for those who do not use flash. Is that even possible to do? I don't
think so.
Blog updates are gone... Some would update regularly, while others rarely,
so that may be a good call, leaving front page coverage to tracks, and photos,
for artist promotional access, based on involved work.
The new homepage looks really clean and slick with flash, (and kind of funny now
without flash, ; ) A real surprise! The automatic dynamic picture changing brings
the homepage to life. It's nice to be able to see site content and statistics changing
on the homepage, as the place to start at the site for an overview of new content
and current site activity.
Cheers!
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louwhoz
Joined: 03/13/05
Posts: 429
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I really like it, too! I've been MIA for awhile and returned to find these changes, which I love.  I completely agree with all of your comments!
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Synerdata.Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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RE: New Front Page
Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 5:31 AM
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Hey Louwhoz!
Nice to meet you!
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louwhoz
Joined: 03/13/05
Posts: 429
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RE: New Front Page
Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 11:40 AM
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Same here! 
You'd think with me being in the same house as Gideon that I would actually know this site better, but I was totally surprised when I logged in yesterday and saw the changes....that's truly how crazy-busy I have been lately! 
Thanks again for the comments, input and compliments!
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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Hola - Yes, trying some different things out on the homepage, trying to see if we can get more site visitors to drill down into the site. There is a large number of people who hit the homepage, but don't continue on. Although, I think a fair number of those are people looking for commercial/big name acts - based on some of the emails I get.
I can do some Flash detection and output a different homepage to those people, but there are so few people that do not have flash installed, except iPhone, iTouch, iPads - since Apple is revealed they are an evil corporation and won't support Flash. Personally, my next phone will most likely not be an iPhone.
The blogs were removed from the homepage since hardly anyone uses our blog tools.
The genre list... might be too big for people to scroll though - so I may condense that down to the root genres.
Glad you like it Gordon - and Lou
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A Bit Crusher
Joined: 01/26/02
Location: Tilburg
Posts: 1794
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Sonic Wallpaper wrote:...The genre list... might be too big for people to scroll though - so I may condense that down to the root genres.
....
I think this is a very good idea....especially when you think of the 'new'genres that are getting invented everyday....
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Synerdata.Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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Sonic Wallpaper wrote:... There is a large number of people who hit the homepage, but don't continue on. Although, I think a fair number of those are people looking for commercial/big name acts - based on some of the emails I get...
I was thinking about this, and what I noticed in viewing the home page while simulating
not knowing the contents of the site, was that it appears to be the site of the artists in
the featured artists list, and of no others, and this touches upon the big name thing,
that people instinctively look for and expect some indication of treasures within, or of
popular known artists, and I think this can be addressed...
One suggestion is to prominently display that there are over -7000- phenomenal artists
listed at the site and a vast array of 9000 incredible tracks by them which inspires curiosity,
and then you could have 1 or two feature artists prominently featured with some visual
representation, above the regularly featured artists, leveraging more promotional
activity. You could also make a link which says "start here to find great artists" for
those who do not realize they should just click the music link. Some more visuals may
be good for the homepage, to make it more a stage than a list. I agree that there is
a need to inspire all the homepage visitors to delve into the site, but making a
captivating site has never been one of my strong points, and so there are my ideas.
Have you ever considered auctioning an artist empowering front page promo location?
-Gord
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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>>>One suggestion is to prominently display that there are over -7000- phenomenal artists listed at the site and a vast array of 9000 incredible tracks by them which inspires curiosity,
I'll work on changing the text at the top of the site - which is only there when you don't sign in. Although, that doesn't do much for people looking for the current trendy pop artist, whom we don't host content for. I get emails from people that are pissed off because they can't find Lady Gaga or whatever on the site.
>>>and then you could have 1 or two feature artists prominently featured with some visual
representation, above the regularly featured artists, leveraging more promotional
activity.
anything like that would have to be automated from current content (current artist photo, description, etc), which is possible. This would also be limited to the few that have upgraded their accounts - which is around 35-40 - which is about 0.48% of the artists on the site.
>>>You could also make a link which says "start here to find great artists" for
those who do not realize they should just click the music link
true - there is a lot of people who can't manage to navigate themselves around the Web.
>>>Some more visuals may be good for the homepage, to make it more a stage than a list.
Do you mean you want ArtistServer to look and function more like PureVolume.com?
>>>Have you ever considered auctioning an artist empowering front page promo location?
Yes, but they can buy ads right now and they don't. For example, the add spot on our charts, which is one of the most popular pages on the site has been blank for a few months - not one ad sale. The vast majority of Web users expect everything to be free online - it is quite difficult to change that perspective. I know SoundClick does this, but they also have a significantly higher numbers than us, which allows them to capitalize on their site much more than we can:
ArtistServer:
artists/bands: 7,256
site rank (quantcast.com): 300,331
Soundclick:
artists/bands: 473,541
site rank (quantcast.com): 2,271
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Synerdata.Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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Sonic Wallpaper wrote:>>>Some more visuals may be good for the homepage, to make it more a stage than a list.
Do you mean you want ArtistServer to look and function more like PureVolume.com?
Sorry... I mean, the new front page design looks fabulous, while still retaining
the trademark ArtistServer.com appearance... What was I thinking?
Thanks for giving me a little shake there.
I like the menu bar at the top, too... : )
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A Bit Crusher
Joined: 01/26/02
Location: Tilburg
Posts: 1794
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>>>Yes, but they can buy ads right now and they don't....
Speaking of adds....does AS earn money with these adds? I mean, I know there are possibilities for everyone to receive money from adds, but really serious money..(???)
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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Gordon - it was just a question. While I may have been keeping this site running all these years, I certainly don't make all the right decisions, and being 40 now, I'm a bit stubborn at times. Change is good, and the general audience has certainly changed since I launched the site back in 2001.
A B C - we do earn 'some' money, but we don't pull in enough to cover the expenses to run the site. I have to cover about 1/2 of the costs each month. I'd rather have no ads and 3% of the artists paying for upgraded accounts, but with nearly all music sites giving away all their services for free, it is difficult to motivate anyone to upgrade their accounts. More features don't seem to do it, and more song hosting won't either. In order to 'just' get by, we would need 2.2% of all current artists to upgrade their accounts, right now we have .48%.
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A Bit Crusher
Joined: 01/26/02
Location: Tilburg
Posts: 1794
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RE: New Front Page
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 11:17 AM
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Ok, that's clear to me....but what I don't understand is: there are adds on the site, what's the difference between the adds I see and the adds that should be there but aren't...
eh...hope you understand what I'm trying to say...
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: New Front Page
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 12:29 PM
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A B C - I think I understand your question - we have a few different ad services supported on the site. I'll go over each one.
1. BuySellAds.com - If you click on charts from the main menu on the site, or view any genre page, you'll see it is a blank space that states "Advertise Here." This is the ad space I was referring to previously.
2. Text-Link-Ads.com - The text link ads on the homepage (top right) are more for other sites that are trying to improve their google ranking - for those, we get paid a flat rate.
3. Google AdSense - For Google ads, we earn very little since so few people click on ads, and many people use ad blockers.
4. AdBrite.com - On the genre pages, and some other locations - we have Adbrite.com ads - which are quite affordable - but we don't earn anything from them since people don't click on them and the inventory (advertisers) is not interesting to anyone. I'd like to replace this server altogether.
We don't display any of the following ad types - which can have a higher payback, but if I added these types of ads, I wouldn't want to visit the site, as they are very annoying.
- No Flash/animated ads
- No graphical ads (I would allow graphic ads, but Google doesn't allow you to pick static image ads only - they group animated ads together with static image ads.)
- No popups or popunder ads
- No full page ads - where you click into the site, and instead of showing you the site, an ad is displayed w/ a link to skip it
What I've found, is that you don't make much at all from Web ads until you break the top 100,000 sites on the Web when using ad services. The other option is establishing direct ad deals with companies where they buy an ad space for a period of time - but this is difficult unless you have someone doing advertising/public relations for you, and establishing those relationships.
We also show less ads on the site than most sites we compete against, and for those who upgrade their accounts, we give you full control over the ad spaces on your artist sites - so you can either remove the ads, use your own, or insert your own Google Adsense ID, so all ad revenue goes to you (something you won't find on our competitor's sites)
Did I answer your question? I probably gave you more info about ads than you care to know
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A Bit Crusher
Joined: 01/26/02
Location: Tilburg
Posts: 1794
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>>>>Did I answer your question? I probably gave you more info about ads than you care to know
Well, let's say I have to read your comments a few times before replying.... 
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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blinded with science
Sorry my reply was so long - I figure others may have questions about our ads and policies, so I went into the details.
I think the short and direct answer to your question is - the ads we are not 'selling' are on the top of the music chart pages as well as the genre pages (when you click on a genre name that is listed with a song).
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A Bit Crusher
Joined: 01/26/02
Location: Tilburg
Posts: 1794
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RE: New Front Page
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 1:46 PM
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OK, and what's the most interesting kind of add for AS? (moneywise that is) 
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: New Front Page
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 5:29 PM
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A Bit Crusher wrote:OK, and what's the most interesting kind of add for AS? (moneywise that is)
In all the years we've been online, there hasn't been a time when the ads have generated much money. What ads appeal to which people is something all ad services would like to know. Google is one of the largest ad services, and they still don't match the ads up very well with the site and users.
I'm sure there are ads that would work better for the artists and others for the music fans, but I don't know what they are. I don't get to pick the ads from Google, and the ads I can pick from AdBrite are not very good, so we don't make a dime from them.
When was the last time you clicked on an ad anywhere on the Web? For me, I maybe click on one ad every 1-2 yrs. No matter what the ad is, the chances of me clicking are very low. Although, I don't run an ad blocker in my browser, as I consider that to be disrespectful to the sites I visit.
Ads are simply not a good revenue stream unless your site is ranking in the top 100,000 sites, and at that point, it is all about the number of views, as I doubt the click though rate goes up very much.
If we could get up to 3% of the artists upgrading their accounts, I'd remove all the ads on the site. The upgraded accounts break down to $3.33 per month, yet 99.52% of the artists who use ArtistServer do not upgrade.
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Synerdata.Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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RE: New Front Page
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 10:44 PM
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Sonic Wallpaper wrote:When was the last time you clicked on an ad anywhere on the Web? For me, I maybe click on one ad every 1-2 yrs. No matter what the ad is, the chances of me clicking are very low.
I was thinking about how I seem to click on about 2 ads each year, and about what makes me click on them, at such exception. Each time I click, one of the first things that comes to me, is that I am providing revenue for the site I am visiting, and so clicking is a supportive gesture, so I do not feel bad about having clicked an ad.
In looking at what causes me to click on an ad, I find, it is invariably something which I am specifically interested in, and usually if only from a known reputable company, as such, and so for example, I have nothing against clicking any dell ad, to see some new laptop deal, and the like, because of the familiarity with the company... But in general, Gideon's observation is bang on, that, basically, people do not click on ads, and their greatest benefit, to advertisers, is just to communicate a message, which would be seen for sure.
However, where the site it's self has one primary site content feature spot, top and center, as such, a site visitor does not view that as an advertisement, even though it can be a purchasable feature, for it directs into the site, and so it would receive most traffic from the front page, so when a professional artist like Wintermute has a new feature presentation like R.U.R. he can slot a promotion and direct front page traffic to artistserver.com/rur, and that promotional slot can be available to all upgraded account artists very reasonably, and otherwise just rotated among the upgraded account artists when none in specific is running an active promotion, and this way, every new site visitor has at least one artist presented front and center, as a place to start into the site, as the foremost featured content. I think I would click on that each time it changed when I visit the site, for it makes a shared central stage.
While I would not venture to estimate the revenue value of that feature, it does place one artist front and center, for visitors to start with, like a forced card, while allowing artists to do a timed and coordinated project promotion at their convenience and inexpensively enough, that it's schedule could fill up quickly even by the current upgraded account artists, to potentially enhance the site's revenue flow. It certainly would be a valuable promotional feature/tool for artists.
I was thinking a box about the same size as the new pictures box, and just below it,
but above the other featured artists, and rotating each of them in the feature "spotlight",
unless one of them is paying to do a special promotion in that spot for a period of time.
However, everything is also perfect just the way it is, as well.
-Gordon
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A Bit Crusher
Joined: 01/26/02
Location: Tilburg
Posts: 1794
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RE: New Front Page
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 10:55 AM
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>>>When was the last time you clicked on an ad anywhere on the Web? For me, I maybe click on one ad every 1-2 yrs
The same applies to me...and probably most people (?)...
So ads are not the way to generate serious money...and it's also very hard to let people upgrade their account....I don't envy you, Gideon...
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: New Front Page
Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 3:20 PM
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another new homepage is up...
includes a central 'featured artists' box with scrolling content. The box will randomly select 4 artist accounts that have been upgraded. If you are signed in, a 5th tab/view will be included, which is a promotion for upgrading your account, linking you to the upgrade page/button.
Also in the featured artist box, is a button and link to 'load playlist' - which will load that artist's playlist into the mp3 player just to the right.
The genre list has been reduced down to the root level genres. These each point to a page which links out to all genre pages on the site.
Below the genre list, is a collection of links that point you into the site. I've added these to help bring more people in.
And just like the last upgrade for the homepage, we have the photo slideshow, displaying new photos on the site.
=======================================
Take advantage of the new featured artist spots, and upgrade your account! If you've already upgraded your account, be sure to set your artist photo under 'site settings' in the My Account/Settings area. This is the image we display in the new promotion spot.
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