Relaunch of HearWhere - Rate/Review my startup

http://www.hearwhere.com

by pedalpete • 18 years ago

13 14 18 years ago

pedalpete4• 18 years ago

A month and a half ago I posted a "rate my start-up" post here on YC, and the response was amazing.

I went back to the drawing board and rebuilt the site. Unfortunately two features haven't made it in yet (select a date range, and get a better way to manage genres), but there have been MAJOR changes to what the site offers and how it works.

Thanks to all who commented originally, hope you like the new version, and I'm keen to get any feedback on what I can do to make it better. Pete

shawndrost3• 18 years ago

Way to go pedalpete!

maxklein• 18 years ago

My comments (as neutral as possible):

1. Adsense is way too big and too prominent. Take it away from the fontpage and only put it on the search results page

2. Static frontpage is empty. Boring.

3. The page is aligned leftwards on my macbook widescreen.

4. This is not important, but you are not being careful to properly center align stuff. Like the "Next 30" button

5. The difference in your font sizes on the sidebar is too large. Make it smaller

6. The names of the cities, like 'Paris' have some wierd dots before them

7. "Feature Artists"? Do you mean featured artists?

8. I don't like music auto-playing on a website. Inform me first.

9. Your favicon colors suck. No seriously, those are very dull colors

- Now here are some things you should do

1. Go to one of the online avatar creators and make yourself a vector avatar with big ears. It will give your site a more friendly look

2. Drop that big-ass adsense banner, it makes your site look cheao

3. Change the color scheme slightly to a more appealing color. Mixing gray and brown is not good

4. Importat: When I search I want to see the artists I searched for in the middle, not some features artists. Show more results in the middle, the sideways display is a bit strange

5. Explain what the map does, I could not figure it out.

6. Clicking next did not work

-- Things you did good

1. Nice page after the front page

2. I like the photoshop work

3. It's focused on a problem. I just wish it would just show me what I want, which is musicians in my town this weekend and next weekend.

pedalpete4• 18 years ago

Thanks Max,

First off, let me apologize for the stupid mistake with the 'next' page not working. I think I've fixed it now. Testing this morning after google launched a new version of the Map API which broke my site, so ...anyway, my bad...bad me...

I laughed at the 'favicon colors suck' comment, I just haven't had a chance to get a good new favicon going, so I left the old one.

I have two questions for you 1) what would I do with the avatar I would create? you mean for a new logo? or as an avatar? or just stick it somewhere??

2) the site should have shown you musicians in your town, if google could't find you by IP address, than it would show you everything. Or were you saying that it wouldn't show you this or next weekend because of the 'next' buttons not showing up?

Hopefully I'll be able to get 'date ranges' going in the next few weeks, but if you select the 'day' from the filter, it should give you the shows in your area.

Thanks again for the comments. I likely won't be doing a FULL redo of the site again, but I'll be doing another review and will be making more changes of course.

ranebo• 18 years ago

Hey Pete good job, I didn't see the original launch but I'm fairly impressed with what you have now. The myspace music playing is really good and I do think it should auto start after you click on an artist. The map didnt really do anything for me but I noticed most of the gigs in my area (Perth Western Australia) didnt have any street address mentioned.

Anyway Congrats, I like.

utnick• 18 years ago

any plans on rss support or some kind of weekly digest for my town?

pedalpete4• 18 years ago

there is always more to come.

by weekly digest, I'm guessing you mean - what's coming to my town that suits me?

If so, I sure hope so. Very challenging thing to do (I think), but I love a good challenge!

shawndrost3• 18 years ago

Hey pedalpete,

Good show. Tons of smaller feedback: -"Feature Artists" -- should be "featured" -you have 3 distinct styles on the rhs list, for date/pic/details. I'd say go with one and make it work, it looks cluttered. Otherwise the design got a lot slicker! nice! -"featured artists" -- two-line genres go on out of bounds. -right column header should left-align to that column's boundary (it's sticking out left, at least in chrome) -orange-colored div is duplicate content w/featured artists (at least in my area) and pushes the map below the fold. -okay, taking another look, I get it now: the orange-colored div is associated with the map. you could make that clearer by grouping them visually -- bunched in one div, for instance. but I actually don't like that choice for what goes on the homepage map: I'd say put the featured artist events on the map, and kill the orange div. -I second utnick's suggestion for a weekly digest -I still don't like the adsense, but I like maxklein's suggestion to only show it on secondary pages: you'll keep most of your money (I'd guess that you'd get 5-7 pageviews per visitor on avg, which means you'd lose 15-20% of your ad revenue) and make a much better first impression. -The player needs to be higher on the page! that's a rad feature and it needs to be above the fold. Kill one of the "artist" sections (featured, rhs, orange-top).

pedalpete4• 18 years ago

thanks for the comments shawn,

unfortunately ads can't go on 'secondary' pages (I'm pretty sure) as you aren't allowed to load adsense in an ajax request (terms of use).

When you say 'kill one of the artist sections' you mean kill one of the styles? or actually get rid of a section?

I might not be understanding what you mean by orange-top, which you mention twice, but I'm guessing you mean the artist you just selected which shows with an orange bar at the top? I think people might get lost if I don't show them what the artist is that all the new data is pointing too.

shawndrost3• 18 years ago

actually get rid of one. I did mean the div you're talking about, but I didn't understand its function in your site fully. now I see that this is really a one-page app, and that that div is critical, and that you can't show ads on secondary pages. that's a tough problem, dunno what to say; I still think the problems I mentioned (music player should go up higher, ads shouldn't appear on first impression) are still problems, and if you can figure out a solution, it'd be grea. what about making the music player smaller to help fit it in with another design element?

bluelu• 18 years ago

Look really interesting. I don't like the design though. The banner at the top is too big.

Where are you getting the data from? There is even data for Luxembourg in it, which I think is only published on the websites where artists are going to play?

ashish1• 18 years ago

Man you should do something on the designing and UI of the site... its just not rocking enuf! :) I'll suggest to get the site down for a week or two... re-design (seriously.. take care of colors and alignment.. content too.. maybe seek help from rock-events posters or sumthin lik tht) and then re-launch... because as per me, first impression is the last!

morbidkk• 18 years ago

jQuery+jMpas cool

dfens• 18 years ago

HearWhere placed me in Mt Victoria, Wellington, New Zealand which is slightly off but very close.

Two minor things: 1) "DJ Carlito" came up as "Ã�J CARLITO" and when I clicked on "Peaches" the "About Peaches" section was for a different group. Otherwise I thought it was pretty good.

Relaunch of HearWhere - Rate/Review my startup

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