Review and Comment On SeparationBySix

[separationbysix]

Hello everyone,
This is my first post, and my first real website that I have created for personal gain.

I've been slowly working on a new website, www.separationbysix.com, for the last 4 or 5 months. I started off wanting to create a social networking site, much like mySpace, but it quickly turned into a blogging site, more along the lines of Blogger.

Basically, I am hoping that you guys would be able to review and analyze my site and point out anything that you personally think should be changed. I'm up for any suggestions, and will consider and experiment with many options.

Note that I have modified the LifeType platform somewhat, and I have tinkered with the templates quite extensively. If the advertising seems to extensive, please say so - I will definitely tune it down a notch once I have earned enough money to upgrade the server it is hosted on (about $500 to go).

The site is going to be molded around the theory of 6 degrees of separation. Once I have the site and everything looking the way I want it, I am going to add a system that allows you to link to your friends profile and blog from you own personal blog (kinda like myspace). The catch is, I am going to add a ticker and a "net" that show how you are linked to your friends, and the friends of your friends, etc for 6 degrees of separation.

TIA,
Ryan Passey

PS: if you want to check out the options and structure within the user panel, you can either register an account or I can set up a guest account for people to use.

[Steax]

I have to say your main problem is the attractive aspect of your site. Today's sites usually take on a bold color scheme - you have pale colors all over, and pale colors often mean beauty, grace, or elegance. This isn't what a blogging site should be about...

Your programming aspect looks fine as well... can you try a liquid layout? Blogs are often long and extensive, and text looks bad if it's squeezed into a small area. Or use JS to detect the browser's width and adjust from there.

[karinne]

Totally agree with what Steax said. Just look at the Blogger site. It's very colorful and very BIG!

Add some spice to that site of yours... more colors... more ... well ... 2.0 I guess. :ermm:

[separationbysix]

I've made some more changes to www.separationbysix.com and added a lot more spice. I was wondering if you guys could review it once more and then take a look at what the individual blog pages look like: http://www.separationbysix.com/1001-...-to-do-in-life

TIA,
www.separationbysix.com

[-chris-]

It doesn't look like a blog site to me. Steax and karinne suggested bright, bold, 2.0 colors, and I agree. Also, did you get permission from the theme author to use that theme?

[separationbysix]

Alright, well I can take a look at other banner and image options. I personally like the way things have turned out so far - with all the other blog sites around, I will have more of a problem in simply attaining members.

The themes are open source, and I will be adding 10 to 15 more, once I modify them to my likings.