More Ideas for Network

The first iteration of the social network is for the most part complete. Of course there are still issues that are being dealt with, such as logging problems, but this will all be taken care of, I promise. I know this has hurt the site somewhat, but once we address the login process and a few other things, I can jumpstart the site with a mass email. What I am asking of the crew, is for more suggestions on how to improve. For example, what features would you like to see? What sort of things would you like to see on a "personal profile?" What kind of user integration would you like to see? An example of this is, notifications only work on the network, but they do not work on the forum. I have a little more money I may be willing to set aside for further development, as long as the suggestions are viable.

One idea that I have is a "token system". With this system, a user can use his token to notify everyone on his friends list that he has submitted a new composition. This could come in handy if the user has a large network of composer friends. I could possibly charge for people to purchase these tokens (it would be fairly cheap, and I may impose a monthly purchase limit). I could either charge per token, or I could provide these tokens to members with a membership. What do you think?

Your turn...please give me your ideas now.

When are you actually going to begin collecting money from people, and how is that going to work? I assume you'll be setting up an account with the Better Business Bureau and with Truste? You'll need money for this... a rather expensive set-up. My "suggestion" would be not to sink any more money into features until you're actually collecting member dues from people and have established the cost to a member for upload space and so forth.

I don't know about the token system, honestly. I think it would come across as a little gimmicky at this point. What I think you need are website hits and an active team of marketers who approach different vendors to either promote products (through affiliate marketing) or attract advertising dollars through direct contact with businesses that would benefit from users of this site - which requires massive amounts of website hits to be a credible opportunity for a business.

So, I'd say that your next step in all of this is to get the website login and workflow between the network and the forum in near-perfect shape and blast the community. Get people back here and actively contributing as more members start pooring in. Keep bringing more traffic in and getting more users that you can leverage for advertising money that will really earn that return on your investment. I honestly have my doubts that the fee-based membership will earn you your return on the investment. It will definitely cover existing operating costs, though, so I don't think the fee-based membership will fall short.

As far as recommendations, one thing I'd eventually like to see is a profit-sharing system in place where each post earns a user like $0.02 that then goes toward membership dues and extra storage. The more participation from a user among all forums (without moderators having to delete posts for spamming/trolling), the more benefit to the user and the more active the forum is overall. Incentivization of forum activity, I think, is the key to making the whole fee-based membership work to begin with...

But that's just my two cents on the matter.

I don't need an account with Better Business Bureau to do business. The BBB is a good idea to be a part of especially if you do retail. But the system to accept money is not a problem, all of this is can easily be taken care of. I'm trying to avoid affiliate advertising at this point. As for 2 cents a post, this would lead to massive post spam. Fixing the current problems are already on the agenda, and I know building the customer base is important, but it still feels like the network is a little incomplete. What I am looking for is extra features you guys would like to see. Whether the features may be a better skin integration, better profile integration or added functionality for major works, put down your ideas and if I really like your idea, I may find some way to implement it, if it is cost effective.

Work on getting the profiles to integrate - same profile between both network and forum. It might be a difficult task, but my vote goes there since a lot of confusion derives from the lack of linkage.

@AA: this site won't sell membership until it gets those features paying members would want. We wouldn't make much right now, people are hardly here as it is while what we offer is free. We need to build a home before anybody can inhabit it, that's the way I see it.

Let's have profile pics be able to be instantly updated from a webcam!

This site is great ... I would suggest a link to the persons music via the profile.

and keep it simple

Why not put up a "paypal donate" button?

Are you looking to run this site in the future as a business to make money...Im a little confused (as usual!)

cheers! :)

Before brainstorms I really want to see YC done, the forum within the site, the wiki, the profiles (where are those ?). I haven't offered myself as an editor or something because I'm not good with codes, but if help is what you need, I could help.

just one question, ... when someone listen a piece but not entirely, clicks stop before it stops by itself, does that count in Total Plays ?

...the profiles (where are those ?). ..

What do you mean?

Here's yours.

:whistling:

I ment the wiki ones, but nevermind, I see the wiki is been changed, maybe they'll show up soon.

Wiki profile namespaces are screwn up somehow, we'll weed that out when we finally skin the thing and it looks acceptable.