What is it about??
This is not a joke.
That is the kind of feedback I was looking for. One of the things we struggle with is good information presentation.
It's a mailing list management system for bands. Or it was. Now we call it "fan management and data collection", and we have client-side software that lets fans sign up for bands' mailing lists at concerts. And there's more snazzy stuff in the works that we'll be unveiling in (hopefully) a week or so.
I think that you are squandering almost all of your front page. No one cares about your news; lose it. You are not in the satellite or civil engineering business; lose the logo graphics. No one looks in flash animations for core messages; make it text.
As far as I can tell your business is charging bands fees to make it easier for them to collect fan contact information and helping them contact their fans. I think you should communicate this boldly in the center of the front page.
I have not thought about the copywriting at all but I think you should say:
>Easily collect contact information at the merch table without an internet connection >Contact your new fans with our email, (snail mail), and text messaging software.
You should not distract your users with anything else.
But, I suspect it may be difficult to sell press packs for $6 a month. I think you could make more money from charging them for snail mailings and sms messages (and you better they aren't free). Further, I think you can additionally monetize your users with affiliate programs for t-shirt printing, cd pressing or whatever else bands need.
As far as I can tell, your team's core competency is graphics design. I think you do a fantastic job and I bet a lot of bands would be willing to pay for you to design their logos or websites or t-shirts or album covers. You can leverage your userbase to find new clients.
I wish you the best of luck and I think you have a good shot if you change your front page.
PS: The background of the flash anim is HORRIBLE! It's EXTREMELY distracting.... never use high contrast backgrounds. Never!
Start of Byline: Get in contact with your fans. End of byline.
Also, realize that you're getting feedback from Paul Graham fanboys and people who read "productivity blogs" and "startup news" websites.
Besides that I really like the site and the product I know a band that had me write a similar one off app in rails so they could have a laptop and have people sign up at their merch table.
Any musician knows about the merch table, and they know they want the customers name and address fast and in a format that they can read (probably a quarter or more of paper mailing list signups are illegible and lost). They also know they've got a laptop on the road with them. You might make it clear that the installed software doesn't need internet access (because clubs don't consistently have wifi). I assume that to be the case, since I know you'd have no other reason for making an installable app.
URL is a bit long and tough. Couldn't get "scriggle.com"? Maybe try a different name, instead of adding a special character (hyphen is hard to remember, and scriggleit would be hard to read). Just a thought. I don't think it'll kill you, but word of mouth will suffer--and word of mouth is how this thing will spread. Musicians talk before and after the show with the bands they're playing with...someone will ask, loudly because clubs are never quiet, "Hey, what's that software you're using? scribblit? wiggleit? fizzlemit? Oh, squiggleit! I got it. Cool, I'll go check it out when I get to the hotel tonight." If you send stickers and cards and other logo-encrusted schwag to your customers, they might remember to hand them out when people ask...but I wouldn't bet on it.
- Agree that the front page is very busy and wordy.
- I expected that you could click on any of the icons on the left (Code, Mail, Kit, etc.) to learn more about the offerings. "About" has more about the products, but I usually expect About to describe the founders or contact info, etc.
- I would leave off all the "coming soon" features. Announce them when they are ready.
- Agree with the poster that news.yc isn't your target market. I'd find some bands, buy them a coffee, have them look at your laptop & get their opinion.
- Bonus comment ;-) Bands must get sick of trying to get their gigs listed on all the different sites (myspace, purevolume, etc.), having a solution that could push that info to all those different sites would be interesting part of promoting shows.
> Bands must get sick of trying to get their gigs listed on all the different sites (myspace, purevolume, etc.), having a solution that could push that info to all those different sites would be interesting part of promoting shows.
In the works!
I agree with 95% of you.
Thanks for the complements.
Feel free to drop me an email if your interested in some of my work bluecommons (at) gmail.com
Also, I now have 2 in a Room stuck in my head.
"Take out half of the words on the page. Then whatever is left, take out half of that"
Otherwise, very nice site design, and a great idea. I so want to hide behind my code right now . . . way to make people like me feel all kinds of amateur. :)
Critique: The top logo area is so tall that it pushes down the rest of the content down to half the page at lower resolutions. Definitely check it out in 1024x768 if you haven't.
SCREENSHOT - Show what it does, first thing. Show a screenshot of the data collection screen at a table. Next to that (not in a flash sequence-- two pics), should the admin interface, etc. Something like BlinkSale's home page, mebbe? http://www.blinksale.com/home
Overall tho-- nice niche, pretty design.
Congrats!
Speaking of the logo, I'm not sure how much the "it" part of it is clear. I'd go with a simple wordmark.
URL with a dash isn't wonderful, but I know how painful domains are.
