In reply to The Dolphin Engagement Problem

houstonlively•16th of October 2012•to CALTRADE

All I am saying is, that I believe you are overlooking a very important point.... that of aesthetic appeal. You drew a comparison between your site and the other, and believe that the other is growing faster because of the social engine platform. That may or may not be the case. It certainly isn't because the other site has more compelling content, because it doesn't. It definitely isn't because the other site has a better set of features, because it doesn't. I simply pointed out one obvious see more

Permalink•Reply•Plus•0 pluses

CALTRADE•16th of October 2012•to houstonlively

I can just tell you what I have observed - that everyone has their own opinion of what looks good. I have had people give me their sites as example of what looks good and I thought they looked like crap. The guy who designed my logo is highly visual - and he thinks the site looks ok, but he absolutely freaked out that the "join" button is red. "join means stop" he said. I don't think the base template for Dolphin looks all that bad, though I know some people think the template see more

Permalink•Reply•Plus•0 pluses

CALTRADE•16th of October 2012•to houstonlively

By the way, you have been involved with this technology for several years now, have you not? You seem to be intelligent and certainly highly technically proficient, do you have any site that have anything approaching "traction" yet that you would put up for critique as a good example. If not traction, do you have any sites that you think at least have good user engagement? If not engagement, do you even have any sites with a significant number of members?

All I am saying I guess, see more

Permalink•Reply•Plus•0 pluses

houstonlively•16th of October 2012•to CALTRADE

Let's get one thing straight before it spirals out of control. My opinions on the importance of aesthetics were just meant as constructive criticism. Please don't take them so personally. I will say no more on the subject. With that said.....

I have yet to attempt to launch a site with any sort of effort. This is deliberate. Every time I have tested the waters in the past, some Dolphin malfunction created an embarrassment for me, and I just got tired of embarrassments. I am still waiting see more on what I would term a stable enough, and user friendly enough platform for my applications. The latest embarrassing moment was when last week, an oil company exec took a look at the industry related site I am working on.... or at least tried to. I wonder what he thought of me when instead of seeing the site, he got a blank white page with the message, "All Terabyte-Hosting servers have been suspended due to non payment", Little things like that can bite you in the ass. It always seems that something goes wrong at the worst possible time.

From what I've seen, 7.1 will address a lot of problems, but as we all know where Dolphin is concerned, the solution to a problem, merely changes the nature of the problem. I'm not putting anymore effort into any of my sites until I have a stable 7.1 available, and who really knows how long that will be. Perhaps all 4 of my sites disappearing into a black hole was a blessing. One of the sites, I will probably just abandon. I will give top priority to the last site I showed you... I won't mention the name here because all it will get me is a bunch of spammers. The second priority will be the energy related site... I might move that to #1 because I have a ton of connections in that area. Houstonlively.com made a lot of sense when I first tried to put it online with 6.1... what was that, 4 years ago? At that time, the migration from Myspace to FB was just beginning, and the timing was right to try and develop a local social network. That opportunity is long gone and no longer makes sense. I'm going to shift the focus of the site more towards an informational site with less of an emphasis on social networking. Think local business directory on steroids. Of course, all the social networking functions will still be there if people choose to use them. I guess I can say all of the sites I am envisioning will be more information oriented than networking.

As far as a successful Dolphin site? My personal opinion is that a successful Dolphin site has yet to exist. It is my opinion that most people here adjust their definition of success to fit their mental needs..... kinda like that guy across the pond that had 17,000 completely useless accounts. He had every module on earth installed, 17,000 "members", and no one online... ever.... but he created a forum post to blow his horn about how successful his site was. Go figure that one out.

Permalink•Reply•Plus•0 pluses

CALTRADE•17th of October 2012•to houstonlively

HL - this wasn't intended as a slam against you - your sites don't appeal to me visually but it it entirely possible that I just have bad visual tastes - I do tend to like things that aren't too loud. My post was that in this case I don't think the visual issue is the problem. It has something to do with the functionality I think. On Dolphin it is deeply buried and difficult to use while on that other site the functionality is on the surface and immediately available. What should be of concern see more

Permalink•Reply•Plus•0 pluses

Blogs

Help

Product

Company