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Critique my website!

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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10
Wassup guys,

Alright so I'm someone who enjoys staying up on the latest in the rap/hip-hop world and while there are countless top-notch blogs that post a lot of the latest music, none of them can catch it all. So one day I decided I would try to create a site that has a more comprehensive list of all of the latest drops. While my creation admittedly falls somewhat short of this mark, I think it is close enough to appeal to people like myself.

What I ended up with is a sort of hybrid of digg.com and hypem.com albeit with a niche target audience. The majority of the site is complete and it is quite functional, but I would love to hear some strangers opinions, as all my feedback has been from very supportive friends and fam. So if anyone's interested check it out, and hit me with some suggestions!
 
The site is http://www.thedigitalhype.com


I realize I have an almost non-existent post count, but I've been silently reading these forums for some time now and I know there are a number of people on here that could provide me with some valuable feedback. 
Oct 21 2010 6:11PM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10

My bad guys, heres the clickable link

http://www.thedigitalhype.com

Oct 21 2010 6:14PM
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2814
Posts: 292 - Karma: 10
I love the site. Great concept and layout.

The only thing I would change is the font size of the headlines. Right now they seem a tad too small to me. I would increase them by 1 or 2 points.


I'm gonna pass this around when I go on set today. A lot of my friends would be interested to see this.
Oct 21 2010 6:15PM
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proZach
Posts: 7163 - Karma: 917
pretty sick. I think it would be cool to add a section of downloadable playlists. like grab 12-18 of your favorite new/old/whatever shit and toss it into a "cd".

If someone looks around a bit and if you had a section where they could download to throw on the ipod it would be sick
Oct 21 2010 7:49PM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10
Thanks for the replies guys. I'm glad you guys like it. I'll try upping the header size a bit, I hadn't thought about that.

As far as downloadable playlists, that's something I would love to do, but the legality of it concerns me. I know of numerous sites that have been shutdown due to providing illegal downloads. I could do it through hulkshare or mediafire or something, but then they wouldn't be available for long. So if anyone found them in the archive chances are they would be dead links.

One thing I'm working on right now is a "radio" feature which would randomly stream all the songs that have been submitted to the site, this feature will work on iphones and droids as well.

Oct 21 2010 8:51PM
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cooper.fry
Posts: 2229 - Karma: 34
I approve of this thread.
Oct 21 2010 8:57PM
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Ehh...
Posts: 1897 - Karma: 1,423
/insert stamp of approval
Oct 21 2010 9:01PM
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Sam.Carson
Posts: 2884 - Karma: 35
that is such a sick site nice work keep it up
Oct 21 2010 10:30PM
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Broseph_Stalin
Posts: 3745 - Karma: 177
pretty sick yo, k+
Oct 21 2010 10:32PM
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ReedSkis~
Posts: 2122 - Karma: 98
Awesome work! Definitely gonna try and spread this around
Oct 21 2010 10:33PM
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thisandthatfilms
Posts: 7713 - Karma: 525
dope dude, loved it
Oct 21 2010 10:34PM
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[tk]
Posts: 3863 - Karma: 1,906
pretty sick website, looks nice. the only thing is its very similar to thissongissick.com. i dont know if your trying to make it different or what but thats what i noticed
Oct 21 2010 10:37PM
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KramerC
Posts: 619 - Karma: 21
Are you getting royalties from go-pro or is that just a banner.
Oct 21 2010 10:42PM
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Nobody.
Posts: 1193 - Karma: 471
is the "gond" song by co$$ on itunes? i need it!
Oct 21 2010 10:46PM
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teleTay
Posts: 2320 - Karma: 186
super sick!
Oct 21 2010 11:17PM
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molsongolden
Posts: 1649 - Karma: 162
jea keep on doing what you do
Oct 21 2010 11:22PM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10
Indeed it is quite similar, as it is similar to most other music blogs in this genre. But that is largely the point. What the site is intended to do is aggregate blog feeds from some of the best rap/hip-hop blogs around, and then post them all in one place in a quick and easy to consume format. If you look at the little grey link before the text on any post you can see what site the post came from, and you'll notice a good number of the songs actually come from thissongissick.com. As I mentioned above, my initial idea was basically that I wanted to create hypem.com with niche content, namely rap/hip-hop.

As far as song downloads go, all the songs on my site link back to blog articles that provide song downloads. You can either click the little grey link at the front of the text, or click the song title to get to the song page, and then click the song title again to go to the blog article. I like doing it that way rather than providing direct links because it encourages people to visit the actual blog article. My goal is to help generate traffic to these blogs, rather than just steal content.

Thanks for all the support guys! It helps a lot.
Oct 22 2010 9:47AM
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Ski_the_east01
Posts: 5203 - Karma: 2,304
dang that website is sick..reminds me of thatsongissick.com

my only problem with it is the toolbar on the right side, just doesnt seem very intuitive with the comments/top today when all of your 'top today' videos are right there on the main page

but thats pretty much just nitpicking beacuse i really couldnt find anything wrong with it...awesome site
Oct 22 2010 9:54AM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10
Haha I like nitpicking! I'm trying to make it as intuitive as possible so I'd like to consider anything like this. My rational for putting the Top Today in the sidebar was that the main page will show whatever content has been hyped most recently at the top. Meaning that even if its months old it could be on the front page if people are still into it. At the same time, I would like it to be easy for people to find the songs that came out today. I do have a Top Today link at the top though, so that could be enough. Do you find the Top Tags box useful?


Oct 22 2010 10:03AM
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bakedpow
Posts: 8770 - Karma: 10,462
Macklemore is dope. Nice work on the site.
Oct 22 2010 10:09AM
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Ski_the_east01
Posts: 5203 - Karma: 2,304
in retrospect the 'top today' bar is great..i just reloaded your website and saw you added about 6 songs since i last checked (i thought you only did like 3-4 a day, making the top today thing a little unnecessary) but since you add a lot more than that in one today I really like it...maybe you could add how many hypes it has next to the link so you can see if one song is really blowin up?

Top tag is always a great addition...it's the only way i can find things on some website like speedhunters.com where they have so many features..im assuming your website is going to be similar

the best part is probably the 'sort news' feature...i always use that when on porno sites, it never fails to bring up the best quality stuff haha glad your using it too
Oct 22 2010 10:09AM
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Ski_the_east01
Posts: 5203 - Karma: 2,304
btw that n.e.r.d. track 'hypnotize' is hot as hell..thanks for that
Oct 22 2010 10:16AM
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BVT802
Posts: 443 - Karma: 18
just shared this on facebook...love the layout and the relevant content. i agree with the idea of a mash up from what is available on the site to create a playlist kinda like a que i guess.
Oct 22 2010 10:16AM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10
Awesome. I like the idea of putting the number of hypes in the Top Today, I don't know why that hadn't occurred to me. Yeah right now I'm adding about 8-15 songs a day, and I would like to get that a bit higher, granted I want it all to be at least decent quality. If I can ever get users to start submitting content as well, then the number of additions each day could really start to get up there. Thats when I imagine all of the content sorting features will really start to come in handy.
Oct 22 2010 10:23AM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10
That would be amazing! At the moment I have no clue how to do that, but I will be looking into it immediately.
Oct 22 2010 10:25AM
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klayer_9
Posts: 2037 - Karma: 188
this is a sick layout. Props, I am impressed.
the hype rating system is good too.
Oct 22 2010 12:18PM
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s.parker
Posts: 1041 - Karma: 259
kewlbeanz, im impressed +K
Oct 22 2010 1:06PM
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Nobody.
Posts: 1193 - Karma: 471
Like the hype rating system. Think you should put the download links easier to find though, but overall it's a great website.
Oct 22 2010 1:14PM
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pmsnow
Posts: 992 - Karma: 87
Click for larger image
Oct 22 2010 1:24PM
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theline
Posts: 1507 - Karma: 92
the only thing it needs is download links
other then that, nice work dude
Oct 22 2010 2:07PM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10
Alright I've decided to throw a download link on each post since that seems to be what everyone wants. They won't show up on the posts already on the site, but all the new posts will have it.
Oct 22 2010 6:35PM
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Ski_the_east01
Posts: 5203 - Karma: 2,304
bump for this kids awesome website..still puttin out fresh songs and the download link is awesome
Oct 29 2010 12:00PM
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Ski_the_east01
Posts: 5203 - Karma: 2,304

puttin it in my threads cause i keep forgetting the website name

Nov 17 2010 10:08AM
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Jpurd
Posts: 3196 - Karma: 3,554
haha not bad pretty sick
Nov 17 2010 10:09AM
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ChadThundercock
Posts: 3070 - Karma: 785
i love it, the only thing that you should change is taking that google adsense off... nobody clicks em and you wont make any money off it at all, I had it on my site for a while and even though i have like a couple thousand hits a month... i didnt get any clicks at all and it just made my site look shitty. just some pointers bro! but i love the music you got up on there, good shit brotha.
Nov 17 2010 10:23AM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10

Thanks man!

Surprisingly the adsense has been performing pretty decently. I don't know who clicks it but I guess someone does. It is too in your face right now though, so I am going to tone it down a bit. I want the posts to come first!

School has consumed me lately, but I'm gonna introduce some updates soon, hoping to add a sitewide playlist here soon. And hopefully a way to make the site more accessible from mobile devices.

Anyways, thanks for the support guys! 

Nov 18 2010 10:46AM
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Clipper
Posts: 273 - Karma: 13
this site is hella dope, five stars
Nov 18 2010 11:27AM
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SirFryanator
Posts: 11149 - Karma: 1,415
nice site man, I dig.
Nov 18 2010 11:30AM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10
Hey guys, I just wanted to revive this thread because I've made a couple pretty significant improvements over the last few months.

Here are the main changes
1. New media player that creates a playlist of all the songs on the page so you don't have to click a new song everytime one ends.
2. Facebook comments instead of the old comment system, should make commenting quick and easy
3. streamlined layout everywhere with easier sharing and downloading, also large pictures on the story pages

There are some other minor changes here or there, but those or the most important ones. Despite all of the improvement, it's an ongoing process and I would love some more feedback!  One specific area are the sidebars. Currently the sidebars add very little functionality and I'm trying to find good uses for the sidebar on each page. So if my site interests you in anyway, maybe you could help me out. Thanks!



Feb 24 2011 5:24PM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10

Don't want to make you search for it, here's the link

http://www.thedigitalhype.com

Feb 24 2011 5:26PM
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Moosen
Posts: 4285 - Karma: 2,585
cool but i want to listen to the songs before i download
Feb 24 2011 5:34PM
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duply
Posts: 54 - Karma: 10
You can dude, hit the lil black play button next to the "hype it" button!
Feb 24 2011 5:39PM
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theJIBmastaaaa
Posts: 18 - Karma: 10
Totally sick yo! Fo the sidebar I would put something like "if you like this , you might also like.." and then have more links

also maybe make it easier to see how to sort
Feb 25 2011 9:10AM
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mer-man
Posts: 1079 - Karma: 10
fuckin sick bro im gunna go on here all the time.
Feb 25 2011 9:38AM
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