New Documentary Site

Mr.Grimes

Hey,

I just created a new site: http://www.documentaryheaven.com and was wondering whats ya think of it?

Documentary Heaven is a site filled with hundreds of free documentaries.

Any suguestions or feedback would be great.

p

The homepage design looks nice. But after that the site falls to pieces a little bit. You're blasted with ads and it's very confusing. Maybe I just don't know about this type of site but it seems like it's only got a homepage & review page. I'm not sure what the site is, why i'd use it, what the point of it is. I think you could clarify that and try figure out how people will navigate through the site by writing a few scenarios.

squibs

With a lot more content, I'd use this, in the same way I use bestofyoutube.com - as an aggregator of the good stuff. I like the design - clean, modern, contemporary, and I wasnt swamped with ads. Nice one OP.

The main issue I see is the category dropdown. It's too big and you need a flyout menu.

Edit - just tried to watch a movie - popup and a request to download software. Not cool.

Mr.Grimes

Ok thanks for the feedback.

To "P", 3 ads on the whole site is not excatly blasted with ads there are no pop ups only clean google ads which you can click if you want, your not forced to do so! The revenue made from these ads which is not much all goes into expanding the website.

Also the point of the site is clearly to watch documentaries for free there is no hidden ajenda here. Its as simple as if your board and have nothing else to do why not log onto documentaryheaven.com and watch a documentary for free. What more is there to clarify.

To "Squibs" thaks for the reply yes i am aware of this but they are not my ads these only come from megavideo links as they have there own ad system active on every one of there videos, a small price to pay to watch decent documentaries. Just iggnore & close the tab no biggie.

p

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

To "P", 3 ads on the whole site is not excatly blasted with ads there are no pop ups only clean google ads which you can click if you want, your not forced to do so! The revenue made from these ads which is not much all goes into expanding the website.

Yea, I know what you're saying. Maybe it's just the tone of the ads, (Smileys faces and the like). There's no reason to have as many ads on the homepage. People will perceive the site to be higher quality if there's none there, and people are really only perceptive to ads after they have finished a task. Maybe you could run some metrics after the site has been running for awhile and see if the ads are being clicked on. I've heard some sites have more successs by actually putting fewer ads on sites.

There's a few other distracted elements like the 'shotubox' and especially the 'visitor flags' that don't seem to ad value and just create unnecessary visual clutter.

Also, having ads for Scientology on the site is very not cool.

Also the point of the site is clearly to watch documentaries for free there is no hidden ajenda here. Its as simple as if your board and have nothing else to do why not log onto documentaryheaven.com and watch a documentary for free. What more is there to clarify.

That is a nice clear goal, however that message could be better communicated to the viewer. I think you could focus the design on that goal more, event just with a better explanation in the 'about' section and changing little bits of text like 'search for documentaries' rather that 'search this site' etc...


Overall though, I think the aim of the site is very good and it's a good design. I think that there's opportunity to tweak and change it that will make it even more successful.

515

I like the site.

squibs wrote: »

The main issue I see is the category dropdown. It's too big and you need a flyout menu.

I clicked into one of the films and then went to the category dropdown and the list went BEHIND the film, so it couldn't be seen.

GoneShootin

"click to download" option would be nice

Mr.Grimes

Yea i defo agree with the shoutbox and Scientology ads put thats the problem or advantage of google ads as they display certian ads relative to the sites content, so if your watching a Scientology documentary those type of ads are going to pop up but i might look into trying to remove the Scientology ones alright.

I think i will remove the shoutbox alright it was just an experiment to make the site more social. I think i will get rid of the drop down menu and just hav on on the side not to sure as of yet.

All in all though i am very happy with the traffic my site has generated agter only 4 days online. According to my site stats i have had 3,407 pageviews pretty good i think. I will defo hav to upgrade my server which provides unlimited bandwidth.

bigbadcon

p wrote: »

Also, having ads for Scientology on the site is very not cool.

LOL

Im just a beginner at this stuff but I think your site looks really good and to reward you for your hard work I clicked on one of your google ads.

Scotty #

Went to play this movie.. http://documentaryheaven.com/2009/07/inside-north-korea/ and when I click play it opens a new window (Firefox) with ads. This is extremely annoying.

The page title is spelt wrong.

Some good vids up there though.

Mr.Grimes

Scotty # wrote: »

Went to play this movie.. http://documentaryheaven.com/2009/07/inside-north-korea/ and when I click play it opens a new window (Firefox) with ads. This is extremely annoying.

The page title is spelt wrong.

If you read the about page and the above posts it is explained that they are not our ads. Any MegaVideo hosted documentaries have their own ad system which are pop ups.

We do not support pop ups of any kind and find them very annoying ourselves but it is a small price to pay to watch a decent documentary.

Also we have very few megavideo hosted documentaries so its not that bad.

Cheers for letting me know bout the page title i didnt spot that one, its fixed now!

Scotty #

It's not just that it's an ad. When you close the pop-up it attempts to install 'gamingharbor_installer.exe' on your machine from 'http://download2.desktopsmiley.com'. This will turn people off visiting your site.

Can't you rip the movie and host it somewhere else?

chakotha

Like it.

Some small things. The text summarising documentaries on the front page is so dark I can hardly read it.

A couple of spelling mistakes in the categories menu: Bussiness and Socity. And it is off the page too long. How about a Mega Menu.

Best of luck.

MOH

chakotha wrote: »

Like it.

Some small things. The text summarising documentaries on the front page is so dark I can hardly read it.


Best of luck.

+1, it's a real strain trying to read the summary text, really put me off

[edit]
Just glanced at the source for the main page - couple of typos in the description (site name, and 'documenteries') and keyword (conspirscy) metas

Vlatko

Well I think this is just another copy of http://topdocumentaryfilms.com

For the last 2-3 months several copies of this site seems to appeared.

Mr.Grimes

my site hasnt even been up 2-3 months only about 2 weeks!

I have never even come accross your site i sourced the documentaries elsewhere.

You didnt make the documentaries so what gives you the right to complain if other people post them!!

Why dont you stop self advertising and bad mouthing other peoples sites.

Vlatko

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

my site hasnt even been up 2-3 months only about 2 weeks!

What that has to do with copying other people's sites. On the contrary it shows that you scraped the idea and the whole site. For example TDF is 3 years old (but seriously updated for the last 5 months) and your site as you said is 2 weeks old. I just compared the some of your posts and guess what? It is the same text as on TDF (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com).

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

I have never even come accross your site i sourced the documentaries elsewhere.

Really??? Type whichever documentary title you like in google search and see what happens. TDF on most cases is in top 10. So how come if you're so interested in documentaries you never came across TDF. Further more you left comments on places where TDF is mentioned and featured.

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

You didnt make the documentaries so what gives you the right to complain if other people post them!!

Yeap... you're right about that and I don't complain if other people post them, but generally as an idea you did a very well copy of TDF.

But don't worry you're not the only one. Check this guy out http://docu.injpn.net/. He scraped everything from TDF: images, meta tags, descriptions, keywords, text and the general idea. Well done.

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

Why don't you stop self advertising and bad mouthing other peoples sites.

I'm not self advertising, but you are by announcing this thread. TDF is already well advertised and has decent organic traffic, so I don't have to go around forums and blogs and bug people to see my site.

So to conclude, I don't mean to spend any more time and energy to prove something which is anyways hard to prove. It is a fact. Sites and ideas are instantly replicated on the net. Do what you have to do dude. You will not hear any more from me.

Cheers

Mr.Grimes

Vlatko wrote: »

You will not hear any more from me.

Thank God because you sure did put a good bit of effort into tracking a lot of post made reviewing my site and posting on them, it is quite immature and childish.

Your site was not the first online documentary site so stop acting like it was!

Get used to the fact that there is competition out there and just get on with it!

We all get the videos from the same sources such as google video and the like so there is bound to be many sites posting the same things. Why assume you are being copied? There is no need to copy any site out there when all you have to do is search google video its not hard.

We also dont just take free wordpress templates from sites: http://www.themespreview.com/studiopress_green-wordpress-theme/

We have a uniqe style which we put time and effort into developing ourselfs!

You Said:

I just compared the some of your posts and guess what? It is the same text as on TDF

Its called searching the original site eg. channel 4 and taking the summary for their documentarys. You didnt write these yourself! Not hard my friend.

Also i posted here in the first place back on day 1 of documentary heavens creation to get some hits as im sure you too did on other sites.

Man just get on with it please and stop causing a fuss!

Dave!

The plot thickens!

Site looks good to me OP

Vlatko

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

Your site was not the first online documentary site so stop acting like it was!

Sure it wasn't and I'm not acting like it was. As a matter of fact there are far older sites that quite resemble to yours here is on example: http://www.documentarywire.com/

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

We also dont just take free wordpress templates from sites: http://www.themespreview.com/studiopress_green-wordpress-theme/

We have a uniqe style which we put time and effort into developing ourselfs!

Hahaha... Don't delude the people dude. You are using video flick theme http://www.press75.com/the-all-new-video-flick-wordpress-theme/ which is of course not unique and it can be downloaded for free via torrents and other sites.

Here is one tech question for you. Where are the credits in the footer of your theme? The footer of that template is coded and you have to use decoder to remove the credits. So don't ever again say you developed a unique theme. This one really made me laugh.

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

Man just get on with it please and stop causing a fuss!

Ok I'm stopping. As I previously said it's enough. Point is made. Enough time and energy spent on quite stupid things.

Cheers

Mr.Grimes

yay Vlatko returns !

lol Vlatko you make me chuckle. This really must annoy you lol im lovin it!

I never said i made the theme although i did put time and effort into styling it unlike some ppl. (cheap shot i know :P)

Vlatko you continue to dis me on my homeland fourm, Im reppen Ireland so there will be 25 bad lads backing me and bad lads dont shhhhtop!!

Vlatko

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

yay Vlatko returns !
lol Vlatko you make me chuckle. This really must annoy you lol im lovin it!

Aha.. Mr.Grimes also returns. So that means you're annoyed too and little bit confused and scared. You're maybe asking yourself what will happen if this thread becomes popular enough. What than Mr.Grimes? Maybe we can Twitter/Stumble/Digg it a little bit?

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

I never said i made the theme although i did put time and effort into styling it unlike some ppl. (cheap shot i know :P)

I don't know what you think but you're probably aware that you're talking to a webmaster. You can only go under the radar with people who are not quite familiar with how this web business goes.

You say : "I never said i made the theme although i did put time and effort into styling it", but in the previous post you said "We also dont just take free wordpress templates from sites... We have a uniqe style which we put time and effort into developing ourselfs!"

As far as my reasoning goes you were stating that you have unique style (which means unique website) and you didn't take it from somewhere else. Wait a minute... but you did take it from somewhere else... hahaha. Further more you put time and effort into developing that site. What effort Mr.Grimes? You just changed the background and the color of the tabbed menu.

Also you decoded the footer (to remove the credits). So here comes the interesting part. What would it be like if we email Press75.com just to ask if your theme is not illegally downloaded from somewhere else? (yea it's a cheep shot :P) They will certainly take action upon it if you really didn't buy it.

Mine is free and pretty customized and I'm free to do whatever I want to do with it. If i like I can leave the credits and if I don't it doesn't matter.

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

Vlatko you continue to dis me on my homeland fourm, Im reppen Ireland so there will be 25 bad lads backing me and bad lads dont shhhhtop!!:D

This is interesting... I dis you? I thought you dis me. Look pall this the Internet era. It doesn't really matter if this is an Irish forum. And it really doesn't matter if you have 25 lads to back you up.

The truth will prevail anyway whether you have 25 lads or not.

Cheers

Mr.Grimes

lol vlatko you take things way too serious just sit back, grab a beer and chill my friend.

Your right this is the internet era so everyone will have a certain element of competion. Lets face it we are bound to see more documentary sites come along so lets stop this bickering and let the users decide which one they prefer without getting in each others faces.

Look vlatko im an easy going sort of guy i would never attack someones website unless provoked and i still dont like doing it i believe each to their own. Are you really not able to just let me get on with it?

Realistically one more documentary site isnt going to effect you in any way really and lets be honest im not going to close my site and nether are you so can we stop this once and for all.

Vlatko im quite aware im talking to a webmaster and i hope you are aware you are repling to one! I am a student studying Computing its what i do! I have mastered Java, C++, Php and others. I also have managed many websites in my day so dont patronise me or question my capabilites.

So can we please stop this and lets all be friends, or at least just leave each other alone. (BIG HUG )

Vlatko

Mr.Grimes wrote: »

So can we please stop this and lets all be friends, or at least just leave each other alone. (BIG HUG )

Ok Mr.Grimes. Let's be friends. There is enough room for everybody.

Cheers

MOH

* grabs popcorn and sits back *

skelliser

what wordpress plugins did you use?