SITE REVIEW: Metacafe's Top Videos

ok thanks for all the comments guys. taken them onboard. scrapped all the google ads and made it into a video site now, http://ilumu.com
hope its better than before now

You need to allow user to search your site for videos and brighten it up some. Use a bright border.

Also i would change the layout of the navigation. Maybe put them on the left side of the screen and put the serch box where they are.

Much better than the first one, however, not that very good...just add something much interesting that can filled up the empty space of you site...because it looks like there is something missing in it...but the simplicity is good...

ok thanks for the advice guys. i've made some changes to the layout and put some ads on now.

Yeah, there's nothing really good about the site, besides the logo. Sorry. It just doesn't offer anything for the user to want to go to it. Maybe present the videos in a more accessible fashion. And I would drop the black, to childish. Your logo looks modern, I would go in that direction. Good Luck.

I think this website can be better. The home page looks like the author did not put a lot of effort in it and also not well organized. The video on a home page does not make sense at all to the website. Also, the white line on the bottom should be corrected.

i think it's a browser issue. are you using firefox? it should be fixed now anyway, thanks

its a good idea
great logo at top
i love how easy it is to navigate
it needs to be beter intergrated
by that i mean that you should include a search box so users can search for their favorite videos. also maybe have an "arcive page" so that you can replace the videos every few weeks but users can still have the option to see older ones

yeh an archive sounds like a great idea. will do that when i get time, thanks for that!

I agree very dark. Maybe add some more structure to the layout.

A videosite needs a very visual homepage. Use 1 thumbnail of a random video for every category I suggest.
Choose a more happy or light colour for your background (and more fashionable!)

Regards,

bob

hi there, thanks for the comments. i thought black was ok? a white background is too commonplace and boring. will give the thumbnaail a though though, thanks for that!

I must be getting in on this one a bit late. The site looks nice now. A simple 2 row layout, nice styling of the header text, and clear readable font.

Not sure of what to compare it to, since I didn't get to see the old version..

One thing to keep in mind, you can't expect the general public to know about FF plugins to change the color, and don't make FF the best viewable browser. Yes it is a better browser, but you have to keep in mind the percentages of the viewable public. And unfortunately, IE 6 and IE7 are still used by over 90%. Make sure the site looks the same in the top 3 (ie: FF, IE and Safari). Though thankfully that cow IE6 is getting out of the picture.

I think that title Welcome to Our Website! should not be the most visible think in your site. Why are you putting that title, put some title which will tell us why to stay on your site.

I would prefer put some top videos into index site as text. You don't need a text there, why telling me that I don't need to register and about using left bar. Simple title "The most popular videos from Metacafe" would be enough and below top videos. It would keep more users.

Also try to put some viral staff. You can put right of every video 3 e-mails boxes with text Send that video to your friend.

Good suggestions ernest1a, wish I thought of them.