YGG News: Site re-design/Platform change?

I was perusing YE the other day and saw a post that involved a lot of comments regarding YGG. One member (nado I believe) said that he wishes we would change the look or go to vBulletin (ICK, NEVER!).

Do you think the look of YGG needs to change? What can we do to this site to make it better? I prefer forums to be "un-clunky" and user friendly, which is how I've tried to make this. Stricly business, stricly conversational. But if that's driving people away lets put the kibosh on it and get crackin' on something new.

What do you guys think? I value your opinions so much I can't even begin to tell you, so hit me with it straight. What's next for this wonderful little community?

There are probably better ways to spend the time in terms of improving the site. For instance, I'd rework the splash screen you get because it's really bad (in terms of SEO) to have a splash screen.

Overall I think the forum design is pretty damn good.

I think it would be cool, however, if we could see some experimental technologies for us all to experiment with. It could be anything, from testing out Basecamp as a group (on their servers) to testing out a new piece of open source software on this site for about a week. Group trials might keep things fresher and really help us youngins get a feel for tools we otherwise wouldn't be exposed to.

Hmm... I just realized I can't go back and edit my post for a "simplay" stupid spelling error... Maybe that should be top priority :lol:

I really like YGG's forums. Don't change.

What is most important here? The look of the discussion, or the actual discussion?

'nuff said.

I welcome the YE people to join us over here to improve the discussion...

I like the current design. Its nice and welcoming :-)

I prefer this site design to other forums - it is so much cleaner, neater and simpler. "Classy" would almost be a word I would use to describe it.

If it is really driving prospective members away, though, we might want to look at it. I don't think any of our regular posters, even if we prefer this look, would freak out and quit posting if you "updated" the site to attract new members. If I'm wrong there speak up.

change can be good but to be honest if someone from YE said the site looked bad thats why they didn't join then why are they still at YE I dont like there layout and come on a layout is what's really loosing people I cant really see that happening its a forum which means its supposed to be simple and the main focus is the people and there discussions which we have down. So I think the YE people just hatin or dislike the fact that we have said negative things towards YE but whatever, I am YGG forever and if the group decides to cahnge to a lime green layout with bright yellow font with grape fruit pink borders I would still post here, proudly at that.

HIP HOP HORRAY, YGG

We should have bio's of our bisnesses.

Then let's do it. What software is K10K running, because I think it's AWESOME. I would have no idea how to program something like that from the bottom up but if there's some OS software out there, let's get crackin' on it!

yea newstoday is a good site I check it out and its hasn't been caught on yet by many to try and do it like that plus I dont think many could do it well. I think if we did it that we would become the number 1 site for entrepreneur's, with our authors writing on a blog, making great podcast, keeping the forum really informative but social like we do now, all on one screen so the people dont have to flip through different screens woould be great.

I think if were able to get YGG setup like that we can grow YGG great we have a great team here at YGG it like the internet DREAM TEAM.

I think these two example sites are miraculous, we definatley need to contemplate going down this road. Jimmiejo, any ideas on the software at hand?

I fogot to add this cool piece of software. [url=http://communityserver.org/]Community Server[/url] It seems like one of the most complete and expandable communityware. I'm not so sure it's what we need on here, but you should check the free personal 1 server version out anyways.

definately no on community server - it's all ASP, i'd much rather deal with a PHP script.

I installed CuteNews but it's pretty basic...It's really just a way to go in and post a news article. You pretty much have to put the shell together yourself.

I sketched what I was thinking on the back of a business card and blew it up.

[img]http://static.flickr.com/22/92412618_d796946269_o.jpg[/img]

The login for the forum can be at the top of the page and refresh the site once logged in. The YGG box is the brand with a refresh link to the original home page. Below it can be an ad of equal size which we can rent to all of the young entrepreneurs that are always looking for affordable and effective ways to reach their consumers.

The two scrollers at the top right are for our blog and news posts. Each post will feature who it was written by and the date of post. The news section is to post brief blurbs with links to the latest popular sites, news, articles, etc... The blog section is just our blog shrunken down a bit. An excerpt from each blog post can be pulled for the scrolling list with a read more button at the bottom of each post that self expands within the frame to read the entire post. The blog section will still feature the ability to comment.

I threw in three small image links for other features of YGG like YGG Radio and one great one that I forgot to draw in could be our latest interview. These links can open with iframe in either the news or blog column.

And then at the bottom of the page is the forum section of YGG. It's a compact version of what we have now with a style applied to be consistent with the rest of the site. We can use iframe or php to contstrain the forum to a specified area like the rest of the site, where you can easily scroll up and down through each thread. The forum navigation, which I forgot to add in, could be just above the forum frame and feature links for the latest posts, memberlist, search, faq, etc...

So there you go. I hope that gives us a step towards developing this great group some more. If you'd like to change anything about my sketch, add anything, knock out something, whatever, just do what I did. Sketch it out, scan it, and throw it up here. Visuals always help to get your point across.

Okay that would be quite complex and a lot of work, but really not impossible.

My 2 cents; save time by making the Entrenews and the Blog appear in an iFrame (as drawn) and simply a display of their respective RSS feeds. You'll save a lot of time that way.

For the forum section display, find out if anyone has done the same thin on the official site for this forum software. The odds are someone has and will be able to point you in the right direction and save you a pack of time.

One of the other things (not illustrated) would be to include links for the RSS feeds at the top of both of the iframes (or however it's implemented). Sites such a Technorati depend on RSS.

I'm just trying to think of anything else that has emerged from / is considered a part of Web 2.0 that would really be a huge benefit to the site...

If the blog and news section are joined in one that means the news will push down blog entires ans vice versa. So I think it would be best to have them in 2 seprate sections like drawn up. We do need the RSS feeds, the radio button needs to stay, I'm not 100 percent for the featured article button I think we can do with out that and maybe add something else there, it could be another spot were and ad can be placed. SO it would be 2 ad selection spots instead of just one.

Only site admin can create threads in this category. Eric, can you create a new thread and call it something like "YGG 2.OH". I'll repost my sketch and all of the ideas we've suggested so far, and we can just add to them.

Thanks Justin. It seems like I live on this board but you and Eric are still mutated versions of me. I have two eyes and you have 5 1/2. :shock:

lol. I really think the ladies appreciate the numbers. It shows them how committed we are to business. Or that we really need to get out more. Either way, I like pancakes.