oxbands

Help us to keep making MusicInOxford.co.uk better

Posted on by simonminter

Partly because I was bored of seeing that flippin’ Gappy Tooth news story on the homepage, but mainly because I feel strongly that you, dear readers, are the driving force behind MusicInOxford.co.uk, I’d like to pose a question:

What can we do to make MusicInOxford.co.uk better?

I won’t qualify the question any more than that. Now that the new site design has been up and running a while, and the weekly e-mails have been going out for a couple of weeks, it’s a good time to see where things are and how to add, change or remove bits and pieces in order to keep the site continually improving.

Leave suggestions and ideas as comments on this page. Can’t promise that everything will be carried out forthwith, but everything will be looked at, and the good ideas at least considered. As always, if ideas take the form of ‘why aren’t your reviews better’, or ‘why don’t you review X, Y and Z’ – feel free to get in touch and offer your services.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/allthatimprobableblue/ Daniel (all that improbable blue)

    More pictures on the homepage. Pictures accompanying each article pulled in using the tagging from flickr. More graphics, gig posters etc, the site is very text heavy.

    More automatically updating content e.g., a feed of the twitter spaff from local bands.

    More linking to myspace and band websites, embedding of tracks and video from youtube.

    Tweaking to the Recent comments in the right-hand bar, it should be the comments themselves, not the name of the commenter, followed by the name of title of post, and the date. I am never going to click on that, but if i see an interesting comment i will. The presentation of the recent comments at the foot of the homepage is much nicer.

    I also think the homepage heirachy needs work. It is surprisingly difficult to tell when a new post has been made to the sections. The site looks a bit like a blog, but new stories don’t appear at the top of the page, they appear at the top of each section. Because all new posts look the same (no images or big headlines) it is really hard to tell it has been updated. New content should be clearly identifiable as such. Perhaps the new story should always appear in the top left before being filed in the correct section on the homepage.

    Also a greater prominence to the ‘forthcoming gig’. I can’t believe I am going to say this but it could be presented like a web ad with a ‘Playing tonight’ banner, perhaps over an image of the band pulled from flickr or their myspace.

  • phill

    “More pictures on the homepage……More graphics, gig posters etc, the site is very text heavy.”

    Sorry, got to disagree here. I like reading things, not looking at pictures of bands i’ve never heard of (Front Page News? Who are they?). Also, all of Daniel’s suggestions (pictures, graphics, embedded tracks and videos etc) will probably make the homepage take a while to load up for some people.

    One suggestion I would like to make is perhaps have a better contacts section. Because at the moment the contact page says to write to Stuart, Colin or Simon but doesn’t actually tell you how. It’s only until you get right down to the bottom of the page do you see the box to choose a name. And I think everyone who writes for Oxfordbands should be in there.

  • http://www.spiral25.com/ Joe

    “More pictures on the homepage. Pictures accompanying each article pulled in using the tagging from flickr. More graphics, gig posters etc, the site is very text heavy.”

    I disagree with this because:

    More text can get you better placement in search engines and your web site is more likely to be found.
    More pictures will slow the loading of pages.

    Alternatively, have 2 templates, a normal one with more graphics and a text one.

    “Tweaking to the Recent comments in the right-hand bar, it should be the comments themselves, not the name of the commenter, followed by the name of title of post, and the date. I am never going to click on that…”

    I got to this page by clicking on “Daniel (all that improbable blue) on Help us to keep making MusicInOxford.co.uk better”. How did you navigate to this page?

    “I also think the homepage heirachy needs work. It is surprisingly difficult to tell when a new post has been made to the sections”

    I just look at the right hand side bar. Takes me a few seconds if that.

  • http://www.fouriertransform.com simonminter

    Thanks gents, keep ’em coming… from comments so far I’ve distilled things into the following:

    – Imagery: I think more imagery on the homepage would work well, and I’m going to investigate getting images attached to each new story/post, with a small version appearing on the homepage. I might also try out a larger ‘main’ homepage image area, that people can contribute gig photos etc to show (separately from the Flickr thing)

    – Twitter: Going to investigate a multi-user Twitter feed that people can add their feeds into, rather than relying on retweets etc from the Oxbands account

    – Comments: Show them more fully in the right hand bar

    – New content: Delineate it better on the homepage

    – Contact page: Move the ‘who message is for’ bit up so it’s more obvious

    Other stuff I’m also working on:

    – Gig calendar: Making it better and more ‘feature rich’, including fields for prices, venues etc. Also presenting today’s gigs on the homepage better and maybe an RSS feed of upcoming gigs

    – Some kind of on-site audio player

  • http://davidmurphyreviews.blogspot.com david

    Well, I have no interest in Twitter & RSS feeds and all that jive. Knock yourselves out.

    Pictures are fine if it doesn’t affect the load time of the pages – we have some great photographers in town, so it’d be good to showcase their work.

    I find the site incredibly easy to navigate, & to find updates, but any improvements can only be good.

    But I think this is all cosmetic. I think that what the site needs is more content. More writers and photographers should come forward. Colin, you should actively seek to arrange regular guestlists for reviewers as Ronan does. More acts should send in review copy & more promoters offer review passes so there’s actually something to talk about. Perhaps someone could be found to film a track or 2 per month to upload. The interviews were good, but they’ve fizzled out, it woudl appear. Perhaps Mark would be interested in creating non-Punt podcasts, he’s v good at that. Perhaps there could be a monthly Nutshaft page to elaborate on stuff in the print edition (unedited interviews, reviews that were cut for space, demo page 2nd opinions, whatever). Perhaps OHM Al would be interested in creating an online Page Of Fun intermittently. Perhaps Ffred could be dredged up to write some jazz reviews. Perhaps someone could be found to review/report on the classical side of Oxford’s music. Perhaps there’s value in some sort of link to an equivalent site elsewhere in the country, gig/demo exchanges could be arranged or something. Perhaps Stuart should do something at some point ever.

    I’d say the content is of a very high quality at the mo, which is fantastic, but there could be more and I’m sure there are plenty of fresh avenues to explore.

  • http://davidmurphyreviews.blogspot.com david

    I meant to write “more acts should send in review copies” – ie demos & advance CDs, not “review copy”, implying that musicians should write their own reviews! Sorry.

  • Thin Green Fred.

    More acts should send in review copy – I have sent in Links to We are ugly and TGC stuff but never been reviewed, Also sent in song to be given away as download.

    The new site is looking good just a few little tweaks to make it more attractive needed.

  • colinmackinnon

    Hi folks,

    Interviews are only intended as occasional pieces, perhaps one a month. I have some interviewees in mind but we haven’t set dates yet to meet. Interviews are quite time-intensive as the editing process is trickier than when doing reviews.

    We have a small backlog of review material at the moment, but I’m not willing to compromise the quality of the reviews-the writers we have now are all very good (and very busy!) and so I don’t want to give stuff to people who aren’t up to it.

    Some people, like Alastair, have expressed a desire to do more live reviewing, and arranging guest lists is a job I’m trying to get round to-I do this, but I think I could be more systematic. In the main, the issue isn’t with promoters not granting press passes, it’s finding people with the time during the week to go along to gigs, and then spend several hours writing them up. It’s not a doddle, and not for everyone!

  • Thin Green Fred

    Ok song now up. Thanks. Go listen people it’s one of my better ones.

  • http://davidmurphyreviews.blogspot.com david

    In case it wasn’t obvious, my suggestions were pretty much a joke. It’s not my place to say who “should do” something.

    The fact is, there a hundred ways in which the site could be better, but they all depend on time and energy. To be honest, I think Colin does a great job of running things, & Simon’s made it look mighty nice. If either of them have ideas for additions & time to implement them, I say go for it, don’t ask for approval.

    The only reward 99% of people working in the arts get is the satisfaction of having done something entirely the way you wanted, so don;t be shy.