Help and advice regarding a website?

10 Answers

1. Nice looking site.
   
   Do you have any deals with the record companies so that you have the right to sell the songs tagged in music bricks laid by users of the site? You can buy songs for about 40p and sell for around a pound if my memory serves me correctly.
   
   Adam
   
   
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   Answered by Adam Arnold, November 2007   -  Contact this person
2. Thanks Adam,
   
   That's a great idea! I'll have a look around.
   
   Do you mean talking to Amazon and intergrating a system of thiers into musicbrick, or do you mean talking directly with record companies.
   
   
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   Answered by Mart b, November 2007   -  Contact this person
3. Hi Mart,
   
   It's an excellent concept! I guess my comments fall into two areas 1. Usability 2. Money!
   
   When I first came to the site I was puzzled – what did it do / what was it for? (What is the mortar between the bricks?) I looked for an ‘About’ page but I couldn’t find one. So I clicked on the FAQ – but all that told me was how to add a video (why would I want to?) Then, quite by chance I clicked on a brick – James Morrison – and read your commentary. Suddenly it all made sense and I loved the idea. I think you need to give people an explicit reason to get involved right at the top of the index page – move your explanation at the bottom of the home page to the top. Somewhere to get more details should also be included – an easily accessible ‘About’ page based on your commentary would be perfect or a simple faq (as apposed to a technical one). This page is also very helpful http://www.musicbrick.com/what_is_a_musicbrick.aspx but it’s buried in the navigation.
   
   Regarding Money, I’m assuming it would be helpful if this at least paid for itself or even turned you a small profit? It would be simple to set up affiliate relationships with Amazon or iTunes for sales – you could then take a cut of any referrals you make. (Check out this site: http://www.commercialbreaksandbeats.co.uk for how this could work) The other obvious option would be advertising. You’d need to consider this carefully – you could run Google ads which is easy, but you have very little control over what appears or if you have time to dedicate you can sell ad space your self (or employ an agency to do it for you) – you’ll need to get your hit rate up to good level to attract advertisers).
   
   Your target audience is very similar to that of Facebook, myspcae and bebo. Have you considered some sort of integration with these social networking sites to drive traffic?
   
   Anyway, that’s just of the top of my head – there’s a ton of potential here! I hope this is helpful – best of luck. Phin
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   Answered by Phineas Wenlock, November 2007   -  Contact this person
4. I would like to start by saying a big thanks to the members/entrepreneurs in answering the questions posted thoughout the forum. At last there seems to be a place were people can come and receive good constructive information and advice... It's a fantastic site!
   
   Phin, thanks for your comments and for taking the time to look around, I'm chasing up on your comments as I write this, I've started creating profiles, accounts in facebook, myspace etc. I'm a bit worried about the scepticism musicbrick.com might create; advertising another website in myspace, bebo and the likes and I'll look into creating an 'about' at the top of the page.
   
   martin
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   Answered by Mart b, November 2007   -  Contact this person
5. Hi Martin,
   
   To clarify, I was actually refering to hosting advertising on your site to generate some revenue (although I would not worry about advertising yourself on these sites - it happens all the time). You should consider some form of revenue generation so musicbrick supports itself.
   
   Regarding integration with social networking sites, creating profiles is an excellent start. You could also think about a deeper integration if you have the developer resources - I thought a Facebook application using Musicbrick could prove very popular. (http://developers.facebook.com/) An application that allowed people to build mini-walls in their profiles or ‘share’ bricks with friends could work very well.
   
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   Answered by Phineas Wenlock, November 2007   -  Contact this person (Edited on 2007-11-27 15:42:37)
6. Hi Martin,
   
   I mean talking to Sony etc etc directly. I saw something on Dragons Den recently in which someone designed a music website that could mix dance tracks and the owner was getting music directly from the producers at 40p a pop including VAT.
   
   Unfortunately I don't know enough about the technology behind it to comment on whether or not you could go via Amazon, iTunes etc. I guess it would be possible....
   
   Good luck with it!
   
   Ad
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   Answered by Adam Arnold, November 2007   -  Contact this person
7. Thanks Adam, sorry for not coming back sooner, I'll check out the Dragons Den archive and see what's there.
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   Answered by Mart b, December 2007   -  Contact this person
8. Nice idea. The Wall needs to be done more like Google Maps - so that you can move around a lot more easily. And idenitfying other bricks by the same user would be quite cute. AJAX is the techy stuff that will let you do some stuff beyond what you have.
   
   Get some affiliate deals going asap - easy to do and at the moment it doesnt matter with who. At the moment you are just trying to figure out if visitors will click though to buy stuff. Once they start clicking you'll be able to make things better. once you have some affiliates in place then set up a low cost google adwords campaign (tenner a day) to see what happens.
   
   nice idea. best of luck.
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   Answered by alex ogilvie, January 2008   -  Contact this person
9. Thanks Alex, again apologies for not coming back sooner, been pushing musicbrick.com quite hard and I've been quite pleased witt the results... slow and steady with some nice feedback.
   
   Initially when the website was being designed, the google maps idea was put on the table but the costing was way out of my price range... i would love to do it in the future.
   
   I'm still hoping that someone in the media; radio/mags/newspapers takes a shine to it, I'm still knocking at their doors but sometimes it seems like a thankless task.
   
   Thanks very much for your comments once again
   
   martin
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   Answered by Mart b, January 2008   -  Contact this person
10. Martin
    
    - keep checking on the google maps type costing - things are getting cheaper to do by the week at the moment.
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    Answered by alex ogilvie, February 2008   -  Contact this person