News for Manly Men Site

**Emancipator** · 06-28-2006, 06:28 PM

This is my new blog. Total time invested, 2hours. Custom coded blog system designed with a cms to make posting news VERY fast, and easy to navigate. Site is 98% completed.

Deliberately tried to keep it super simple and clean. www.avixion.ca

**Cutter** · 06-28-2006, 09:48 PM

Definately post more youtube vids; when people get the link they will share the link to your site and not youtube. This can be very effective if you have good traffic streams.

I would recommend that you make headlines a bit bigger.

**deronsizemore** · 06-29-2006, 07:42 AM

I really like the design! I wish I could throw something together like that in a couple hours.

The only thing that at first glance, pops out at me and kind of a turn off is that I felt like as soon as the site opened, you main content there on the homepages, resembles adsense ads. So if I didn't know otherwise, I would be wondering if this was just a spam page full of ads like you see alot of out there today.

Other than that I think everything looks clean and professional, nice colors, easy to read. Good work!

**Emancipator** · 06-29-2006, 08:36 AM

tehre are no ads anywhere on the mainpage so im a bit confused. Their are 3 feature images, and then the regular blog entries. Cutter I just updated the font on the mainpage to make it a bit bigger, hows that work for you?

**chromate** · 06-29-2006, 08:40 AM

I think with a media driven site like this it would be a good idea if each blog post included a picture. That way you're more likely to get people clicking through to see the entire post.

**Emancipator** · 06-29-2006, 09:16 AM

i should be clear its not a media driven blog, it is a news site. It just so happens that to start it off its about 50% video. I have deliberately avoided some features to keep the site simple. For example, complete site design, coding and 22 news items took 3hours. I can now add new news items with my "simple" cms in minutes.

Images is a fantastic idea but I am not sure that i can keep it simple enough to make this site a few minutes a week worth of work like my other sites

Thansk for the feedback, much appreciated!

**deronsizemore** · 06-29-2006, 12:08 PM

Originally Posted by Emancipator

tehre are no ads anywhere on the mainpage so im a bit confused. Their are 3 feature images, and then the regular blog entries. Cutter I just updated the font on the mainpage to make it a bit bigger, hows that work for you?

Yes, I realize they are not ads. At first glance, I just got the impression that they "looked" like ads.

Kinda like you might find on a parked page or something, like here: http://www.kyderby.net

I agree with each post having an image or two, I think that would really add that extra "something" to the site.

**Emancipator** · 06-29-2006, 12:11 PM

sorry deron gonna have to agree to disagree with you on the feature images.

I like having some visuals on the page. not sure how i could do an image or two on each news item but since i want to keep this site down to a 10minutes a month worth of maintenance for now im gonn pass on images on the mainpage, other then the features of course.

**deronsizemore** · 06-29-2006, 12:23 PM

I definitely understand that. The less work the better right? Good luck with it.

**Emancipator** · 06-29-2006, 01:32 PM

likely in a future version of my cms control system i will incorporate some of the image suggestions while still keeping news to teh simplest fashion possible. I can do 40 - 50 news items a day in under 1hours work on all my sites and really try to keep it that way.

**deronsizemore** · 07-10-2006, 11:51 AM

Was this just a template you used for the site design or custom?

I came across this site which looks exactly like yours....

http://blog.wttalk.com/

**Johnny Gulag** · 07-10-2006, 02:18 PM

Hello

According to the .css file for the link you posted Deron it is a Template monster Template

/*
Theme Name: Fighting the Darkness
Theme URI: http://www.templatemonster.com
Description: centered on page, sidebar on right on all views, round corners, dark background
Version: 1.5
Author: Template Monster
*/

**deronsizemore** · 07-10-2006, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by Johnny Gulag

Hello

According to the .css file for the link you posted Deron it is a Template monster Template

Ahh!

Didn't look at the .css file. Just making sure someone hadn't already taken Emancipator's design.

**vahsi000** · 07-16-2006, 08:35 AM

emancipator, i don't think you have answered the question where the ads/ if there are going to be ads on your news blog site...

**Emancipator** · 07-16-2006, 06:14 PM

Originally Posted by deronsizemore

Was this just a template you used for the site design or custom?

I came across this site which looks exactly like yours....

http://blog.wttalk.com/

Yep yep its a free template. Got from TemplateMonster ( I Believe ). Normally I would buy a template, but this one is simple and for me it works. sorry for the delayed response

And I would not be surprsied to see something taken so quickly. I like to buy templates, strip em down to the bare bones of what I need and go with em. Sometimes ( 5 or 6 times ) I buy a completely custom design.