quote: Original post by Jester101
What this has changed:
The visitors know that "sponsored listings" not necessarily mean that they are the best. On the other hand the developer gets better exposure.
The editors pick gives me the opportunity to test & promote the best products = good for the visitor.
On the other hand the developer that only had a 3 star program in the old system, can still link back and get a sponsor award.
And last but not least: I can still give few programs very special exposure for extraordinary reasons.

It''s nice to finally see someone willing to accept suggestions and constructive criticism without having a defensive fit. I admire your commitment to change (for the better) and your openness to suggestions.

Your new system sounds great and you''re right, it favours both the visitor and the developer, so you certainly get my thumbs up. The only little caveat is: "the developer that only had a 3 star program in the old system, can still link back and get a sponsor award". If you mean software with a 3 star rating, then my suggestion would be to remove it completely. Since you have no use for ratings because you hand-pick the best, there shouldn''t be anything less than 5 stars. And seriously, if I were to start shareware shopping again, I would choose your site over countless others simply because I would know that you''re doing the hard work of finding the best (assuming you''ve earned my trust as a visitor).

As a final note, I suggest you keep thinking by yourself as opposed to trying to copy what other download sites do. Dare to be different and give visitors and sponsors an extra reason to come to YOUR site and help them see why it''s not just another one of those misleading download sites. I did the same with Yamisoft BBS back in the day and became one of the VERY few profitable home-based BBS''s. Look at what others do and do it better.

I''ll stop babbling now before I''m accused of flooding the thread. Your efforts and revised proposition have convinced me to place your site on the top of my submission list. Keep up the good work!

Yamisoft Entertainment Inc.

quote: Any other suggestions (I am really interested in any criticism).

The individual genre pages take waayyyyyyyy too long to load, because you''ve embedded the full screenshots into the page. For the love of God, use individual thumbnails! :D

- Chris

I don''t have anything to sell, so i can view this site as a consumer. Here are some comments (i hope this helps).

At the top "Read now" and "bookmark now" links sound like commands, which make it feel a bit unfriendly. Specially the "Read now" indicates 5 reasons, but the title on that pages says "ten reasons". The second reason you say that other sites claim to test the software but don''t. According to this thread you don''t test them all as well, so you lie. The main problem with complaining about others is that it will back fire on you. Consumers are confronted with sneaky practices of download and shareware sites, WHILE they visit your site. Why would you be any different (it takes one to know one). If i were you i would remove these reasons, and also the bookmark this now link.

About the layout. The third column is not working very well. It adds too much white space in your other too columns. I have too scroll down too see the top featured listening (on a 19 inch screen!!!). I would suggest removing the header search and news and make the right column really one column. Start with the search box and make the background blue. Then put these to adds in the box below with a gray or white background and then the rest follows (so it is one table following the blue gray blue scheme. The old news can finish this table. The links and add that follow should be replaced under the top featured listing. Also if the third column gets too long, just remove some news or reduce the amount of text. The news is not relevant for consumers, it''s only there to show that it is an active site that''s still is alive.

The gray on the first two columns work but can be just a little darker. I would suggest starting with blue because is follows a white heading. I am not a big fan of the colon dot delimiters in the headers. Also i would remove the red bars from the top featured listing. It jumps out too much ruining the composition of the page. If you have a clean gray on blue scheme then the picture of the game or the box is enough to attract the attention. The width of the top featured listing should be the same as the top two columns. Underneath the top feat list i would again make two columns, the left one containing the links and the right one containing the add (the things from the bottom of the third column)

The pages of the categories look oke (also here i would swap the blue and gray). But the very bold gray line around the table with the downloads look a bit eh..... well, i do not know if this international the case but here in the netherlands you would find such lines in the papers around the announcements of the people that died. I gave me a strong association with death.....

I hope you don''t feel offended by my nagging. I just hope it helps making the look and feel a bit more professional.....