Kelemelan,
when I say outdated, I am not talking about pictures or news in general, I am referring to the forum feed which blatantly shows the lack of activity and participation here for a very long time.
This is one reason I personally have tried to make that front feed more active, by posting some activity here on the forums. I have placed promotion for this site, and the generator on my widely spread internet feeds, and am hoping to direct some traffic AND participation here, as I like what is here, and would really like to see it progress more.
Greg,
Your first line in your response is:
We wanted the community part of the homepage to be at the forefront.
To promote activity on the forums.
And this is one of my points exactly…. in order to promote activity, there must be a reason for people to want to join in…. no one wants to go to the dance, and be the first one on the floor, if you get my analogy….
AND my personal oppinion is that when I go to a website that involves art in any fashion, the first thing I want to see is art… strikingly awesome art, and I do not consider the video outdated (how can it be outdated with so many combinations to create lol) but it is an awesome visual to see upon arrival of the front page…. unfortunatly I and others have to scroll all the way down to find it, which most won’t do when overwhelmed with text.
There is plenty of room IMO to shift some of the boxes a bit to highlight the art, and the news/forum…. It is not like the video box takes up the whole front page, very little actually, but from my perspective the text does…. it takes up my entire screen, except for the thumbnails at the very top, the text is overwhelming…..
BUT, if say the video box and text areas were switched, I would actually see the entire video box AS WELL as half the news and forum text… For me, that is a much nicer visual experience.
Too much text, especially paragraphs worth of it, have been proven to turn potential customers or members away, because (proven) the mind needs to see an ad/sign/paragraph of text at least 5 times before it actually sinks in, this was proven in retail, and it also proves true in website business…. when encountering a page of text the first time, the instinct is to move on, because the attention needs to be hooked and reeled in before you can get someone to take the time to read….
Visuals on the other hand, even if the person is more audio, or sensual then visual, is a much better way to grab a persons attention, AND strike a chord in thier (insert whatever here, I choose souls) Visuals also make you want to see more, then create yourself in this case… Visuals were something I used often when my goal was to strike up excitement for the bands and shows I used to put together and promote. Text is dreary, visuals cause excitement and curiousity, which leads to reading, (under the visuals 😉 LMAO)
Anyway, just trying to help create a bit more life here… and they are only my oppinions after all.
Regards