YTCentral - Constructive Criticism Wanted

SeanIAm

Hey,
I was just looking for some constructive criticism for my new site YTCentral.com (link - http://www.ytcentral.com)

I've spent the last few weeks designing the site but at the moment it's just in it's basic form. I tried to get it up and running as quick as possible.

What's the site about?
Well, a little while ago I had a YouTube channel that never got off the ground which I wanted to sell. I couldn't find an appropriate place to sell it on so I made my own! At the moment it's the only website which allows users to sell YouTube channels, backgrounds and intros etc.

Also, one thing I am really excited about is allowing users to sell their videos to advertisements so they can earn from YouTube without being a partner. They now have a place to sell their own adspace.

For the first month there is free 30 day adverts by entering the coupon code YTCLaunch101, so if you want to test that be my guest!

Thanks,
Sean

Cianos

Hey,
Interesting idea, good luck with it. Is selling channels or video space in this way within the Ts+Cs of youtube?

What's to stop video owners just removing someones ad? There's no description of a term of agreement in the ads.

Do you have a way of verifying whether the person actually owns the video? What happens if the video gets taken down because it was using copyrighted material etc?

On the look of the site, there's quite a lot going on really. I think the slideshow is too distracting and isn't quite necessary. It's getting in the way of the ad-content which is the whole point of the site and is what shows you have value.

I'm not a big fan of the red either, nor the splats and drippy text. It's just a bit amateurish looking and doesn't quite build an image of a trustworthy marketplace - I'd have a look around other marketplace sites and see if there's a common visual theme you think works for them, then build something from that.

Re the red, I presume you're using it because of the red of youtube, but it's not necessary, the youtube brand is so well established that people have enough recognition with it just by the name/context. No need to mimic your brand off theirs, and red is an unsettling colour anyway. In fact, on youtube itself the only part of the design that is red for the whole site is the bit in the logo.

Finally, I don't think the Featured Listings section should be moving. And I don't think in their current format they're very 'featured' as the icons are too small and little room for text. If you could reduce them in number by one or two and increase the size of each one it'd work better imo.

Hope some of that helps.

Overflow

You should check out fiverr.com. Perhaps forget the website and just focus on selling your services on fiverr.

You can get everything you offered there plus much more and each job only costs $5

SeanIAm

@ Cianos Thanks for taking the time to have a lool at it! Means a lot to me.
-Selling your own adspace on youtube has been allowed on YouTube for a few years now. As for the selling channels, I'm not so sure if that's allowed. It's also very hard to do as the email is needed too, so the email has to come with it

-At the moment I've no tools in place to properly check if someone owns a channel, it's down to the users.

-As for the red and splats, yeah I get what you're saying they are kinda amaturish but at the moment I'm going to have to keep it as it is. If the website ever takes off I'll get it properly designed

Thanks

SeanIAm

Overflow wrote: »

You should check out fiverr.com. Perhaps forget the website and just focus on selling your services on fiverr.

You can get everything you offered there plus much more and each job only costs $5

Well, that's missing the point altogether haha. If I had the services that would be a direction to go in but I'm relying on others with services for my website.
Thanks for the ideas though.

Overflow

SeanIAm wrote: »

Well, that's missing the point altogether haha. If I had the services that would be a direction to go in but I'm relying on others with services for my website.
Thanks for the ideas though.

Yeah, that's what fiverr is, only much more !

Trojan

I actually like the concept.

Not crazy about the name/domain - is "YT" a common or recommended* way to refer to YouTube? If so it's better than I thought. If not, I'd consider something else, maybe 'TubeCentral or similar lines.

Implementation needs a good bit of work - Cianos has nailed it with his comments above, I can't add much to that - read and implement.

* In the WordPress world, Automattic officially sanction "WP" as a way to refer to "WordPress" in domains without violating their trademark

SeanIAm

Trojan wrote: »

I actually like the concept.

Not crazy about the name/domain - is "YT" a common or recommended* way to refer to YouTube? If so it's better than I thought. If not, I'd consider something else, maybe 'TubeCentral or similar lines.

Implementation needs a good bit of work - Cianos has nailed it with his comments above, I can't add much to that - read and implement.

* In the WordPress world, Automattic officially sanction "WP" as a way to refer to "WordPress" in domains without violating their trademark

Thanks For Checking It Out! Regarding the domain name, I didn't want to violate the YouTube trademark and also wanted to keep the domain name short and sweet. Yes, YT is a common enough way to refer to YouTube and some sites have already built a name for themselves with YT in it, example (http://yttalk.com/), this is the biggest YouTube forum at the moment.

Thanks, I'll re-read over Cianos comment.