If someone can watch all your videos on a site like Blip.TV, Vimeo or even Youtube - which probably already has a great viewing experience - Why should they come to your site? what's the compelling reason? I think this is the main question that needs to be answered and thought about before you start redesigning your site.
If you can't clearly answer that then your site needs to be more of an "About Me" page with links to your stuff. On the other hand, if Blip.TV is the only place you have videos and you are just using them as a virtual hard drive then you need to do some serious work on your site. Sorry, I don't have a clear answer but you really need to put some time and money into it if you want your site to be a hub. You have to give people a reason to come back. Honestly, with the concept of RSS feeds in full effect, I never go to anyone's site anymore. I watch all your videos in my Google reader. The only reason for me to go to your site would be to leave a comment. The problem there is I usually never read the response unless I'm subscribed to the comments via email: like Rupert does on his blog (that helps). For those that want dynamic related posts. I found a WP plugin here: http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/ It doesn't do thumbnails but it has great options to show related posts (probably the best). I'm currently trying to modify it to show thumbnails. The main issue with thumbnails is that you need to manually attach a thumbnail to your post and specify that this thumbnail is for the video (like is currently done with the vPIP plugin). Still some work there. I'm trying to figure out how to get it to find thumbnails automatically, like it is done in the BlipIt plugin: http://www.bravenewcode.com/blipit/ Anyway... more work ahead. Michael Aivaliotis --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Heath" <heathpa...@...> wrote: > > I agree about the content, and google reader and RSS, etc make things > very easy, but when people do come to my site, after maybe seeing a > video for the first time....I want it to look as visually appealing > as possible and to be able to showcase some of my best stuff and > other things/vlogs I like, etc....for me it's more about the "look" > of the site..... > > I do think you are also right in that it's best to showcase video's > on a standalone sight, but then again, how do you get people over > there? Just a header link, an "ad" on your site, etc... > > We spent so much time talking about content, how to make video, how > to set up RSS feeds, how to promote your site, etc...but the layout > and design we just have pretty much accepted what is out there and > made due.....let's change that! > > Heath > http://heathparks.com
