Digital Media Thoughts has been around now for eight months, which is long enough to work out most of the technical kinks and get down to the task of providing the best Web site possible. So the question is, are we doing that? I think we got off to a good start, but there's always room to do better.
One of the challenges unique to Digital Media Thoughts, unlike Pocket PC Thoughts or Smartphone Thoughts, is that the topic area is very broad. This site has the most far-reaching topic area of any Thoughts Media site, and that's both positive and negative. On the up side, there's no shortage of news and cool stuff for us to talk about - anything related to digital media is fair game. The down side is that because our topic area is so broad, our forums have been slow to take off because the focus is so broad.
I never envisioned this site being a better digital camera site than dpreview.com - but I did envision it serving as a hub of information for sites like dpreview, filtering and focusing the best of digital media-related content on the Web today. I think we're doing a decent job at that, and we're publishing a couple of reviews a week now, which I'm thrilled to see.
How can we do better? What sorts of things would make this site more useful to you? Do we do too much of one thing, or not enough of another? I'm open to constructive criticism, but be gentle please. ;-)
I'm a frequent visitor to DMT, as a find it a convenience to have all digital media news in one place with an easy-on-the-eyes layout. In terms of content, I find DMT to usually be very much "on the ball" with new posts, but there are often a few days where only three or four new posts are made, while perhaps the day before there were twice that amount.
Regarding forums, I think there are too many forums offered by DMT at this point. There seem to be a forum for just about anything, which could be daunting to a new user. Once the forum becomes established, adding other sub forums could be a working endeavor.
I'm unware if you've been doing this, but having dedicated moderators per each forum to initiate conversation usually helps stimulate discussion.
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pocketnow.com
it's all about portability...
I frequent both DMT and PPCT, and I'm grateful you and your team have put in the time and effort to have these sites. You present knowledge on technology in an organized fashion and I've learned a lot just by reading through the daily articles/discussions.
I'm far from a digital expert, so I only post when I feel that my experience is pertintent to the discussion. I think there are many who feel the same way, so you lack the posts, but I still think you have members dropping in to check on the latest articles/discussions.
If you want to increase postings, I would like to see weekly poll-type questions where you ask the members their experience with a segment of the industry (ie Who is using what brand/type of flash media?). It would get the ball rolling, and as people give their experiences, there would be replies and other questions generated.
The poll would be useful for you from a marketing point, allowing you to approach vendors like Linksys or iRiver for products for review or even affiliate link specials to offer the DMT membership.
I would also like to see more interviews with people in the industry. If you or Suhit schedule an interview and give DMT members the heads-up, we could then offer questions we would want you to ask them. I think this type of interaction is exciting for members and something that would set your site apart from others.
I posted this the other day in the Community Forum regarding the Message boards being a bit much with too little discussion going on...
Quote:
There are far too many boards and far too few postings to justify them. Please consider compressing the boards.
This will help stimulate the boards and if the boards end up being over run, then the moderators should suggest splitting a board when that happens.
Also "Community Discussion" should head all discussions
It is of the upmost benefit to the site that visitors see it as an active site.
Compression Example:
Digital Photography>
"PC and Mac Software for Digital Photography"
"Printing Your Photos"
"Digital Cameras and Accessories"
"Digital Imaging Hardware"
I love DMT, my only "complaint" is that it does not have near the following of PPCT. I would love to see that kind of participation in this area. Unfortunately, I don't have much in the way of suggestions on how to improve it. I'd concur with the other sentiments though. Instead of catagories for each hardware vendor, just roll them up into hardware.
I personally think DMT could be improved at these points:
Clear "mission statement" (aka. slogan) -- that defines DMT and what DMT is about. Sort of like "News and views on photography, video and the software inbetween." People like to know what the site they are visiting is all about. Digital media can be just about anything digital to some, depending on how they define digital media.
Shorten the forums, at least a bit. The list is quite lenghty and it is hard to find the right place for posting. It will then apper cleaner and more organized, with more people willing to take the dare to post something. When DMT starts to grow, add to the forums list to widen the discussions.
Talking about the forums, there are topics that I miss: digital TV hardware and software (belongs under digital video?), and digital storage (external drives, burners, memory, tapes... etc.).
Cross-Thought Media-sites news in a small ad-like box on the front page of PPCT and SPT. Sort of a "have a look at the news over at DMT" and a short rundown of the latest posted news over at DMT. This could attract a whole lot of the off-topic digital media posts over at PPCT to DMT, and people also.
Other than that, DMT is sure a great site that many people unfortunately miss and we need to start spreading the word about DMT. It would be great if DMT could get listed on Google News, but that happens only when it becomes a renowned news site (as PPCT is). Anyone got any scandalous to write for DMT regarding digital media that we could try to get slashdotted? :P
And to you who are mainly reading DMT and not posting your thoughts; shout it out now, when you have the chance to express your thoughts -- it is what this site is all about!
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Filip Norrgård:: My blog @ filips.net
I love the news you all post everyday. I find I keep coming back here many times a day just to see what's new. I generally post on the topics linked to articles, but I rarely surf the forums.
I find the forums have way too many categories. Some of them don't even have any posts at all. I suggest you broaden the topics in the forums, e.g. instead of having a "canon cameras" and "sony cameras" forums, just remove those and group them with a "digital cameras" forum. It makes surfing through the forums easier as one doesn't have to go to five different categories just to see posts related to the same subject.
Also, I agree with the above poster that posting more polls would help get the ball rolling with the forums. Finally, this site desperately lacks reviews. I think more reviews about anything digital-media related is absolutely necessary.
Here is another idea I think was brought up a while back. Sometime the same story is posted on multiple sites, but there are three seperate discussion threads a combined discussion would help tie the sites together.
...I find DMT to usually be very much "on the ball" with new posts, but there are often a few days where only three or four new posts are made, while perhaps the day before there were twice that amount.
Some days there's just not much news, but we can certainly improve upon our level of consistency - we're looking to grow the team to help flesh out more content.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Miniman
Regarding forums, I think there are too many forums offered by DMT at this point.
It's funny, I trimmed/merged about five forums a few weeks ago, but obviously I didn't quite do enough. ;-) I agree though we should simplify our forum structure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Miniman
I'm unaware if you've been doing this, but having dedicated moderators per each forum to initiate conversation usually helps stimulate discussion.
That's actually something that we've never done on any site - moderators to me are people who moderate discussions, deal with breaches of site policy, etc. Front-page editors are the people who are supposed to get the discussions going, but I'll think about it some more. :-)
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