My tip for the day!

Just back into the office from the ioko breakfast meeting this morning were I was recommended to have a look a look the beta site that is been setup by daragh cuddy(ex limelight networks guy) www.smugglersmusic.com. Interesting proposition, but will it work? Letting labels and artists create there own business rules around product while they adopt a similar structure to that of an e-bay or paypal ie advertising + nominal% of the price set for product?
Personally I can see some faults but I think that it just might work, what do the rest of the list think?

Ian - PWCUK

Several things about this...

What are they offering - it's not immediately apparent and looking about a bit I don't see any unique selling point here.

The website doesn't work using Internet Explorer 7 - just get blank boxes and a warning about a script that may cause my browser to go tits-up.

Clicked on the forum link and two thing happened - both of which are considered bad webdesign by any competent designer - new window and resized my browser.

The URL (Website address, the thing you type into your browser) remains the same no matter which page I am on - again bad design, how can I refer anyone to MY page? They'll always go to the homepage.

Using Flash makes it invisible to search engines - so I don't even gain an incoming link to my website.

The errors are so basic the whole thing lacks any credibility whatsoever - it is immediately obvious whoever did this has no idea of what they are doing.

If the simple basics are wrong what does that suggest about everything else?

So... it's a vague idea with no apparent benefit, poorly designed and poorly executed.

I cannot think of one thing that redeems this website except it is an example of how NOT to design a website.

You have to lose the pop ups on a site that you would expect to be as busy as it proclaims.

I shall show it to Mrs Mart later who is better at that stuff than me.

Also, apart from all the tech stuff, it`s about "names" in music, the Fab Chart works because it has names in amongst the "not so names",albeit a simpler site.

Another thing echoing on what Zoo said about Flash, for any web builder, I, for one, simply want the information, I don`t need an overture in Flash to gain it anymore or prove how powerful my computer is to display it.

Lets look at it this way Ian.

If I-Tunes opened up like that, would there be a music chart at all?

Keep at it.
m