Flashden

[claire25]

Hi guys, we just launched a site called Flashden.net. Basically you can sell flash, audio, video and fonts on there (and buy them too).

http://www.flashden.net (http://www.flashden.net/)

As the members of Kirupa are the type of people we want selling on the site, I was hoping I could get some feedback!

I'll be checking back regularly, but if you want to email me my address is: cyan@flashden.net

Thanks!!

[Templarian]

Very nice site design and purpose can't wait what goes up on the site.

claire25 very nice site. This probably won't be deleted just moved to either S&C or Sale/Job forum.

(fix this see when I verify my account.)
Your account has been verified. You can now upload files and purchase credits! <br><br> <strong>Interested in uploading files to FlashDen and making Cash?</strong> You can do so by clicking on the "Become an Author" link in the menu and taking a short tutorial and quiz.

[claire25]

Hey Templarian,

Do you mean you're seeing the html tags coming up? Ugh - that's not good! What browser are you using?

Yeah - I think it probably will be moved... I wasn't quite sure where to put it :)

Thanks for your help!!!

[Templarian]

Yea... it was when I activated from email. Loven the site currently setting up my details and profile and stuff.

[NANO3]

very beautiful design! looks great. innovative idea.

I haven't signed up yet, but will sometime in the near future. :thumb:

[claire25]

Hmm - I just told our programmer about it and he's going to do a fix. Thanks for pointing that out! I just checked your page - I like your dragon.

[Templarian]

Cool... also under upload a file the pictures should also be clickable not just the link not big but yea the sites pretty much perfect so its mostly just small things (i'd use the suggestion thing, but yea this threads here).

[w1sh]

sexy... *drools*
will use this site. definitely. great idea.

[Leoni]

have you got a mailing list?

if so...could you put me on it...I would like to know when you have the site up-and-running...cause I might be interested in joining...

GreetZ,

Leoni
www.leodesign.nl (http://www.leodesign.nl)

[evildrummer]

I have signed up for an account and done the 'author' test/quiz thing BUt havent uploaded anything yet, The site is nice clean and easy to use all the colour scheme is nice as all the colours compliment each other.

[claire25]

Thanks guys! The four of us have been working on it for 6 months, so its our baby!!

Leoni - when you become a member you're given the option to join the mailing list. Basically you can join the site now and upload stuff, even buy stuff if you want. But right now we're mostly looking for content (and clearing up the little bugs that keep appearing!!!). Then when we have enough content we'll start advertising etc.

[ApixDesigns]

awsome work. it is very sleek and appealing. i love the way you incorperated flash to it!!! the only thing that i didnt like was the nav. its boring and ugly. im positive you can think of something better for the navigation. great work though.

btw. is it a tutorial site?

[112am]

You guys are very GOOD (http://www.thegoodness.com.au/) :thumb2:

Keep up the good work!

[claire25]

Thanks 112am! Yeah, Good is the company I work for during the day (and Flashden in my night job)!

Apix, it does have a couple of tutorials on there now (and eventually many more), but its primarily a flash stock site where anybody that's interested (provided they meet a minimum design/skill requirement) can sell their stuff. And hopefully everyone will make money, and have a nice flashy community!

I know what you mean about the nav. I don't think its ugly, but i do wish we could have something a little more interesting. The programmer we work with, Ryan, insisted that the nav be very straight-forward for a site like this (I think because of the number of pages and the potential for them to increase exponentially)! I don't know, I'm soooo crap at programming so I wouldn't know, but either way he seemed to think it was important! maybe down the track we can work on something a little more flashy...
Thanks for the feedback!!

[w1sh]

The four of us have been working on it for 6 months
Omg... Wow.

So far as the buttons go. They're ok. I'm not upset with them. Yes they could be fancy-pantsy, but that wouldn't mesh well with the simplicity design you went with.

You could however make their text a few pixels bigger.

And yes, you should definitely program in a small form on the toolbar to "Alert me when FlashDen Launches!"
Allow around 10 free trades to anyone who submits any content to the site before it opens.
Then when you've fixed all the bugs and have a lot of content, Alert everyone.

From my stance, I'd go to the site, but if there wasn't a lot of content, I probably wouldn't be interested in staying. However, you give people a motivation to submit content to the site before it opens, and then open with a lot of content... :D

Goodluck. As the consensus says, great idea. I really hope you guys execute this well and make a massively popular site.

Oh and kudos to your programmer. They've done excellent work. Aside from the verification system... that needs work... I'm still not sure if I am registered/verified :\

You might want to secure flashden.com as well.

Edit: bwahaha, I get only 25%/sale... lmao... nevermind. never using that. Maybe if it was 50/50 and when you upgrade by selling more, it could go up to a maximum 75/25. But hell no 25/75 T.T

Not to mention, your XBox contest is whack.. 2xjump is just submitting a few old animations he had in different hues and he has 155 credits?! This site has so much potential, dont squander it.
I want Butters to win because all of his stuff is different/better.
However, Studio4 isn't cheating :)
Still tho. Screw 2xjump and his 10 different colors per submission strategy.

[Templarian]

Okay I did find something thats been bugging me... I can't search for a users name and see their profile. Or am I missing something.

//edit, also can you add a way to say what version of flash we are running in our details (not to give your programmer more work or anything).

[claire25]

That's a really good point, Templarian. It would be good to search by user. I've passed that on to Ryan and he's added it to the 'to do' list. I'm thinking maybe a member directory might be good. Thanks!!

As for extra details, we did consider doing that, but then realized it would be really difficult because we also have people working on video, audio and fonts (each using a variety of programs etc). We might do it down the track. For the time being you can have it in your profile description i guess!

[Templarian]

^Oh yea good idea probably best not to have that... people can also see the version numbers for the downloads so it doesn't matter.

Thanks for adding that I was just bored and wanted to see who had accounts (most are new like me and haven't contributed anything yet).

Another thing even though flash 8 hasn't been haxored yet (that i've seen), are you encrypting the .swf's that are being viewed?

[claire25]

W1sh, sorry - I didn't see you'd added lots to your last post! 2xjump actually works for us :blush:

She's not eligeable to win the comp (ie. another bug - she shouldn't be on the list at all) - so Butters is in the lead! Butters has been such a legend and uploaded lots of stuff and given us lots of feedback, so I'm backing him all the way...

Studio 4 has done some gorgeous loops though, I agree. To explain the percentage, we've started it low because when we launch out of beta all profits go back to advertising to get the site really moving. We don't expect to make any profit ourselves for some time (as in a couple of years). We agreed we'd keep it to average (see istockphoto.com (http://www.istockphoto.com) at 20% for photography stock), and then increase commision percentage when the site took off.

Does that sound ok? I'd hate people to think we were trying to rip them off!!!

[claire25]

Templarian, to be honest I'm not really sure! Should check that out...

I must say though that you'd have to be pretty damn cheap to steal a file that was worth a buck or two. I'd like to think that when people know its another individual that they're stealing from who made that file, they'd shell out the cash. But maybe I'm idealistic :sigh:

[Anogar]

I think you may be being idealistic. :-/

The ActionScript is completely open. I downloaded and decompiled a few of them and was given full access to the code without any hassle whatsoever. Don't worry, I'm not going to use the code - I've got the preloader thing pretty well down by this point. ;) They're all very basic right now, so it isn't as if there is anything advanced and clever in the code that needs to be protected, but it's a flaw nonetheless.

[claire25]

Wow, that's a bit scary! Thanks for letting me know! =)

Do you know of any ways to protect them? Maybe I'm showing my ignorance here, but I have no idea where to start on doing that...

[Templarian]

http://www.amayeta.com/

Think of it as a very important investment to your company/community. Should protect the files enough for them to go :wt: and just buy it.

[Anogar]

Yeah, that's a good program. However, you may need to have your community members do it, if they're the ones that upload the file. Not sure how that would work. :-/ The vast majority of Flash pages are vulnerable to decompiling, it's an interesting thing.

[claire25]

Hmmm - thanks for the advice. I checked up on Amayeta and it looks like its worth going for. We have to change the format of the video files when we receive them, so I can't imagine it would be such a big deal to use Amayeta for flash files on our end? I'm sure we can do something to make it a bit harder, anyway!

Thanks for the tip, guys!

[w1sh]

The percentage might be standard, but still, you should strive to have the best deal possible for the users (as to increase popularity of your site). I'd suggest you figure out how much it costs to host the files and then take a very small percentage of that until your site gets popular, then figure out new ways to make money from it.

I dunno, just a huge turn off for me to spend a long time making something and then sell it for a quarter of the value. Although it may be fair, it seems like a ripoff to me. Are you really spending ~75% of each sale hosting those?
Maybe you could counteract that once you get big with a banner or 2.

I'm just lookin' out for the little man. You know how it goes :)

Also, I really don't like the fact I have to go through a ton of yellow-tape just to be allowed to submit content. Maybe you could cut that quiz down from 17 questions to 10, or less.

On the plus side, I love your "How it Works" intro on the main-page. It's hilarious/gorgeous.

[Templarian]

^where are you getting 75% its 25% of each file. It sounds pretty fair, they are have their system doing all the real work and are checking for quality.

I'd rather have the site AD free, based on the fact its making a profit from the work and it would make it look ugly.

The yellow tape is actually very nice and seriously only takes a few min to read the docs and answer the short quiz.

[matthewjumps]

i like this site a lot. great concept - seems like overall its well executed.

some little gripes:

1.) 25% :hurt: that is a turn-off. hopefully people will overlook it...

2.) The menu on the left really is very boring. at least make the font-size a little bigger, and make the roll-over background-color a bit more distinct....

oh and get a favicon :D