Need opinions for EastAsianMusic.com

Hi all, I'm the owner of EastAsianMusic.com. The current site was built in one night with just a simple wordpress installations and then followed by posting of 800+ posts with music youtube videos embedded on it.

Currently our comment box is being spammed by bots, but anyway we're planning for a full or semi remake sometime very soon.

We want to expand our site into a community. I installed SMF forum just to test it out, but can anyone tell me if its more advisable to..


1) Continue to use WordPress (get a new customised layout), and install a WP-forum mod
or

2) Base on SMF forum, but install the portal and "announcement" mod.


Which one is more advisable? I want EAM (East Asian Music) to be a community by itself, not a one way traffic where there's no interaction between visitors. ☺

 

hmm please try again, somehow my webhosting at bluehost is slow tonight..

 

It is very dark and not very inviting at all, I think you need to change the layout.

 

+1 to the comment above. Give more colors to your site. Give it a more "music" feel. Also your sidebar is a little "dead" in terms of design.

 

a typical blog w/ text content and a little video, i can't sense any music stuff in it. make it more look like youtube or veoh front page

 

I agree with the above comments about adding a splash of color here and there, maybe work a bit more on the green that you have going ? The navigation links should stand out more (maybe these could be green), and I think you could do with a logo. Also, cut back on that tag cloud.. there is just an absolute sea of random words which is confusing..

The ad that I was served when I visited blended incredibly well with the site by the way, the colors matched exactly and I was convinced it was a part of the design (it was some music player control)

 

you may need recapcha for posting

 

If you use wordpress and want to make it a community website, then you might want to look into buddypress (buddypress.org) which is a social network/community plugin. As for your theme you should use a video or media theme. There are plenty out there that would fit much better then your current one. Simply google for "wordpress video themes"

 

Thanks for all the comments. Actually the main thing is not the design yet since I havent touch on that, just needa know whether to go for WP then install forums or go for SMF. But thanks anyway.

Thanks, will look indepth into this soon.

 

I am about to reply the same until I saw your reply. Use buddypress to maximize your visitors experience with your website interaction,.

 

not very well! hope you can come on ! do it better1