I created Tech Docket with the intention of covering details of the various technology lawsuits found around the web. The main page is running Joomla CMS. The blog is powered by WordPress and the discussion forums is running on phpBB. Please give me some feedback on the setup. The two I am concerned about are the front page and the blog. I currently have no monetization so no AdSense or anything. I just want to get the buzz up before adding that to the site. Front page: http://www.techdocket.com Weblog: http://www.techdocket.com/blog Forums: http://www.techdocket.com/forum
Personally, I love the presentation and layout of the blog and really dislike the layout of the homepage. My suggestion ... tie them together. I like sites with blogs better when the integration is seamless so it really feels like a single site. Harder to do with forums, but with the right color and font selection you should be able to tie that in a bit more too. Example: http://www.seomoz.org/ Very niche topic ... I would find it interesting if it were kept up to date. On the forums, a forum where people can discuss cases seems to be missing. "General" is usually for off-topic posts. I expected to see a forum for "Trademark/Copyright Infringement", "Patent Suits", "Employee Suits", "Class Action Suits", etc. where people could post and discuss about any case they wanted.
The goal of the forums is to replace the Comments on the blog. The visitor will read the blog post, then go over to the forums where they can discuss so much more than just the post itself. I can add forums that are more generic, but i plan to keep the current scheme where there is one forum dedicated to each case covered in the blog. Once the case is settled it is moved into an archived category. Thanks for the feedback. I may change the redirect to point to the blog instead of to the Joomla page. Joomla is great, but it's a pain to get setup properly. I'll make some adjustments to the colors of the forums to more closely match the blog as well. Additionally, i need to find someone who can make a really nice logo for the forums... Thanks again,