Suggestions & Ideas you have for the Community

[OsCKilO]

I think we have a great forum here, filled with GREAT people of around the world, but is this enough to attract more people to join in? No, simply because people don't know about this forum. If you search Boss BR-600 (or other BR than the Micro) on Google, our forum will show up in the 7th page!

How can we attract more people to populate the other recorders forums?
With website marketing and promotion. I've to admit this is a world I've never been a fan, but I think it is extremely important. I'm still reading about the best ways to promote our forum, so for now I won't post any suggestions, if you have any I will be glady appreciated!

Why not have a Myspace for the Forum........

There is a Powerful line up/stable of musicians here....

Most with soundclick sites... (So the players can be featured on the site)...

Would get a lot of people on here......







Or write to Boss.....  I'm Sure we have all thought about it.....

[Pedro]

Also, refering to the idea of rearranging the Post Your MP3 to Originals, Covers and Instrumentals:

For a long time I've been thinking of adding a playlist (like Ted suggested) that played the 5 most recent songs regardless of where they were recorded on, coupled with a link to the song topic. This would be a way of making all boards equaly exposed.

[Pedro]

A Myspace and a Soundclick, very good idea.

Or write to Boss.....  I'm Sure we have all thought about it.....

I've thought about that and wonder what would their response be.

[OsCKilO]

Or write to Boss.....  I'm Sure we have all thought about it.....

I've thought about that and wonder what would their response be.

They would wonder what you want from them and hide their cheque books......


It would be important to offer free advertising and Advice to customers for them to be interested.....

And I would have to remove my boob posts..........

[64Guitars]

For a long time I've been thinking of adding a playlist (like Ted suggested) that played the 5 most recent songs regardless of where they were recorded on, coupled with a link to the song topic. This would be a way of making all boards equaly exposed.

That would be really cool and I'm sure it could be accomplished with the multi-song version of the MP3 player gadget that we're already using:

   http://flash-mp3-player.net/players/multi/preview/

It would be great to have it at the top of the main page between the main menu and the boards. I think we might need to keep more than 5 songs though. Otherwise, they'll get pushed off the list too quickly by new songs.

I would very much like to see the multi-song version of the player added to the site and made available to members in the "Introduce Yourself" board. Then each member could maintain a playlist of their own songs for others to check out. A few members have already created song lists on their "Introduce Yourself" page....

Bluesberry

Geir

Osckilo

Saijinn Maas

Tony W

But these could be so much better if members had access to the multi-song MP3 player to embed in their "Introduce Yourself" posts.

What do you think, Pedro?  Can we have a multi-song MP3 player?  Pleeease??

[Ted]

I think we have a great forum here, filled with GREAT people of around the world, but is this enough to attract more people to join in? No, simply because people don't know about this forum. If you search Boss BR-600 (or other BR than the Micro) on Google, our forum will show up in the 7th page!

How can we attract more people to populate the other recorders forums?
With website marketing and promotion. I've to admit this is a world I've never been a fan, but I think it is extremely important. I'm still reading about the best ways to promote our forum, so for now I won't post any suggestions, if you have any I will be glady appreciated!

Pedro:  I see that you have Google Analytics tracking code implemented now.  I was wondering if you would ever do that.

One aspect of my consulting business is search engine optimization (SEO).  I think there are some simple things that could be done to improve the rankings of the non-MBR boards that wouldn't cost any money:

1. Restore a feature that seems to have been disabled, and that's SEO-friendly page paths.

I noticed recently that the page URLs used to be like this:

http://bossbr.net/community/post-your-mp3-collaborations-only/neil-fest-%27old-man%27-by-greeny/

And now they are like this:

http://bossbr.net/community/index.php?topic=3192.0

The former is much more helpful with search rankings than the latter.

2. Provide the regular users--those of us who have a Web presence (be it a Web site, a blog, a MySpace Page, etc.) a linking "badge" that could be copied, pasted, and published.  The badge could be an image with carefully-crafted ALT text that would make all of those links relevant to the entire BR product line.

3. The TITLE tag of the home page is pretty SEO-lame.  It's an art, and there are parameters to follow (not too long, not to short, Google-friendly, Yahoo-friendly, and MSN-friendly), with some thought put into it, you could include all of the BR model names in this TITLE tag, which would help immensely.

4. A Facebook account that would allow anyone to "Become a fan of BossBR.net."  The Facebook account wouldn't require a lot of maintenance, but it would help spread the word. (I wouldn't mess with MySpace.)

5. A "ShareThis" link on every page would bring lots of incoming links, and improve the search relevance/rankings of the non-MBR topics--especially if the relevant BR model is in the title tag of individual pages. (I assume SMF can be configured to do this.)

PM me if you would like to think through some of these ideas--and others.  I love this community, and want to see it grow--but in a way that preserves our magic balance of community, support, and creative inspiration.  I also want you, Pedro, to break even or better on what you pay to keep this joint up and running--and it can be done without plastering the pages with a lot of pay-per-click noise.

[Pedro]

What a wonderful post, Ted. I will certainly work on those points, thanks a lot.

64Guitars, I've not enabled a Multi-MP3 (don't know how to, yet) tag, but figured out how to revive the old MP3 tag. See http://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=4442.0.

It can be used as a temporary fix for the mode however, the MP3 url can be copied on the , by using the Copy Link.

[64Guitars]

64Guitars, I've not enabled a Multi-MP3 (don't know how to, yet) tag, but figured out how to revive the old MP3 tag. See http://bossbr.net/community/index.php?topic=4442.0.

     Thank You!  Thank You!  Thank You!     

I've missed the old MP3 tags so much! It will be great to be able to link to mp3s the old way again. I expect a lot of people will want to use the [singlemp3] tags in their "Introduce Yourself" page for their song lists.

[Ted]

Pedro: Is it possible to have individual topics not have the same TITLE tag as the home page?  It would be much better for SEO if topics had the topic title as part of the TITLE tag.

When someone uses the social bookmarks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) it picks up the TITLE tag.  In the case of Facebook (I haven't checked the others), it's not possible to change it.  I think an ideal TITLE tag for topic pages (if SMF will let you) would look something like this:


[topic title] [child board] | BossBR.net - Boss BR Recorders Community

Examples:

The “Drunk Tank” General Discussion | BossBR.net - Boss BR Recorders Community

ballroom blitz Micro BR |BossBR.net - Boss BR Recorders Community

Flow My Tears (original)  BR-1200 | BossBR.net - Boss BR Recorders Community


It looks like the META Description already does the first part of what I'm suggesting.

This kind of TITLE tag could help generate more relevant model-specific links to our topic pages.

[64Guitars]

This kind of TITLE tag could help generate more relevant model-specific links to our topic pages.

It would also help people keep track of their tabs when using a tabbed web browser, as the tab usually displays the leftmost part of the page title. Currently, my tabs in Firefox all say " Boss/Roland Digital Multitrack ...". I can't tell which tab's which without clicking on them.

[Ted]

Here's an example of what it looks like in Facebook when you use the bookmark on a topic.

It's not clear what the link goes to.

This was a link to A Chorus a Verse and a Tune You Can Hum, but you wouldn't know it.

[OsCKilO]

Off Topic completely.........


Suggestion:-


A new years eve awards ceremony/system..........

The winner of each category  (Eh?) wins their place in a notification email to the sites 2261 (At Present) members as a prize, letting people know who was voted in.........

A worthy prize I say, in terms of exposure.......

If one person liked my music it would be enough.......

God knows what categories there will be though...  The site is sooooo Diverse.....

The voting system would be tough to arrange as well.....

But it would be something for us all to work towards!!!!!

[Tony W]

Osckilo, I love your music, that's my vote.

Now I personally don't see music as a competition. I share my efforts, not because I want recognition, instead I do it as a tribute to what people here have done for me.  Oddly enough,

I'm a very competitive person, however I would take no part in a voting process. There are certain biases that I could not overcome. I love everybody's music on this site, but I'm more apt to voting for the people who comment on my posts   I'd be voting for people who have taken time to help me along my journey.

I can recall only one negative post on this forum. Even the criticism is constructive and written to enhance a person's skills. By opening up voting, I feel it is a means to open the forum to negativity, whether it is hurt feelings or other.

I already know who's music is my favorite on this site...... MINE

[OsCKilO]

It doesn't have to be a blanket competition......

People could enter themselves to be in the running for each category......

[Geir]

I've noticed a problem. During the latest collab I was involved in, there was a fair amount of PM's. PM's that went to more than one person. And when all involved were replying at about the same time, sometimes one or more PM got "lost". It was there alright, but contrary to how the threads work, when there are one or more replies to your PM and you say yes in the pop-up dialog box to see your message, you jump to the LAST one, not the oldest unread as in the threads. Don't know if it's possible to do anything about this, but if it is, it would be nice !