Ask HN: Need some advice

I Recently released my photo and video sharing site vivapixel.com into the wild and so far things are going ok. Traffic has been growing thanks to folks posting stuff on reddit,stumbleupon,digg etc. I've had a few new members signup but not that many folks are using the site ? I've contacted some folks to get some feedback on useability, speed etc. and it's all thumbs up !

So I guess I have a few questions for the HN community and was hoping to get some insight from others who have been thrue this before:

1. How do you folks attract new members ?

2. How often (if at all) do you interact with your members?

3. I recently tried to monetize my site with some ads. I regret doing this, it wasn't my idea, a friend recommended I try... it was a bad idea. But how do you folks monetize your sites ?

4. Should I Keep Going? With all the other photo sharing sites like google,flickr etc. Is it worth it for me to keep working on this ? Maybe I should focus my efforts on a niche? (now what niche do I focus on?)

I am at a crossroads and have somewhat run out of ideas and inspiration, any advice/tips/suggestions would be greatly welcomed.

thanks

Vivapixel appears functional and very fast but it doesn't arrest me as a visitor with a compelling argument on why I should sign up. If I were you I would work on storytelling then I would add pro subscriptions.

I would paint a better "you're stupid if you don't sign up" story, starting with the home page. Your focal point currently is a random image from one user's photos and after refreshing 10x I think maybe your ego is getting in the way of your argument; we should not see pictures of Dave's baby or his out-of-focus drunk friend, we should be thinking 'wow I need this' within 5 seconds. I would replace that random image div with a thoughtful, visual argument for why vivapixel is a brilliant photo and video product. This is your chance to convince and sell. I like how your artistic design is minimalistic but it appears so bare-bones and unopinionated that as a visitor I'm just not confident you care much about user experience or celebrating my handiwork. Like a gourmet meal, presentation is key and IMO some elements of your design aren't paired well. Think of your customers as artists - they need to believe their gallery's curator has exquisite taste and appreciates the visual zeitgeist. If your marketing even hints that you're cheap or that you cut corners we won't proceed to Page 2, we'll be off to flickr.

I love your logo!

Your visitors subconsciously nitpick, so get into their heads. The dialog boxes are all highlighted red - that makes visitors think they've made 6 errors just by opening the homepage. The buttons should all be beautiful images - not the browser default or a graded blue. Treat your canvas as a masterpiece, something that elevates and makes us want to play with your toys. Visitors secretly resent the fact most of your language is boilerplate - would you rather spend their visual energy covering your own ass or convincing them that you've got something worth using?

Finally I think you could eventually monetize Vivapixel with a subscription model. I might make public libraries free and for users who wanted privacy I'd charge them - like Github does. Another option that might work: charge users for large filesize libraries, or for transcoding services. At any rate, great job so far - you might have a super business if you keep at it.

Hey I run a photo sharing site as well - http://Simplebucket.com and so here's my response from my experience.

1. How do you folks attract new members ?

Mostly from google search. When I started Simplebucket, I had the concept of making the simplest photo hosting, no registration, no login. And so I targeted the words "simple photo hosting" and now Simplebucket is #1 on google for those keywords. When we first launched, after RailsRumble 2007, the site had bare functionality and minimalistic design. I redesigned and added features to Simplebucket and relaunched in 2008. After the relaunch, I emailed blogs that wrote about photo sharing sites and tell them what is unique about simplebucket.

2. How often (if at all) do you interact with your members?

Not a whole lot and I know now that it was a huge mistake. I kind of neglected our community due to job commitment. Photo sharing is about building a community and interaction should be first, I was also too focused on features which I think should be secondary to building a community.

3. I recently tried to monetize my site with some ads. I regret doing this, it wasn't my idea, a friend recommended I try... it was a bad idea. But how do you folks monetize your sites ?

I'm not sure why ads turned out bad for you, but for me, it went neither way. There isn't a whole lot of ad revenue, enough to cover hosting cost in certain months but that was it. I did not receive any complaints from existing users so my perception was they are fine with it.

4. Should I Keep Going? With all the other photo sharing sites like google,flickr etc. Is it worth it for me to keep working on this ? Maybe I should focus my efforts on a niche? (now what niche do I focus on?)

I went through this same dilemma a year ago. Simplebucket wasn't growing like I had expected. It was very utilized by a small group of fans and I had decided to keep it going for them. Photo sharing is a very competitive arena, if that's one thing that I learned from the past year. In order to emerge from the noise, I knew from the start that the service had to provide something unique and niche. Simplicity was mine. I also thought about photos for Twitter in 2008 but did not implement that because I had too much on my plate from my day job. And look at Twitpic now and how several other photo sharing sites are going Twitter in 2009. So yes, going niche is necessary, but it does not guaranteed success.

Hi there, just checked out your site, a few questions for you:

1. When did you launch the site? 2. and you mentioned the traffic is growing, can you share more about the rate on how it's growing, 3. and where does the growth come from (referal, direct or google search)? 4. Do you use google analytics and analyze the data it showed you?