The new site has been running for about 6 weeks now, and despite my creative temperament of not liking anything I’ve created, I’m really happy with how it’s working out.
I’ve been doing a serious amount of under-the-hood tuning to improve the experience, largely making the whole thing faster. For those that care, GTmetrix now gives a PageSpeed/YSlow rating of 95/83, with A grades across the board for PageSpeed. The only down marks are for external sources, at this point Google fonts, Disqus, and WordPress stats. Being external, I have no control over how those are handled… well not without some serious under- the-hood hackery.
The one thing I liked but removed was the Instagram feed. Making the call to their server and receiving the images back was quite a drain on load times. It wasn’t that popular anyway. Experience shows that traffic tends to come in from social media, not go out to it.
So I’ve stopped playing the speed numbers game, and want to improve the user experience. The great thing is that I haven’t got a single complaint. While I was messing with caching, the site often looked like total arse. But that’s all settled down now.
RSS feeds
The first real addition is the feed. Well it’s always been there, but I haven’t publicised it. I just had to tweak it so that the short link stories didn’t appear in the main feed. But you can grab those in their own feed here, and via the RSS icon next to the page titles.
There will be more changes as time goes on. I’ll doubtlessly add things, tweaks things, and plain delete things too. And to help with this, I have some…
QUESTIONS
Social share buttons
You probably didn’t realise, but there haven’t been any social share icons on DJWORX for something like three years. Online research shows that nobody shares on mobile, and that despite having handy buttons, people generally copy and paste links into their social platforms on desktop in preference to using buttons.
Q. If we added social share buttons, would you use them?
Forum
While we have the most engaged community around, the comments section is restricted to the topic at hand. So the idea of a forum to get into subjects that we don’t cover in the news posts makes perfect sense.
There have been many DJ forums, including the skratchlounge that I ran for 11 or so years before it reached a natural end. So rather than run what might be little more than a traffic trap, I want to be sure that it’s a solid addition to DJWORX and a makes a valid contribution to the scene too.
It needs to be different to the usual fodder, but at this point I’m not sure how that would work. There has been discussion internally about having no sub-forums at all, and just running a single section where the most popular stays at the top. But it would have a solid search feature, so if you were looking for something specific, it should be easy to find.
Q. If we added a forum, would you use it? And if so, what kind of features would you like it to have?
Your experience
We could type words into a basic HMTL pages with zero frippery attached. But we want your experience to be as pleasing as possible on every level. Obviously things changed quite considerably from the old to the new version, and I’m looking at the links people click to see what works and what doesn’t, hence ditching the Instagram feed.
Q. How do you feel about the new DJWORX site? Are there things that annoy you, or does it deliver in a way that makes you blissfully happy? Importantly, what would you like to see?
Remember, we’re looking for solid constructive feedback, good or bad, so that we can build a site that works for our already splendid community. We might not implement everything you ask, but we’ll definitely discuss it with you. But if you don’t ask, then we can’t look at your ideas it at all.
So… feedback in 5… 4…3….
If there was a forum I would not likely use it. I deleted my account at another site because it just wasn’t worth the hassle and I find that if there is a disqus on articles, that’s good enough for me. At this point in time I can’t imagine a forum configuration that wouldn’t be anything but what is already out there.. I often visit that other forum just to see if there is anything useful and I find that no.. People are just offering solutions to things that I was already aware of. Save yourself the trouble and not divide your time.. I come here for the news and reviews and I always have.
I have.. “feels” about the new design.. But I can’t really think of anything specific… oh! there it is.. it just popped in.. It’s too white.. I have that issue with the other site too and I couldn’t think of how to express it.. but it’s there now.. There is a lot of white… I could.. just pop in to my preferences and invert the colors and drop to greyscale.. but it would be nice if there was a night mode.. I do however like that the design has a lot of large text and a lot of space to read that text.
Thank you for continuing your hard work.
oh.. and.. I probably wouldn’t use the social media share buttons.. I honestly don’t know who I would share to..
I mean seriously.. the vast majority of the traffic is probably held between 3 to 4 major sites.. one of which I stopped using completely.. the others? You, Techtools, and CDM.. I can’t think of a situation where a DJ online would not know about these three sites.. the other one I won’t name because they offer a lot of tutoring materials I can’t afford and don’t need.. their news and reviews game isn’t as strong as yours or techtools. Actually, if I’m being honest here.. Worx for in depth product reviews, techtools for tip kinds of things.. techtools often isn’t as thorough.. and they still need a legit editor.
Interestingly, the team and some others mentioned the too much white thing too. It’s something I’ll play with. I like the clean look, but I’m happy to experiment.
i like the white too, i’m a less is more guy…
I share on mobile all the time, but it is handled by my phone directly (Chrome has a ‘share’ button that lets me send links by message, email, social media… Whatever) so even if there were buttons there, I’d still always just be using that method anyway.
On my desktop I’m usually going to copy and paste links regardless.
Forums seem to be a dying breed to me, I used to be on quite a few (mostly photography related) but it seems like the various forms of social media have dwindled away the active users to the point they’re basically dead.
The only one I still frequent is the Serato forum,
I share to Facebook from my phone all the time, so the inclusion of a handy share button would be welcomed, but not a deal breaker.
I consume DJWORX primarily from my phone, and in the beginning (shortly after all the changes) the page scaling wasn’t great… It’s definitely a lot better now though. I dig the new style of presenting the articles on the home page.
I think the forum will be a waste of time and resources. The interactions and comments all relate to the articles themselves anyways, so the Disqus feature takes care of that nicely. If you’re looking for something else specifically, there’s heaps of other communities (of which plenty of DJWORX readers are already members) to satisfy that need.
Otherwise, great work. Thanks for always keeping things fresh and informative. ☺️
i use nothing but share buttons…. i actuually dont like copy and pasting so i will wait to share a facebook post if need be.
I think forums end up with more complainers than really wanted
One thing i did notice is the lack of follow up this year. I was waiting to see your true take on the roland dj 808 and was left with what i will call a cliff hanger. there are actually only 2 sites i like to get reviews from and this is one
That’s a very good point. I’ve noticed a few times there has been an initial quick look at something with a promise of a more in-depth follow up that then didn’t materialise.
Most of the time (i’m talking from personal experience) it takes so long to form a well rounded opinion about a piece of gear i’ve been given to review that by the time i’ve delivered the piece and it’s been edited into proper english the manufacturer is banging on the door asking for their review unit back… The DJ 808 is one i’d love to spend some more time with!
first up – great of you to ask! props!
– my entry point into Worx is via RSS (on a no longer supported RSS reader on my Mac and tablet!) – so forums wouldn’t get a look in for me unless they’re promoted on the main feed.
– for socials i usually use the tool i am working in e.g.: if I am reading in Pulp, I share from there, same for Safari – don’t need no share buttons…
– from an ads sales/CPM/traffic perspective the one thing I would like to do is come back more often, i would read something new here every day if I could (even if you promote some “flash back” content – i am sure I haven’t read everything that’s cool).
– love (and trust) your site for reviews more than anything, but i also like the team’s PoV on everything from industrial design to crapping on about building websites – which is along way of saying that more “Op Ed” pieces wouldn’t hurt
e.g.: getting deep on a particular genre OR talking to different sound guys as clubs about the setups they have and why they work/dont, frankly there’s not enough written about speakers IMHO especially speaker placement for mobile DJs
– “non core” gear reviews would also be great e.g.: I bought a Rock-n-roller cart recently, UNREAL – never seen a review that I can recall, if it wasn’t for a friend mentioning it I never would have known about them. i imagine there are dozens of other great hacks that make a (esp mobile) DJ’s life a lot easier.
keep up the amazing work lads, looking forward to hearing more!
Paul – did you miss the “on this day in” section on the homepage?
I come in through the RSS reader, so that would be a yes…. ;-)
UPDATE: you know when I said that I wasn’t speed chasing? I just ditched Jetpack stats for WP Stats and got a 4 point speed boost in YSlow, and a much more complete picture of traffic too. Sorry — I’m an inveterate meddler and I don’t see it changing.
I meddled some more and gained a point by stopping a pointless Jetpack script from loading. :)
sharable charts and graphs to demonstrate how popular djing/scratching is to gfs and wives
That’s an easy chart — an inversely proportional line of hours scratching vs brownie points.
On the homepage ’tiles’ for each article / news story it would be good to show the number of comments for that article. Comments and discussions make up a huge part of why I visit the site and it’s a bit of a pain to click through to each article to see if there have been any new comments left.
I understand that this might again be a bit of a drain on load speeds, but even if it loaded up after the main content has displayed it’d still be faster than clicking through to the article.
It’s a request I’ve put in with the theme developer. In the meantime, you can check for new comments in the footer — there’s a list right there.
I appreciate that the font sizes are reasonable by default and I don’t have to zoom in to read comfortably.
Thanks to the handful of people who took the time to respond. I can only assume that the relative lack of feedback means that we’re doing OK. But to address a few points:
Social Sharing: Given the feedback, I’ll probably add the buttons for a bit, but if there’s no measurable increasing in sharing, I’ll just delete them again.
Comment numbers: This has been passed onto the theme developer. Hopefully he’ll add it in due course. It’s easily doable apparently but just needs testing — if you scroll down to the Random section on the homepage, the first box has a comment count. It’s just a matter of it being added to different modules on the site, something that is beyond my grasp of PHP.
White background: I’ll have a play with colours and images and see if I can make it look a little more interesting. I like it clean, but it seems that only me and Paul Muller like it.
Forum: Seems to be unpopular, with the general feeling being that posts and comments are enough, which brings me to…
More content: I’d love for there to be more content. But it’s resource heavy to make. With ad revenues at an all time low for everyone, I can’t just ask the team to make it unless I can pay them to do it. And my high standards dictate that not just any old page filling rubbish will do either. Do you really want listicles like “the five best snapbacks for DJs”? No, me neither. Side note — I don’t even remember the last time I wore a baseball cap. How about the five best tweed flat caps for DJs? ;)
There’s also not that much new gear around these days, so hot new reviews are thin on the ground too. I’ve got a new way to fund reviews when new gear is out, so that won’t be an issue. But to do the kind of content we want to do takes real time and money.
And that last point is probably why we all love the site, the superb signal-to-noise ratio.
In terms of a topic list of things I’d like to hear more about, outside of the usual suspects (mixers, controllers, turntables) it would be;
– stylus/needles (de-mystifying the Ortofon range would be a great start!)
– digital recorders (for recording yourself)
– FX units and loopers
– hacks/ideas for mobile setups (as I mentioned the RocknRoller is worth the steep price of admission solely for the headaches it’s saved me)
– personalising your setup – Chroma vs. Cooler caps article is/was great, custom wraps would be interesting, patch leads, etc
– loved your article on the vinyl cutter, older weirder stuff is fun
– lastly, boutique gear review like the DJ-R400 from E&S would be great for those of us who like things that are out of the ordinary
Just a bunch of ideas, having blogged a bit in my time I learned that sometimes the hardest thing to do is to know what other might find interesting.
DJ Worx is by far one of the best “magazines” ever, keep it up!
Social share buttons, I never saw them and didnt miss them. Dont think I’ve ever used them.
I like the idea of a forum but again, not sure if I’d ever use it. I have frequented forums in the past but these days I only go to them if I have a specific problem that I cant find answers to elsewhere.
I do like the new look. Quite a lot actually, it’s very clean. It did take some getting use to though. I was lost for a second, as I’m more use to a timeline style where everything is in a single line.
I would love to see more content, but I understand where you are coming from. Personally I think all the writers here are really good and witty, I’m sure they would write a great piece on “the five best snapbacks for DJs” (only half joking here). Seriously though, maybe some pieces on events around the world, some video content (similar to the djcity routine videos), more links to videos we might not have seen (like you did with the videos of Sara & Ryuse), and I’d love to read some more interviews with scratch DJs big and small from around the world.
Good work on the new site.
Thank you
Social share buttons…. I use extensions to block them, so that probably gives away the answer to that one right then and there. I always found them pointless, doubly so the sites that would have that annoying pop-out box that would sit there and block content for 5-10 seconds.
As for a forum… Tough call. I tend to just frequent a select few that are specific to my interests, and usually have a decent flow of traffic. Others belong to competitive websites for specific hobbies where I’ll only post if there’s a problem, or they’re bringing out a new product.
The new site… Love the look and layout, but my eyes don’t like the somewhat bright white background – but I’m also photosensitive, so it could just be that. I usually prefer sites that offer a “dark” layout though, as I can keep it up on my second monitor longer.
I have 2 suggestions: Set up a discord channel instead of a traditional forum. And if you are feeling real froggy, you could even do a twitch stream show which would open up live chatting for the community, plus a new content vector and the possibility of a different revenue stream.
Both of those would be more forward facing than an old school forum community.
I really like the new look. I don’t care one bit about the social media buttons (or lack thereof).
As far as the forum goes, I don’t think a traditional forum would enhance the site. The comments sections are great for on-topic discussion, and I very much doubt you’re interested in the cliquish behavior and general backbiting that comes with any established forum user base.
As an alternative method of reader engagement, I suggest a regular “ask an expert” feature. As I envision it, it would work something like this:
Add an “ask an expert” button to the main page that would take people to a form where they can enter their (brief and likely character or word-limited) question about some aspect of DJing. At some regular interval (monthly, biweekly, etc.), a selected question and an answer would be published as a short article, allowing for discussion and follow-up questions in the comments section. I’m sure that some member of the DJWorx staff or another would be qualified to handle most of these questions. To cover any subject areas that the staff can’t handle, you could recruit members of the community (for instance, I am an electrical engineering student, I worked for Audio Innovate last summer, and I’m working for Maxim’s audio IC division this summer. I’d be happy to answer any really technical questions that pop up.)
With enough experts answering questions and a regular publishing schedule, it’s likely that no one person would need to spend much time in any given year, and the writing would be fairly straightforward due to the responsive nature, so it seems like this could be a pretty low-overhead approach to supplying both more reader engagement and more content.
Feedback for me…. my main concern is not enough new, rich content on gear. Maybe this is the manufacturers fault, but I just seem to remember seeing lots more new gear on here, compared to what I see now. Is this just me being more old and jaded? ;)
Diggin the new look for sure! I do share on mobile, but my chrome browser has that option built in for any page I browse, so keeping it off the actual site makes things cleaner, which I like. I’m fine with just commenting on a per article basis (I’ve never been big on forums personally)