Hey guys,

This is something that I've been going over in my head time and time again, so let me start from the beginning. I've been running a Sonic the Hedgehog fansite (no, wait hear me out!) for some 4 odd years now and the site is fairly well known in the community. But the site is mainly based around downloads, audio, video, in-house productions, community stuff and a couple of other areas.

A new site is in development and will now cover Sonic as well as SEGA and the Video Games community as a whole, we're about to go independent from our old subdomain. I say 'about to' because I've been developing the site like a one man band for several months now, as a result the site has been seen as offline for a long time now. In the meantime I've been developing this new site with all the bells and whistles.

I've developed it to the point where the site has a nice design and layout, uses flash in appropriate places, includes RSS and many other similar and new features. The site itself consists of 4 areas that I planned to launch with: homepage+site info, downloads (via a CMS), forums (again a CMS) and our in-house poductions (or as i call them 'studios') as well as a couple of other areas that I'm leaving for a while anyway.

If I had to say how far along I am, realistically around 80% of what I want to launch with is done. But I wanted to have all 4 areas complete before launch, then do external seo/promotion, provide launch videos, givaways and ultimately give an awesome launch to the new site after such a long wait which everyone has been waiting for.

My question now is, should I just go ahead and get everything in an adequate state and launch it - then continue to develop everything else on my 'to do list'. Or on the other hand should I continue to wait and develop until the site is 100% ready and throw a well excuted launch party - as that has been the idea since I started developing this new site?

So to make it simple: Launch a semi-finished website now or wait until its completed and do a fantastically big launch for it? Your comments are greatly appreciated

finish then launch

There's an argument for both sides. The obvious choice is finish then launch. However, launching what you have has some benefits.
Besides the instant gratification aspect of launching now, it also means that you have something to keep people coming back. If your site shows no major changes for several months after your new launch, traffic won't keep returning. If you can continue to roll out new features, and advertise these new features, you can keep brining in new traffic.

just wait till its finish because if new visters come on the site and they see a half finished website its most likely they wont ever come back on it so personally i would just wait till its all finished.

i would say..launch it..as beta

You need to built your fan base and get the site going fast or other people might come out with similar idea.

Even if your site is not fully finished, you can just cover it up by saying it will have this and that..etc.

By building your user base, you can also benefit from their opinion on your future development. This will make your future development on your site "user-oriented"

Well having look at everyones comments I'm still keen to keep it in development for teh moment, it'd be nice to start establishing a community, but that will happene eventualy anyway right? I am thinking of having a beta trial before launch as there's a few peole I could let into the site (as its currently p/w protected) and let them have a sneak peek and give some feedback.

There will hopefully be frequent content being added with blogs, news articles and features, not to mention new downloads and forum activity. Seems as though waiting would be better, unless someone can convince me otherwise still?

Its hard to tell you what to do without seeing what your have completed.
When is a web site ever finished any way. Look at myspace.com for example... They are always adding new features.
So again, without seeing what you have completed, there is nothing to base an opinion on!

I really would take the time and wait

If I were you I would wait until it's fully finished.

I'd continue working on it - if you get say 90% done and you're just adding a few final features, then you could launch it as a beta. I read somewhere that launching things as beta's is fine if you've got 100% of 80% of the features finished (i.e. not 80% of 100% of the features - as in nothing is finished).

Personally, it's probably best to suppress the urge to release it and continue working until it's entirely complete - I know what it's like when you've got something nearly finished and you want to tell everyone, but it's usually best if you launch it a bit later with everything completed.

Dan

The Finish / Launch decision is one that you need to ask yourself what are the key success features that need to be operational before you it can be considered a success. There may be features that aren't necessary for the site to be accepted entirely. These features can always be added in a second or third phase. If the case is that adding features later, will have a negative effect on how people perceive your site, then these features are needed before launch. You need to separate the things you consider to be Core Features from what you consider as Extensions of development.