The nature of our site has us displaying a lot of links. Think of us as a search engine that searches for you.

The problem is that since we're not famous . . . yet, when people hit our page, we look like a link farm or landing page. We've been trying lots of things to get a first design that looks good, but still no success.

Reddit, hacker news, google, pretty much look similar or worse, but they have brand name recognition.

Any ideas? Any sites that have similar problems, but look good? Digg is the one we're thinking of right now.

If you want to see how far we've gotten:
http://celeb.rawsignal.com

I don't think there's anything wrong with your site to be honest. It's clean, it was clear to me what the site was about immediately, and it's easy to read.

If you wanted to improve the design, I would consider making things a little softer - like Digg, with some subtle gradients and a round corner or two.

Originally Posted by edgray

I don't think there's anything wrong with your site to be honest. It's clean, it was clear to me what the site was about immediately, and it's easy to read.

If you wanted to improve the design, I would consider making things a little softer - like Digg, with some subtle gradients and a round corner or two.

Thanks Ed for the kind words. Maybe I'm just too hard on myself from the initial feedback. Or maybe my girlfriend is a meanie!

Your advice is very targetted and specific. I was wondering what in the world digg was doing. Its always small things you don't notice, but when taken all together make a site look kick butt!

Reddit, hacker news, google, pretty much look similar or worse, but they have brand name recognition.

The didn't always have!

Originally Posted by chrishirst

The didn't always have!

haha. totally agree. some day, some dev will add our site to that list . . . one can only hope.

maybe content is king, and if i do a good enough job with the algo, that'll be enough.

or maybe when they launched they were so unique that it was good enough? or maybe the landscape has changed, and the level of web designs we're competing against is much higher.

or maybe they had a good initial publicity boost? Didn't Digg have a popular tv show to launch off of?

reddit had the YCombinator halo.

hacker news, well . . . ditto.

The problem is that since we're not famous . . . yet,

That's the bit you need to change.

when people hit our page, we look like a link farm or landing page

Maybe you should take a look at craigslist.