Well, since you said it first, the site design is pretty average. Maybe even less than that. Sign me up.

Alright Marcus, I'll bite. How could the design be better? Just saying that it's below average doesn't help. Where are we weak?

These are the first things that come to mind.

Showcasing:
• A Facebook-style feed on the front page with highlights. Instead of throwing up a post with summaries of every article/post that RM has released, something that highlights specific portions--a sentence or paragraph that stands out in the post, a really well-written comment, other websites that link to specific posts on RM, etc.

• Some way of "rating" posts and comments. The Dilbert Blog does this and it's a great way of seeing how others reacted to specific comments and posts, and it gets readers more involved.

Pointing readers to cool stuff:
• A RudiusMedia delicious feed. You and Ryan and Tucker have Delicious feeds that center around your personal interests; figure out what sort of "feel" you want to give RM as a whole, and center the links you find around that. Basically, a feed that says, "If you like RM, maybe you'll like this stuff too." Points to other blogs around the internet, general interest articles, job opportunities, etc.

• Assuming you have the tech to do this, and assuming there's a need for it: some sort of "other readers that read this post also read ___" feature, for more clickthrough. I don't read GaijinSmash but if tons of Ben Cormen readers are suddenly flocking to a GS post for some reason, it may interest me too. If Ryan writes up a cool post about running, Chasing Kaz readers might want to read about it.

• Figure out which sites are "blogs" and which ones aren't. Posts onDrunkForTwo don't have chronological order, so a "randomize" or "best of" feature can let people see posts they wouldn't get to otherwise.

• Invite RMMB members, posters from other blogs, authors, etc. to write guest-posts for a general RM site, that fit in with the attitude of RM. This expands the community and lets more people get involved with RM without maintaining an active site here.

More thoughts come to mind:
• In terms of site design, everything below "Get the Latest from Rudius Media" should be removed, or at least be modified. It's sort of pointless down there, and takes up more space and is more cumbersome than the neat "More Rudius" sidebar. The black sides are too big in my opinion, and the one on the right especially looks awkward with only half of it advertising books.

• Personalized advertising. I think you already do this to some degree, but have every author choose another blog, book, or product they personally care about and link to those, rather than the generalized Google Ads. Solicit specific advertisements, or at least be much more selective about which ones get featured. I've seen a lot of random shit get advertised on RM, and I think it's too clever for that.

I'll post more as they come to me...

Would it be possible to have the "Get the latest from RUDIUS MEDIA" section down at the bottom be incorporated into the "More Rudius" section?

What I mean is like a scroll over and then a drop down menu appears of the latest posts etc.

And have the size of the pictures be increased?

I dunno about decreasing those black bars. It's kind of nice actually, brings everything into a very readable form.

These kinds of tweaks are so goddamned hard to do because it's like you don't know what you want until you see it.

Anyone know a good website that has a similar intent behind it? Ngm.com?

I second getting rid of the "Get the latest from RUDIUS MEDIA". It just clutters up every page. Keep that on the home page.

If you ever end up creating "archived Rudius" websites, to differentiate from ones that currently have posting authors, it would be cool to have a "Featured Archive Post of the Day" section on each update.

A selected excerpt or quick "quote of the day" of Rudius authors. Every day/couple of days a new quote. Perhaps in more fleshed out bios of each author you could include the author's best/their favorite excerpt of their work.

Some stuff I'd suggest -

Content drives traffic. First rule of the intarwebs. If you want more people to use the Rudius media page - something there needs to be useful, and updated regularly.

That's a lot of work. So I'd do some aggregation-fu to provide some Rudius specific content - IE

Roll out a rudius specific post rating, or track digs or delicious or stumbles or something through RSS and aggregate a best of Rudius Media section. Don't spam the front page with it - but drop a notification on the front page or something for new all time tops or best post of the last week or something.

Run some kind of 'things we like' agregator or listing or something - Rudius media friends style links but made more specific. Aggregate from the authors/mods Delicious links or Greader shared items or most dug/delicioused/stumbled articles for the last 36 hours from the rudius sites or something. Add an input feed/vote system for rudius users somewhere so that the list group can be influenced by community.

Start using the page as a blog. Round up a few of the smarter mods/writers and start talking about interesting shit. Become an authority on the internet/business crap - Talk about trends and drop advice in there.

Repurpose the site some. Make the Rudius site a hub for the communities attached to the blogs.

Recruit more prominently. It's been a long time since I noticed any new Rudius sites that weren't recruited from people we know. There's other talent out there - drop some sort of suggest and vote resource in there - prune through the most suggested resources looking for talent - filter out stupid shit and see if you can lock down some new talent.

At the moment - The forum fills this function - and the question is why is the forum the main driver of all the functionality when it's a place that's shaped to prune community to produce quality. With the revenue generating resources like the blogs - and the Rudius Media site at the heart of those blogs - you want to encourage traffic instead.

Make the book sales less prominent drop a link to 'Buy signed copies of Rudius publications' or something - unless you actually generate enough revenue off that to be worth the real estate it's taking up and relocate it to another page somewhere. Encourage people who have a work they want published that fits the voice of Rudius to submit the work for assessment as a blog or for publication - At the moment it feels like a blog re-badge service - if you've got a blog, we'll hook it into our network and drive some revenue - make it feel like a publishing agent service or something - where if you've got something worthwhile - Rudius will pimp it for you.

Make the Rudius Sites link dynamic - re-order based on last post date and do some kind of cookie-fu or ajax post backs to track IP/Posts Viewed so that link bar identifies which blogs have posts in the last 7 days that are unread.

A lot of ideas I'd answer with have already been tossed out (probably reflecting demand for the features. Some sort of intra-Rudius rating and recommendation system is a must, if and when technology allows. I'd also have a "status at a glance" feature. The new recent-post news is a good start, but sometimes it's hard to keep track of all the Rudius authors you like. Some seem to drop off the face of the planet, either for a few months or indefinitely, and you don't know why. THat's probably the biggest pain for us fans. Just having a very basic list on the Rudius page that lets you know Tucker is busy making a movie, Az is getting married, Philalawyer was busy writing a book, and DDHM needs new authors (throw an "Apply!" link in) would not only help fans be less confused/annoyed, but increase transparency and probably reduce the hassle you guys have to deal with fielding the same questions as to why site X isn't being updated over and over again.

A more out-there suggestion is to open up the application process and (I can't believe I'm about to use this term) crowdsource it. I know finalists and prospectives get some feedback on the forum, but what if you guys just let people provide feedback on ALL applicants, good and bad, and vote/provide feedback. The good will rise to the top, be voted in, the mediocre will hopefully get constructive comments to become good. To have that, you might need moderation to prevent things from getting mean spirited. But you'll also benefit from the bad/crazy, as people read the train wreck submissions. Hell, some of them might get into "So bad its good" territory and earn as much attention.

I dunno if it's doable or smart, but you said you wanted any ideas.

I second the feed as well as the archived author section. I think for
first time readers it would look very unprofesional to see sites with
content updated years ago. If this is a company for new, fresh talent
then it should be reflected in the websites. I understand there are
notes on the pages stating that the pages arent updated but a clear
divide right off the bat would be helpful.

I also think a search or "best of..." section would be very useful. I
found myself wanting to reference something either you or Ryan or have
wrote before and i had to go through the archives and poke around to
find the article I was looking for (that or see if I starred it in
Google Reader). This is common on most blogs anyway, to have a best of
feature and recent posts (Tim Ferries has a very nice layout of this,
with Best of, recent posts and his favs...I think that's a good way to
go).

Also, I know this isn't exactly design related but I think you should
incorporate some of the features of the beerinhell.com site mainly the
video interviews. Again if this is a company for new and exciting
content, one to stick it to the man, it should be reflected in the
features and I think video is a good start. Having Tucker or some of
the employees talk about the behind the scenes stuff in Rudius would
be really awesome to drive the vision behind the company. It worked so
well for the movie blog because its not that common, so it should work
here because I cant think of any media companies that do the same. Of
course if authors wish to do the same, that would cool too (especially
someone like Az in Gajin Smash...even if he retold one of the stories
or something in his voice would be cool).

Making it easier to share. I know you have the text links to digg,
delicious etc but those should be icons because that seems to be
standard practice on blogs now.

The feed burner widget should be displayed on each blog with over a
100 readers. This would be a social proof thing, to showcase the fact
that people are reading these blogs and what others like I should like
as well. I think I've seen this on the main Rudius Site before but
showcasing it on the indevidual blog would be beneficail. ALso, I dont
know if you were thinking of going this route but what about opting
people for thier email adresses? If certain authors are working on
books etc some people might want to sucbscribe to thier mailing lists
to keep informed (if they dont like/dont know what RSS is).
Especially in the make money online niche everyone always raves about
mainatinging and building email lists as a way to drive both money and
buzz (im not suggesting you start offering affiliate products but I
think there could be a use for them).

Clearer About sections for the indevidual blogs. Right now some of the
descriptions are found right on the main page, some have links to the
side...again that should be standardized and included in every blog.

Also, I obviously dont know the traffic numbers etc but are you
thinking about having a specific person do the marketing and seo? If
most of the traffic comes from the message board or Tucker Max maybe
you should get someone to start drivin traffic directly to the other
sites directly (even the older ones like Fire On the Line which is
awesome and could get others clicking on different sites within the
network?)

"I've started to play around with the front page. It's not perfect, hell it's not even good but it is a start."

I thought you meant you had a redesign that you wanted a few people to look at and critique, so I was signing myself up for that. In retrospect, if that was the case you probably would have just thrown it up and linked to it from the messageboard and asked people what they thought, so a stupid assumption on my part.

Let's give this another shot.

Everything is so goddamn square. Does not spell fun. I suggest using whitespace and colors to delineate the interface, as opposed to that black line. When I visit different Rudius sites, I immediately recognize the interface but it feels more like all the sites are trapped in that format, rather than something the interface giving an element of unity to the Rudius Media ring.

Comments. I'm sure this has annoyed everyone forever. You can never tell who's saying what.

In general the website is very cluttered with text. I think it's safe to assume the average Rudius fan is an above average reader, but it couldn't hurt to space things out, give things more room to breathe. Try widening the interface, why narrow yourself down to this long vertical strip of box after box? This doesn't necessarily apply to the content area, but there is so much other stuff that is being squeezed into the center of my screen.

And despite what Maddox said, I feel a lighter background color gives a site a more relaxed atmosphere. I know I'm not doing the best job of explaining this, but think of all your favorite non-Rudius blogs. Mine all have white backgrounds.

That's all just off the top of my head. What are your thoughts on what I've said? If we get the conversation going I can probably be more articulate in pinpointing what could be changed and how.

Want people to look at something? Give them a reason to look. Right now, there's nothing. You have a very small handful of authors who update on any kind of regular basis. I check to see what's new out of habit from checking Gaijin Smash not because I actually expect to see anything new.

If you want people to look at the site, maybe get people who are putting up some content?

Hey Ryan, I just checked back to see if you responded to my comments, and I realized I don't want to have to be doing that.

When I posted my thoughts last night, I looked around a few minutes for a comments RSS feed specific to this post, but there is none. I've seen this in some other blogs, can't remember where exactly though, but at least I know it can be done.

It would be cool if I could find out how this conversation is coming along... maybe signing up for a TypeKey account can do that. I don't know, but I don't want to have a TypeKey account and log in to check it. I want to get stuff in Mozilla Thunderbird where I keep all my RSS subscriptions. I guess this is along the lines of those posts you made a while back about having a bunch of social networking sites but the inconvenience of having to log in to every single one to keep in touch.

oye sugar, ur peeps b a bit long winded...

a. nav - needs to b google (the whore of whores) friendly.

b. viral - your shit's not porn honey, so make sure blogs are either compelling, gawd-damn-necessary (meaning = need), or fucking funny

3. return/repeat visitors - they want to read the best of the best shit you got. yuppers, pin your bloggers against each other. showcase posts on landing page that have received the most traffic.

d. MARKET your COMMENTS - readers like lists so pull the *good* or *bad* comments into a top 5 list (this weeks top 5 haters, yada-yada). even better if they could post comments via video posts.

the end.

ps. coders don't spell, we write code so don't fret my short-hand. luv, the director of digital media for the avn media network... shhhhhh, don't tell anyone i gave up secrets ;)

Wait, so You're Bene't Garcia? Gemini Swing Girl is a funny name for a dude with a goatee and a receding hair line.

http://barnettdigitaldesign.com/avnmn/index.php?content=faces_benet -

ab3d? Really. There's an awesome start. A) - what the fuck are you talking about? They're wordpress sites - which google loves. And all the nav structures are adequate for google's crawler.

b) There's a big help. I'm sure noone at rudius ever considered publishing compelling works before.

3) Completely ignoring the fact that Rudius has a vested interest in the success of all of it's artists and it would be a disincentive to any artist who wasn't performing at the top - which might cull dead weight, if there is dead weight to be culled. If you've selected your artists right - you'd just piss off talent unnecessarily.

D) hate mail and best comments sections aren't exactly a horrible idea - but most comments are context dependant - if you were going to do anything, crowd source a quality assessment of comments and list the best and worst. Of course Gaijin Smash's circle jerking crowd of repeat commenters would probably bias the fuck out of that process.

PS. Some coders aren't illiterate and don't have to make up bullshit titles for themselves to impress strangers on the internet. They make suggestions that can stand without an appeal to fictional authority.

I'm a little late to the party, but what Scootah said about making the front page into something of a blog is a great idea.

However, (and sorry if this has already been posted, I didn't see it when I skimmed through) I don't think that rudius sites being updated should be a part of the front page blog posts. I've noticed this as of late, and if there are several updates in a day (like with the animals) you could miss content from Rudius authors or just not want to slog through blog posts every time to find out if your favorite author or authors has updated their sites.

When you go to Rudius, the content Rudius produces and the content/ideas/essays/whatever that Rudius and/or their authors find appealing should be separate.

I don't know that this would work because my skill in coding computers is limited, but could you have a flash bar that remembers when a person last visited, similar to when you visit a forum, and if one of the Rudius sites has been updated it tells them?

Or maybe have a personalized Rudius homepage once a person signs in that makes it extremely easy to track their favorite authors straight from the site and outside of an RSS feed?

I think a header or something of that nature that tells you when a site has been updated would be annoying on the main page if the blog posts are set up the way they are now, in the box form with a menu on the side of it.

Either way, they just need to be separated.

I am really late to the party here, but I know at least Ben will see it. This is all I have that hasn't been mentioned already. Is there a way to get the "friends of Rudius" listing to be more than just a link dump? Maybe make that a second tier of the Rudius family. Like the first tier is your sites, then the second is the "friends", then the third is the aggregated content from the internet. Foster a more active relationship with them, guest posts, etc. and seeing who populates that list can show newcomers what the Rudius brand stands behind, maybe better than a smattering of articles of the internet?