United3dArtists Archive

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 30 Nov 2009, 21:42

Just realised that there is no thread regarding the big project i.e. the Buddy World site. There is a free tour and some of you have subscriptions so I welcome any constructive feedback. After all it is just a big WIP.

Now, anyone experience of marketing/advertising?

In the short term, I have ordered a few hundred of these to hand around schools etc.

LeonRegis · Post by **LeonRegis** » 30 Nov 2009, 22:09

Hi Splinters, I've been walking on the world, and is really amazing and BIG, HUGE! With good arts everywhere!
The only problem I've been facing is the slow loading, average 15 seconds to bring up a screen, it don't hinders but I'm just alerting... It can be also an distance problem, since I'm on Brazil.

HTH

PS: Will provide more feedback soon

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 30 Nov 2009, 22:19

Wow, 15 seconds is a long time really. Some pages have quite a few layers with pop ups as you mouse over. On the plus side, as long as you don't clear your internet cache, they will load almost instantly after the first visit.
Thanks for checking it out...glad you like it!

Would be interesting to hear you thoughts about the potential as an aid for teaching English to children....

LeonRegis · Post by **LeonRegis** » 30 Nov 2009, 22:27

Yeah I never thought about use it to teach english. By what I see, no problems and most of the words are simple and easy to understand. Will look forward with this purpose.

Cya

marcel · Post by **marcel** » 30 Nov 2009, 23:14

speed to download the page is very good for me. i have experience in advertising. If you have some question, i can help you.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 30 Nov 2009, 23:23

Nothing too specific Marcel, just if anyone knows of the best way to get the site advertised with minimal cost. Money is always tight this time of year and I don't have thousands (or hundreds to be honest!) to spend on advertising.
Google adwords were getting costly for me and had little return from them.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.

marcel · Post by **marcel** » 30 Nov 2009, 23:39

do you have a video advertising for youtube, dailymotion, etc...?
maybe you need a good visual picture to post on many forum (avoid to show this as a spam, that is the problem).
I think your businesscard don't show the real quality of what you do. I am sure you can do more.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 30 Nov 2009, 23:49

Business card was a bit of a 'quick fix' to be honest Marcel. I will look into the others but I only have static stuff, no videos yet!

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 01 Dec 2009, 01:06

I would have offered to help with the technicalities of Google Adwords but you have already tried that. It was getting expensive for me too. I think you can post in forums like Marcel said and it wouldn't be spam if you did it in 3d, art, and education related ones. Do that in a lot of them. 3D artists have kids and some are with schools.

LeonRegis · Post by **LeonRegis** » 01 Dec 2009, 01:43

Splinters... you plan to do something with Mysterious Land?
I loved the flipbook! Looks really nice!

v3rd3 · Post by **v3rd3** » 01 Dec 2009, 06:43

You need to get the buddyworldbooks content into the eyeballs of the customers. Your main customers are parents and grandparents that buy gifts for kids in the age group I believe fit the books.

Since you are a startup the closest source of promotion is friends and family. Next colleagues at work.

Assuming you have a limited promotion budget your best bet are self funding promotional items.

Off the top of my head.... your main page could have a link to 1 or 2 character images for visitors to print a "free" bookmark... if you recall our earlier discussion regarding launch I would not hesitate to print some bookmarks and leave them at the library or local cafes. The bookmarks should have a recognizable character with a copyright notice and the web address in easy to read lettering...

Next... select a merchandising provider like Cafe Press.... a few choice images will give your friends an opportunity to financially contribute by means other than subscription. If they buy the clothing and wear it, or have some kids wear it you have a billboard on legs.... The artwork should also have the web address on it.

Find a new business local to you that prints T-Shirts, coffee mugs etc and suggest (or have a friend suggest) that they might get some more business if they had wonderful partners like yourself, to joint venture on some product. They provide the shirts and the ink, you provide a piece of art.

Look for other local businesses that might partner/promote with you.

Start a small greeting card line using your characters. Find a local printer and negotiate a volume pricing deal where you get incrementally lower costs the more you print. Perhaps they could demonstrate their production standards with a small run of a couple of hundred cards at cost ...

Deluxe subscription.... all the rights of regular subscription plus .... an exclusive T-Shirt, mug ..... customers like to feel special... if they can feel a little more special than your other customers they will pay a little more for it.

Get your friends to contact parenting and seniors magazines to tell them of your wonderful books..... these magazines are usually looking for quick clips of interesting news and by their nature also assert good quality product from their readers view.

When you have the budget flyers or calendars with your characters will make wonderful gifts to day care centres in your area.

More ideas as I think of them.... good hunting.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 01 Dec 2009, 09:13

Great ideas; all of them...

I already have a cafepress section but these tend to be more of the pepe movie spoofs; I need one dedicated to the 'kid' side of things really.

Calendar I have done (again, using the pepe stuff) and I am looking into postcards.

Some great ideas here though and I will run with a few of them. I particularly like the T shirt one and getting a few printed free for some artwork....

Steve · Post by **Steve** » 01 Dec 2009, 10:22

I'm sort of glancing over this so I'm not sure if anyones mentioned it before

I know they're e-books, but have you considered printing some sample books off and requesting if you could place them in say....the kids sections of shops, libraries, book stores and so on

Granted you'd probably need better materials than just plain paper...but you're a DT teacher right? There may be materials available?

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 01 Dec 2009, 11:07

I already have three of the books in print and I am adding at least one more this week.
They are on lulu.com and amazon.com

Search for 'Harold Paul Woodward' or Little Cloud and you should see them. Nice to see that a few forum users have left feedback...

I have around 10 of each at home which I use for promo purposes and I do sell the odd one on demand.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 01 Dec 2009, 13:40

Hope this will do for now Prodigy...

Prodigy · Post by **Prodigy** » 01 Dec 2009, 14:29

Is on Line

Good luck!

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 01 Dec 2009, 17:34

Good looking banner. Professional and fun.

I think that the various merchandise like T-shirts and post cards would sell better if you used your characters in scenes specifically designed to sell those items. Use the characters in funny cartoons and such appropriate and appealing to Buddy World's age group plus parents. Make them funny or interesting with no knowledge of Buddy World. Links, flyers, etc. distributed on or with the items, including Pepe, would promote Buddy World or Envision.

How about a card game like Gathering or Yu-gi-oh with Buddy World characters, style, and education. I'm not sure about the names but you know the games I mean. Lots of possibilities there for publicity, education, and earning money. A few thoughts:
- Use the scheme of those games, the baseball card scheme, where some cards are rare ... possibly expensive.
- Interactive play-online solo or multi-player (difficult I'd expect) for Buddy World members. Best way to control distribution of the rare cards and get money (feature helps sell subscriptions).
- Effective but fun educational ability would help sell it to schools.
- You can always invent new cards. Some only for the game and some from new stories and characters in Buddy World. That creates perpetual interest in the game.
- Physical merchandise. Real printed decks and T-shirts etc. specifically related to the games.
- The cards could have fun powers based on related characters and stories.
- The cards would have links or text to promote the site and merchandise.
- Pepe could have his own game. Maybe some copyright or trademark problems but generic movie themes could fix that. ("... I play my Sneaky Spy card which combined with Action Hero makes Pepe invincible! Bwahahaha ...")

tahnoak · Post by **tahnoak** » 13 Dec 2009, 11:20

i've got a 6 year old, a 5 year old, and 2 year old twins. They can certainly be your walking billboards

and if there are other kids like them, they never forget a website address so put the website address on the shirt as well.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 15 Dec 2009, 12:57

Have you managed to look at the site with your kids Tahnoak? Would be interesting to see what they think...

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 07 Feb 2010, 14:13

I got to thinking that the index page of my site (the first anyone sees) is a bit formal and doesn't really show what you might be getting. Looking at many kids sites they are really colourful and in your face, which I personally don't like too much but business is business!
So I am making the index page more like an advert to encourage visitors to take a further look.
Whadaya think of this? The text in the centre grows when you move over it but I need this page to be quite small so people don't leave while it loads.
Any suggestions? Do you think it does the trick?

LeonRegis · Post by **LeonRegis** » 07 Feb 2010, 14:36

I think is a great step in direction of success!

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 07 Feb 2010, 16:00

Looks good (graphics/art/style) to me. I agree with you that this is better for business. It quickly shows the parent or child that there is a large amount of material and activities available. The brighter look is more inviting.

All I can think of that isn't there is something to say there is more or that new material is always being added. Let them know that it already has all this and more and that it is on going with new things.

Breech Block · Post by **Breech Block** » 08 Feb 2010, 03:59

Hi Paul! Gosh, you seem to be quite around here of late. With regards your new front page, I certainly think it's a step in the right direction. I was chatting to a web designer not so long a go and he told me the same thing about my site. When people visit the homepage, it should give the clearest possible indication of the content of the site. Can't say I agreed with him at the time as like you, I wasn't keen on having something that was too "in yer face". But, having changed my own front-page recently, I must admit he was spot on.

With regards to specifics, first of all I can't say I'm too keen on your animated text. I don't like the way the actual wording changes from when it is static to when it leaps out at you. Don't know if it is suppose to be that way. I also think the "now" on the secondary text is a bit of an overkill. Mind you, I never did like being told what to do.

In addition, the hotspot detection is very tight and might be a bit awkward for younger mouse users.

I also think the whole page is very static and doesn't really convey the lively fun that young kids can have within the site. If each spot/character was to have a small flash animation sequence that kicked off at random intervals that might help. Or make it so each spot/character is also a hotspot and when the mouse hovers over it a speech bubble comes up with a very brief explanation of who the character is or them saying something like "Hello, I'm Doris, come on in and join the fun!" Or perhaps all the little characters could be chatting away to each other. And whilst I realise this would be a lot of extra work, perhaps you could change the design of the page so the characters are sticking out of the background, kinda like a head through a porthole or how madmouse posed his lovable little alien character. That would give the page a lot more dimension/relief and certainly be more reflective of the wonderful world that lies within.

Whilst I realise all this would mean the page would take longer to load, IMO, that is something you should seek to address rather than avoid. By that I mean plan for the page to take a few seconds to upload, but entertain the waiting visitor with a Buddy World themed animated loading bar that both informs them of the pages progress and is fun/funny to watch.

Hope some of that little lot helps.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 08 Feb 2010, 05:02

Harold's race car game is fun.

v3rd3 · Post by **v3rd3** » 08 Feb 2010, 16:09

I think Breech's comments are quite good. I would add a suggestion that each of the graphics for the sections of the site have a mouseover effect. Something as simple as changing the ring in each of the graphics altering the thickness and colour.

The overall design I think will work very well.

The text at the corners might stand for some editing to clearly delineate the letters. For example, the bottom left corner has Learning where the a and the r bleed into each other. Some readers may be concerned that the reading material is "hard to read" material

.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 08 Feb 2010, 16:37

The flow from page to page needs to be reconsidered now. It is like there are two front pages: the gate page and the new front page. Quick access to sample or member content without too many clicks is needed while preserving promotional and informational opportunities where needed.

The front page graphics, like "Barn Buddies", could all link to the "World" page. Alternately, they could each link to the appropriate sample or member(if logged in) content.

"Books", "Games", and "Learn More" could link to a redesigned Gate page which would serve as a sort of table of contents for the detailed info. and show promotional material.

Members need a front page login link. Maybe it could have the gate image for its icon. Others in convenient places too.

Members would see the World page after logging in.

Consider what happens when various "Exit" links, any link that leaves an area, are clicked. Where do you go and is that what the text implies and what a user would expect?

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 11 Feb 2010, 14:03

Cheers guys, I have indeed been quiet of late. Job interviews, pressure at work, family etc. all take their toll. Finally got my breath back to revisit the site and decided to revamp the front.
I will change the 'growing text' and make it easier to click but I worry that the animations will slow it down. I once read that new visitors will only wait (less than) 10 seconds for something to appear before they leave.
Will give the rest some thought tonight after I make trueblue's icons....

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 11 Feb 2010, 14:56

Forgot to mention that the rollover is very simple as I already have the Photoshop layers and they can be easily done. Hopefully, if I do it this way the main image (with the rings as they are) would load almost straight away and you would only be waiting for the 'pop up/rollover' images to load. I will try it tonight.

@Breech; all my images/books etc. are static so I have no animations as such but here is what I would suggest:

Add the rollover state with a speech bubble for description and maybe the book title grows but also change the picture in the disc (one with red ring around it) to a different image from the books so maybe Harold on his bike; rollover to reveal Harold in his decorating gear. That way I am also showing more than you initially see.
I will probably change the colour of the ring as well to show it is highlighted.
As for the next page I really want that to be where you join/subscribe/find out more etc. Not sure how you could get straight in unless I put a 'Members only Express entry' hotspot!

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 13 Feb 2010, 00:57

Ok, I changed the front page guys if you want to take a quick look...

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 28 Feb 2010, 13:10

Front page updated slightly again to use some updated logos etc. I also changed the main members map.

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 28 Feb 2010, 17:32

I think the rocket on the world page (where you select a story) should not move and have fire all the time since the other story icons don't do anything until you mouse over. I'd have a still rocket that does the fire and movement thing on mouse over.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 16 Mar 2010, 09:17

I made some noticable changes to the site including new logos for several ranges and a new index page.
I also added fact sheets on each book range accessible from the info page but I am having difficulty printing them. They are made A4 at 100dpi but printers I am using are cropping the image.
You don't need to sign in to see them, just go to the main gate then go through Info>Buddy World and choose an icon to view the sheet.
Value your feedback on these and any suggestions as to making them print universally. My printer at home automatically shrinks the image to fit but I need these 'idiot proof' for use in schools....so far none of the attempts in my class have printed properly. I am just minimising the complaints from paying customers....

Anyone?

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 18 Mar 2010, 12:02

Any one managed to check out the printing problem and have a solution?

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 18 Mar 2010, 19:31

Another question guys, anyone know how to add a footer and header to a php page? I found the footer and header pages and here is the code from the footer:

<table width="100%">
<tr>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><hr /></td>
</tr>
<tr align="center">
<td>YOUR FOOTER HERE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
</tr>
</table>

</body>
</html>

Where it says 'YOUR FOOTER HERE' how do i replace that with an image say footer.jpg and where would I place the image in the folders i.e. does it need to be in the same folder as the footer.php and header.php pages.
Any help appreciated guys...

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 18 Mar 2010, 21:34

No worries, trial and error pays off every time....

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 19 Mar 2010, 04:56

The HTML for an image could be:

<img src="../myimages/mypicture.jpg" height="120" width="200" border="0">

It is proper to use CSS for the style thing but the border, etc., attributes will do it too.

src can be a file path, complete or relative, or it can be like http://www.buddyworld.com/superpictures/greatpic.jpg" .

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 19 Mar 2010, 16:25

Cheers finis, I sorted it after trial and error (and google!)
Do you have any theories why the data sheets are not printing at A4 properly?

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 21 Mar 2010, 11:11

I also sorted the other problem out at the cost of a few 100KB per image. They work fine as PDF's. Certain browsers/PC's/Printers process the image diffrently but they all work fine as PDF's.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 02 Jul 2010, 10:03

Great news guys, yesterday I successfully submitted two of my books; Harold's Bike and Harold's House to Apple for distribution through itunes/ibooks. They passed all the necessary tests as epub documents so I now have to wait a few weeks until they appear on the itunes store.
I am going to submit two more this week: Little Cloud and Harold's Hair, then work on converting the whole library.

I have also got a Barn Buddies book on lulu.com as well as the ebooks so there are several options for buying now as well as the site itself with all the extras.

Exciting times and I viewed Harold's House on an ipad today. Looks great but I have some issues with how it converts 'non-standard' sizes as, well to be honest, I am a bit of a perfectionist. Only way around it is to crop the sides of the images to make them fill the screen properly then the text becomes crisp and clear....Mmmmm, not sure yet. Decisions, decisions.....

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 02 Jul 2010, 21:29

That's great Splinters!

You get paid for ibooks downloads right? Have you sold anything yet on lulu?

v3rd3 · Post by **v3rd3** » 02 Jul 2010, 22:55

Finally, an apple for the teacher.....

Congrats ...

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 02 Jul 2010, 23:13

Finis wrote:That's great Splinters!

You get paid for ibooks downloads right? Have you sold anything yet on lulu?

Yeah, I get paid from itunes. As for Lulu, not sold a single printed book online...but sold all those that I bought myself. Then again, I do get them cheaper than if you ordered yourself.

marcel · Post by **marcel** » 03 Jul 2010, 06:09

It is the time to show your work with new technologie. A good think for you. Your work is really a good thing for iPad (or other) and child. Maybe better than home computer because your work is like a book.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 04 Jul 2010, 15:33

Thank you, I really hope this takes off. I always envisaged a more technological outlet for my work but all those years ago, traditional printing was the only 'commercial' way to go but, as you are no doubt aware, I had a lot of trouble with agents and publishers accepting my style of work.

Luckily I built up a body of work with all the source files so I am now able to convert to this new format with relative ease. I converted 4 books in one evening and published them online. The beauty of the ipad is how it makes a double paged spread if you turn it to landscape mode (the ipod/iphone just changed orientation and still displays a single page).

If anyone here has an iPad I can offer you a free book if you can just test it for me and see how it looks...

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 08 Oct 2010, 11:20

Just to follow up on the iPad/iBook thing, I reached No.17 in the kids and teens charts so they are selling now. I think around 80 had sold on last count so no millionaire mansion for me just yet...

However, I am revamping the website and plan to put more 'advertising' into the books to get more interest.

I need a fresh pair of eyes to look at the site as a first visitor would. Does that first page show what you are getting?, is it clear what the site contains? Is there enough there to make people 'click to enter'? Is there too much and slows down loading time? Should there be a smaller 'loading' page or is that just one more page too many?

Any advice would be appreciated....

marcel · Post by **marcel** » 08 Oct 2010, 18:42

- when i click on the rocketsip (maingate page), the link have no effect (link to the same page). i think it is important for a first page of a web site to not have link like this. maybe that need to go to "sample/rocketship.html" for non members.
- page like info.html need to have a limit for the text inside an area with the same size of the others pages. in a big screen or if you zoom out on a small notebook it is not beautifull to have only 1 or 2 long lines of texte.
- the button sound on off at mainmapsamp.html is not enought visible for me. the first time i tried to click on the white text near the button and I thought it did not work. only after i saw the button.
- the speed of the refresh for all pages is very good for me.
Good work.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 08 Oct 2010, 23:24

Good points Marcel. The rocketship is just a 'mouse over' effect to explain where you can go if you join but I will do something with that.
Same with the sound control. Not sure about the text though, I made it quite big but I will look at it.

I was more concerned about the first page you reach with all the characters...does it need more...or less?

marcel · Post by **marcel** » 09 Oct 2010, 07:56

I find the twelve circles too big. it occupies too much space. to make the whole more lively and enjoyable this is what I would like:
when the mouse moves over a circle, it does not change and there is no info in a bubble. All this appears in the large center circle instead of the current illustration (all text in the center of the page disappear as well). give it a better preview of each world with enought space to insert text in the big circle. when a mouse is over the space, the artwork and the current texts reappear. it seemed simpler and more efficient.
with this solution you can add info in the central circle when mouse is over "games" and "books" and a cool illustration to invite member and non member when the mouse is over "member entry" or "join now".
i know it is a big work to redraw the whole.

nigec · Post by **nigec** » 09 Oct 2010, 17:22

just hand another look around with my 2 yr grandson and he's very impressed lol
There used to be a flash tutorial for a game called Ice World, it was a simple platform game and you made an level editor and the game engine, the game was driven by an XML file

v3rd3 · Post by **v3rd3** » 10 Oct 2010, 20:52

The short suggestion I have is to add text describing Deep Space Doris.... you have the logo there but new readers will not see the character name unless they dig in....

Finis · Post by **Finis** » 10 Oct 2010, 21:22

I'm pretty happy with it as is.

Picky detail: On my 900x1600 screen just a little is off the bottom of the screen without scrolling. Scrolling not needed though since all info and functions are visible at first. You can't make it perfect on all screens.

I like Marcel's suggestion about images, info., and links appearing in the center. I'd still have the moused over feature highlight and change as it does now but also put additional info in the center. A lot of work though when the current display is good.

I still don't like the rocket moving all the time on the mainmapsamp page. It should move and flash fire on mouse over and be still the rest of the time.

splinters · Post by **splinters** » 11 Oct 2010, 07:40

All good points gents...I just landed a big job so looks like these might have to wait. Definitely going to put some imagery in the middle of that screen though...just need to keep the file size down, especially on the first page.

On a related note, if anyone owns an 'i' device (iphone, ipad, ipod touch) and has the free ibooks app could you possibly give some of the books a rating as it pushes their profile up on the 'new and notable' list. If you get time and wish to do so of course.

Cheers....

Buddy World

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