Honest opinion of ndbison.com

[pmp6nl]

Hello,

I am not sure if you are aware of my connection to ndbison.com or not, but if you do I want you to disregard that knowledge.

Anyway, what I am looking for is an honest opinion of what you think about ndbison.com (and I dont mean in relation to it being related to NDSU).  I want an honest opinion of what you think of the design, astetics, content, usefullness etc.

I am thinking it could be improved a lot, but I am looking for some opinions on the matter.

Please let me know what you honestly think.  What do you like, what do you dislike.

When reviewing the site please keep the whole UND-NDSU thing out of it.

Thanks! 

[Sal Atticum]

You might want to plaster "Campus Dakota" or "NDBISON" all over the marketplace site, if you want people to a)make the connection between the sites and b)understand what geographical region you are serving.

[Sal Atticum]

I think NDBison is a great resource for students in Fargo--especially because it helps those from GF know what is available if they are driving down.  I like that you have the links to the forum everywhere (although they are linked to the old board), but it would be really cool if you could get a good couple of restaurant reviews from the forum and then link to the review directly under the address of the restaurant:

Duane's House of Pizza
1629 University Dr S
Fargo, ND 58103
Phone: 701.232.8908
South Fargo
Read a student review!

Or you could have some little icon next to it too.


That way, you not only give people what they want (an idea about the place before they go), but you also get them involved in reading the forum posts through 'regular' interface of the website (which is less scary than a forum, for many people), which might make it easier to get them to join the forum in the future (maybe to write their own review).

Your "Calendar of Events" link doesn't work.

Now I'm sort of interested in making a similar site for GF...

[pmp6nl]

Hey thanks for the comments!

I setup the forum links to automatically redirect...

I had always wanted to do resturant reviews, but I had wanted to do it through some rating system software... though I was never able to find a good free program.  I could just link it to the message board as you suggested.

What I would really like to do is run everything through a content management system then expand. I would love to see all colleges/universities in ND to have a site like ndbison.com.  I think it would help in bringing everything and the students together!

What calendar of events are you talking about?


...I can see it all now.  Now just making it happen is the hard part 

BTW: We could draw a lot of people into campusdakota through ndbison just take a look at some of the stats http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s24ndbison
We are getting all sorts of hits from the search engines, though a lot of them are not really that relevant.  But it brings people in.  Keep in mind that the numbers at that site are a little low and they only count traffic on the main site (no forum etc.)

[Sal Atticum]

What calendar of events are you talking about?

http://www.ndbison.com/aroundtown.html

Calendar of Events

If you are looking for events around the FM metro take a look at the calendar of events for a listing of events in the FM metro for all of 2006.

[pmp6nl]

Thanks.

I dont think there is an updated calendar on there, but I could have it forward to the calendar here.