Topic: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread - page 36. (Read 479475 times)

Butterfly Labs doesn't just have a slick site -- their marketing, from the name Butterfly Labs (do i have to point this out?), to logo graphic to case design to initial PR -- is head and shoulders above this muppetry.  Regardless of their lulzy customer relations (which, it may turn out, are also exactingly engineered -- it seems bitcoiners love paying money for attractive promises).

When you add a 20-min logo to a '90s website, that's exactly what you get -- a '90s website with a makeshift logo.  When a website, a tanking stock & the number "28" is all you have to sell, work on the website

Edit: Logo designers, drop the "C," it clashes with "VM" & no sane companies suffix their logos with "C" unless it's useful for visuals/pronunciation.

Patience you must have my young padawan.

I agree, it was fine. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the map of countries should have followed the perspective of the tunnel.

I see. Still looks like a ridiculously low price for its prospects.

Avalon Refunds $2.9M in Bitcoins to ASIC Miner Customers
Where are news about Actm/VMC refund?

When pricing equipment, please go to http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/ > Mining and have fun.
Set delivery date to December and it is not looking good at all

Is diff increase now around 60-70 or even more?

No. I believe ActiveMining will be shipping miners by December, but all of the competition is taking preorders so if we don't we will get left behind.

I completely understand, why Ken is not going with Lewicki home made back-end. NB! I am not talking about UI here.

PrestaShop has been tested in real life use by thousands and for longer Lewicki shopping cart has existed. It sure sounds like needed back-end functionality is not there either. etc etc.
Lets be honest, Lewicki shopping cart is not even in alpha stage Again, I am not talking about UI - the shiny stuff you see.

It is/was total waste of time, energy (and money) to invent your own shopping cart system, when you can use rigorously tested and well documented (and free) shopping cart engine with all the back-end bells an whistles you need to run your business - process orders, handle inventory etc.

Yes, I agree, some parts of the current shop do not look good but this is the UI problem and not the core/engine, what ever you like to call it, problem. 

Who is VMC client? Is it a eye candy seeking 16-18 year old, with severe ADD, because of overusing "social" media and needs this shit to slide, bounce and shine on his/her "smart phone" idiot slab, phone s/he is drooling over all day long, oblivious to what is happening around her/him?
Fuck no!

The look is not so important as reliable technical information, delivery dates that are met and equipment that works, are way more important in this case.

Actm/VMC are not selling shiny dildos with blinking lights. This product is überspecific hardware and chips, that can do only one thing - mine bitcoins.

This pages needs:
1) get me the information I need to make a decision - do not force me to click for every bit of useful info
2) Make it easy to order - one page no more than 3 clicks do get me out the door
3) give me a personal page I can see my order status

Everything else is waste.

I agree, this site can not look like shit. But, if it looks like shit, it needs a new skin, and not an home made shopping cart engine.

Lewicki did a awesome job but it was a wrong job. He should have painted the siding, not start build a new house

BTW, Ken, can we expect financial reports by 15 or are you going to jerk us around again with bull shit excuses.
One more thing. one month Income/Expense report, with out any info for previous periods (year to date), is not! a balance sheet. Just a reminder, so you know.

The best I've seen so far.

Unless = BFL

I understand the fear of moving away from a site that converts profitably (believe me, I know this fear) - but if this site is converting at 8x profitability, imagine what a good site would do. I'm an expert on CRO and believe me when I say your current site is one of the worst I've seen. To fear change is to fear success.

I also understand the existing site might have some useful backoffice functions, in which case lewicki's design could be ported to the same content management system.

For every problem there is a solution.

Don't follow the logic there - preorders does not equate to scamming.

BlockChains, you are ignoring the whole reason we need a flashy looking website which is to attract large amounts of preorders! Just look at how many idiots fall for BFL's scam because they have a pretty website. ASICMINER waited until they had large amounts of hardware up and running before they sold it, and it was immediately available (they only sold it once they could get more than it would ever mine... 20BTC blades anyone?). Getting preorders locked in now will give us a very nice revenue stream once we get chips from eASIC. If we don't get the preorders, then our competition will and then we will be left with nothing.

Last post before I head off to bed.  Here's two mockups of the current site with my two VMC logo's, the first of which is tweaked so the color flows better with the rest of the site.

I think Ken has the right priorities. I'd like to point out that AsicMiner has yet to have an official website and grew to be a multimillion dollar business in the bitcoin world. While websites are nice and help with being taken seriously, it doesn't really matter that much in this specific sector at this time.

If there's a product available that  can be shipped immedietely and has even a shred of an ability to make ROI in a timely manner, they will be sold out in nanoseconds.

Obviously, as the market gets more saturated with mining hardware options then marketing and professional branding will start to move to the top of the priority list. For quite a while in this sector, once a plethora of immediately available miners are available to choose from, it will be $/GH and Watts/GH that determine the best sellers. Not the ones with the prettiest cases and websites.

1 year out, marketing will start to matter more. Consider the "war" between intel and amd. Both offer pretty much the same thing with only slight differences and so they really have to market the shit out of their product so that when the consumer goes to make a purchase they go, "Well this has Intel and I swear more people have that because its good." Really it's just that subconscious marketing echo from all the commercial exposure they've had rattling in their head making them swing that way at the point of sale.

tl;dr The asic mining sphere is still too nascent for web marketing to be of much importance

Here's another one that sort of follows the 3D look, but simplifies it a bit more.

After offering to redesign his entire front end using his current website for free, I was turned down. Since I have no say on the web site, and the main reason why was doing this for free in the first place was to improve shareholder value by generating more sales and in effect paying myself through dividends; I would no longer be paid anything for the work that I have done. I have said multiple times to Ken that I would give him the content (Logo, etc.) if he pays me what I payed for them.

I will give him everything (logo, etc.) if he pays me what I payed for it. I think that that is more than fair.

Yeah, flatshaded versions can be done, i.e:





That's just quick and dirty, the dark lines in the second version were done with a quick photoshop filter, but that's the general idea.

I do not typically do 3D logo's, simply because they are more trouble than they are worth, and they typically come across as dated.  If I were to do it, I would suggest loosing the shadows and harsh gradient.  Also, a cleaner font would look better.  Something like this is what I'm thinking.

It's pretty tough to argue with this. They're easier to re-size, display in any media form, and are universally easier on the eyes.