Flash Kit v2.0 - Your ideas here!

Hi.......I have to admit I have not taken the time to read all of the posts in this thread........so, if I'm repeating what has already been said, just ignore this......

I think one thing that is desperately needed here at FlashKit is a FAQ Section........so many of the questions posted in the Help Sections are asked repeatedly......I think many newcomers do not realize there is a Search available.....

If there were a FAQ Section that was similar to GGW's INSTA-TUTES, but organized, say alphabetically..........I mean you could probably narrow down the most asked things to 15 or 20.......I think it would be a great help...........

....and I wouldn't mind helping out on such a venture; just let me know.

Just my opinion.........

-pigghost-
[Edited by pigghost on 03-11-2001 at 04:11 PM]

you could outsource your servers to speedera.com

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Originally posted by cne_fx
you could outsource your servers to speedera.com

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let me expand,..speedera is one of those things that clones your site as the hits grow,..they also let your users actually pull requests from local servers,.ie; someone in NewYork wouldnt be hitting a server in Cali,.. or does Flashkit already do this? I dont know,.. just a suggestion

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Originally posted by kptoth
Why don't you make FlashKit v2.0 100% Flash? Use the product that you are featuring.

UltraShock.com will probably be 100% Flash and it'll be tough for FK to stay competitive when UltraShock.com goes live.

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Isn't Ultrashock.com live now? If it is the site you are speaking of, it isn't 100% flash. Try right-clicking on a download button.

I wouldn't pay to play, type anything into google and you'll find it
so what if its in russian

Flashkit is well known now as the place to go for source files, tutorials, answers to your questions.

Hence you have a brand that is strongly associated with 'learning flash'.

So why not put out a flashkit book or cdrom. Clearly there must be money to be made from flash books or there wouldnt be so many of 'em.

And people dont know which book to buy - flashkit could use its established association with being " the place to get flash answers" - to distiguish the book.

So get together some of your tutorial contributors and moderators and put together the flashkit book. Then sell it online and watch the money come in.

you could also try running flashkit endorsed training semminars (kinda like the colin mook ones f4 ff2001)

dd

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Originally posted by wseligman

2) Definitely a downloadable text version of each tutorial. ( Having to go online and advancing through seven pages slows the process of learning.) This might also allow users to be on less downloading only one file, than advancing through 7 pages.

3) All tutorials should be written the same if submitted by users. There should be an established criteria or rigid format that submissions follow - i.e., Must include: Read me file/Sample .swf/Sample .fla/all associated images.
[Edited by wseligman on 02-26-2001 at 02:24 AM]

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As to point 2, I think that that's a great idea. I think that you can have it both ways though. Just have a printable version that people can download/print with ease.

As for point 3, I believe that your templates are difficult for users to write tutorials as it is. the only reason I haven't wrote several tutorials is because I have to use your templates. I think a better way of handling it would be to let your users write the tutorial in the fashion that there most comfortable with, and then use CSS style sheets to make it automatically intigrate into your site. Also if you wrote a dtd for xml people to write articles in, this would integrate all articles into your site, and make it easier for you in future upgrades.

One thing that I think would be great is build your site using a mix of flash/php. Example, build most of the interface, like a frame and menu buttons, in flash and then fill the parts that using flash would hinder, like links, news, ect., using php. http://www.ultrashock.com does a very nice job of this if you need an example of what I'm talking about.

I love your guy's site and I rarely venture anywhere else when reading flash related things. Infact I check your site for updates more than I check my email throughout the day. I know that whatever you guys come up with it will be the best.

101000 -

"3) All tutorials should be written the same if submitted by users."

I agree on your suggestion to let users write in the style most comfortable for them, and perhaps I should clarify my statement after I read it again.

It's not about using the same templates when you submit a .swf, but rather about being very clear in the style of language and how you phrase your directions to the user.

I have found different writing styles from tutorial to tutorial. Some leave in certain details, some don't, but that's individuality. There should be a minimum set of standard information in their copy, such as what the tutorial does, all steps clearly written with no abbreviations, etc.

Many coders have submitted great tutorial ideas, but some of the writing is in "tech-shorthand," for lack of a better phrase. All writers should assume that their audience is clueless when describing something, and that the audience might not understand the world that the writer inhabits.

Hope I was clear, lol.
[Edited by wseligman on 03-17-2001 at 11:52 PM]

wseligman-

I agree with you on a certain amount of standards that should be included in a tutorial.

8) Expand what Flash is about. FlashForward, etc is already there. Create FlashKit's own on-line festival. Maybe the Dead can play? No? Ok, how 'bout Blues Traveler? Alice in Chains? Let me know on that one.
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already did that, mon. I did that. I'm gonna do it again.

1)Gender specifications
2)Free Custom Titles
3)Free Access
3A)For users with over a year of exp, fee:$1 per month.
4)New color scheme
5)More news
6)flashMessenger, perhaps?
7)(festival), for which i have great concepts. CONTACT ME, Y'ALL LOOZAS FO SOME SKEENSHOTS, YEAH!

factor7, make the experienced users but not the newbies pay? thats extremely biased in my opinion. everyone free or everyone pay. (or make donations optional)

The biggest problem I have with the site (actually the only one really) is that I feel there are too many steps to downloading a file.

Obtaining sound loops etc becomes a tedious process as I have to wait for pop up windows and so on and so forth. I would like to click the link and have the filesave dialogue box pop up straight away - without the intermediate step.

Other than that, FlashKit is an awesome resource, it is good to know it's not far from home either (I'm in NZ).

I have never had any speed issues or 404's.

Keep up the good work.

CF

Please please change the colour scheme.
and maybe add a (compulsory to signup??) section where the difference between the sitecheck, cool sites, members sites etc. forums is spelt out in big letters with big pretty coloured pictures to illustrate the difference.

Definately

[list][*]Upgrade the forum to vB 2.0 this lowering load on the server which @ peak times in the forum must slow the whole site.[*]Keep it HTML - no questions.[*]Dont have a free email service - whats hotmail for ?[*]Maybe have a color change option in FLash Kit, I know that a lot of people use this @ work when they are not meant to, so what about an option to make it less abusive to the monitor thus more people can nip on @ work.

cheers !

~Ben

I've been to sites which offer services which can be billed to your phone bill. Having little tutorials and stuff for free is cool. But you could also have higher end stuff. "Download this complete turnkey internet commerce website kit, Click Here, a fee of $7.95 will be tacked on to your phone bill." or "Get my manual, Safeguarding your site from hackers, only 75 cents, click here".
As it stands now, designers can only hope to attract side business by posting tutorials. This way, designers can go out of their way to make some really nice product and get a little compensation for all the extra effort. You can pay out the way MP3.com or the banner ad companies do. Paying out after posters have accumulated $25 per monthly period.
It's good for the designers, it's good for people who need the services and it's good for Flashkit.
You could also offer all the Flashkit tutorials and movies on a CD set.

How's this for a method of making money for the site?
Flashkit can accept contract jobs doing flash sites.
Interested designers can hang out in what would be the equivalent of a virtual temp service. Let's say Flashkit lands a job doing McDonald's web site in Flash. You have a moderator who is like the group manager. He posts the various job descriptions on the board; Need a cartoonist to do Ronald McDonald riding a bike. Need a photographer to submit location shots. Need a Java Programmer familiar with submitting forms using ASP. Need a grunt to do cleanup and paint on submitted Ronald sketches.
You see a job description you like you apply on the board "Hey, I can draw Ronald McDonald blindfolded!" Then the Moderator comes back "OK FlashNutz, you get the job, go clock in" Jobs can be either flat rate contract, like $100 per sketch, or you can clock in on some kind of central database and work from your home computer by the hour.
You can set up a system like Cocoon which allows multiple users to work on different aspects of the same project simultaneously.
This would allow Flashkit to use their noteriety to attract real business, utilizing a virtual army of talented designers.

It would be cool to have a java script or something which will pop up a window alerting you when someone has answered one of your posts. That way you can post a question and roam around while you're waiting for an answer.

I would like more polls.

Maybe some book reviews?

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Originally posted by thenewrules
I've been to sites which offer services which can be billed to your phone bill. Having little tutorials and stuff for free is cool. But you could also have higher end stuff. "Download this complete turnkey internet commerce website kit, Click Here, a fee of $7.95 will be tacked on to your phone bill." or "Get my manual, Safeguarding your site from hackers, only 75 cents, click here".
As it stands now, designers can only hope to attract side business by posting tutorials. This way, designers can go out of their way to make some really nice product and get a little compensation for all the extra effort. You can pay out the way MP3.com or the banner ad companies do. Paying out after posters have accumulated $25 per monthly period.
It's good for the designers, it's good for people who need the services and it's good for Flashkit.
You could also offer all the Flashkit tutorials and movies on a CD set.

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I don't agree with you.

• We all want Flashkit to be AD-FREE.
• The download kit you mentioned that adds a fee to your phone bill; no, there are thousands of members here on Broadband connection, and that Kit is not well recognized by other major websites.
• We all want fast surfing and powerful servers at Flashkit.
• Many people agreed that we all should give donations to FK. 100 000+ members, if each gives $1, it would be nice.
• Flashkit store would also be a great thing, buying T-shirts, CDs of cool loops, posters, and other goodies

This is a resource site, not a business site where you are supposed to pay just to download a 50kb-movie or small tutorial. Keep this in mind, if someone pays to download, he would have the downloads on his site, so everyone would go there, and Flashkit would face troubles removing those sites. There are better ways for Flashkit to make money.

I would buy all of my books, and books through FK if they were sold here! I buy at least $300 in books, if FK got 5% of that, it's $15, take that by the number of people buying books, and FK remains free!

Why not hold contests for the member with the most sponsor clicks? The member that has the most "unique" banner clicks each month wins a tee-shirt, or a sound loop pack... It would encourage people to click on the banners, and that's where the $ comes in right?

I'll try to be concise:

Don't start charging membership--besides destroying the spirit and purpose of Flashkit, I'm certain you'd see 'true membership' plummet.

Sell T-shirts. I would buy a Flashkit T-shirt if: it was a really cool design (not some dumb thing saying Flashkit in small letters over your left breast, but something that made people actually look at your shirt, and like it).

For the actual design, just hold a contest--with all these design-types out there, I'm sure someone could come up with something cool; perhaps there should be more than one design for the potential consumer to choose from.

You would have to make a deal with a distributor in the US or Canada (the latter would probably be cheaper, since our dollar is almost as low as the Aussie dollar) if you wanted to sell shirts here--I'm not about to try ordering something from halfway around the planet (imagine the postage costs).

Is there any hope of scoring a deal with Macromedia? If it turns out that more Flashers come to Flashkit for info than to Macromedia, then aren't you saving them money vis-a-vis customer support?


Whatever the outcome, I sincerely wish Flashkit the best. It has been of immense service to me.

the ability to filter/ order forum searches based on their popularity (reads/replies)

this would need to be weighted over time so that new posts could qualify equily (10 replies in a week) along side a long standing debate (150 replies over 3 months)


also the idea of some sort of complete flashkit cd release would generate revenue... I like that. (or maybe thats just because the site runs slowly currently) it could operate like a subscription....


dont offer more than is available on the site!
Dont have standdown time untill the info is made available,


ha ha heres a goodie....
Maybe the search could find information locally if the cd is inserted....


cool
[Edited by teanau on 03-26-2001 at 12:13 AM]

<i enjoy the site right now, improvement?
not total flash>

Maybe it could help the flashers on FK if they could get in contact with any other flasher by some sort of messenger system. Because every member has it's own i.d., they could chat directly and help each other out with his/her problem.

b.t.w not 100% flash

I'm looking forward to the new FlashKit v.2

I was really grateful for the current version, think of the state of mind i'll be in with the new version.

Nowhere on the net can you get this kind of information; I even enrolled to macromedias online courses (300 $, I feel like a sucker)... What a waste of time when you can get it here and more...

Somebody mentioned the idea of selling stuff over your site, to keep costs down. I'd f.... buy a T-shirt (or whatever) anytime if this meant you guys could keep this site up & running.

Just wanted to say thanks
Keep up the good work.

Panix

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Originally posted by sploenk
Maybe it could help the flashers on FK if they could get in contact with any other flasher by some sort of messenger system. Because every member has it's own i.d., they could chat directly and help each other out with his/her problem.

b.t.w not 100% flash

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ICQ? Most of FK members have ICQ numbers and most, if not all moderators as well.
I don't see anything anything wrong with ICQ, it's the best messenger there is.

sorry if this has been posted before, but....

the only problem i have with FK is the lack of advanced search features in the movies section. you can only search with keywords. how about adding search functions that allow you to narrow your search into, say flash5 or flash4 movies and/or the date and/or the ratigs, etc etc.

:oz

My idea was to say some words about flashkit chat room. Wouldn't it to be good idea to put up flashkit irc channel. So that I dont need to use this super slow web based interface. And to add for this irc channel java applet. So that users can connect to it by web browser. I think that chat room is great thing in flashkit but there are just some details which are making this thing there useless. It is too slow!!! Maybe there is somewhere an official flashkit irc channel and I havent seen it but anyway...

The future internet revenue model is "service-based" sites. Even Microsoft is moving all its applications online as services.

Based on that assumption, I believe FlashKit should take the 1,000's oh flash files and start offering some advance designs to "members" who pay a small monthly fee. Keep the free stuff alive, but create an area where members can freely exchange their more advanced design work. You may even be able to build in a referral model. Another option is giving members so many points to download files, all based on membership fees or uploads to the member community.

Just my two bits.

All i can say is

1: SPEED (or the lack of it)
2: Fix the tuts put them on 1 or 2 pages not 10 or 11 also sometimes i cannot see html code on a tut it is just a blank space so i have to root in the source to find it!!
3: Keep the design i like it
4: better help sometimes i cant find help i am looking for
5: Dont make it a fee site


Other than that FK team Are doin a great job
on the speed front i have noticed a major speed up on some pages


Good work FK keep it up!!

just make it simple for faster site viewing. you can use linux box for cascading computer for better performance and save hardware cost.:)

A few quick suggestions:

1. Try out a donation system first before going to a membership-based site. I think the Flash Kit community would donate enough on their own to support this site without memberships.

2. Many people have suggested a Flash Kit store. This would be an excellent idea. We all have to buy Flash materials anyway; and there is no reason why Flash Kit couldn't get a cut of that.

3. In addition to a "Best of Flash Kit" CD, why not create a system like FilePlanet's FilePlanet CD (http://www.fileplanet.com/index.asp?page=cdrom)? This would be a great alternative for those who are on a narrowband connection and are limited to downloading the smaller files. It could be integreated with a bulk download system, so you could either download the files in bulk or have them put on CD and mailed to you (snailmail). FlashKit could charge whatever their production/shipping costs are per CD plus a little extra to help fund the site.

4. A realtime chatroom type of system could be quite useful for getting questions answered fast, as long as it is not abused by flamers and those who refuse to read the tutorials/FAQ's first.

5. Don't go all Flash. It would be a pain for both the Flash Kit creators and visitors.

6. I think the idea of having some type of collaborative projects or contests on Flash Kit would be neat. For instance, everyone could band together and create a mock-up Flash site, documenting the steps along the way. When the site was finished, all the files would be made available for download and the documentation would serve as a tutorial to show future visitors how to create such a project. The site could even be submitted to FlashForward and other contests. It would help build community and give people a change to flex their Flash muscles.

Sorry, guess that wasn't so quick after all. I look forward to Flash Kit v2.0, keep up the good work!

Well, I finally got through the entire thread, and here's my piece, for what it's worth.

The Flashkit store, both with FK related merchandise and reselling books/software/etc. is a great idea, both as a new feature and as a way to raise some $$$. I would certainly buy through this site, as it has been there for me many times.

I also think the idea of FK developing and presenting some kind of online learning and cert program for Flash is a great idea. I would pay for this, if it was well done, and if the certification actually meant something. This could be very lucrative, but costly to develop.

I agree that this site flourishes because it is a community, and that charging membership could be a detriment. However, there are ways to enact a tiered membership model without excluding people from the tutorials and other free resources. Someone several pages back mentioned that a better job placement/freelance project assembler would be great, in addition to resources for the freelancer (rate sheets, national avgs, etc) perhaps this could be a "value added" service and require a small monthly fee. Hey, I make money from Flash programming, and it's worth it to me to invest a little to get more work.

You could also set up some kind of "partnership" deal with those of us that have services to offer Flashers so we could put content/product up on your site for a fee. Better than a banner ad, and useful for the community.

I hope you won't go to a 100% Flash site, because I think upkeep on a site this huge would be nightmarish, and probably result in slower updates. I'll be along for the ride whatever happens. Keep up the good work!

How about being able to loop flash made files, I find it a dissapointment that I can't loop the animation. Also It would be easyer if you could upload extra animation from your computer and add it too the flash file you are already creating.

Great site, I can't wait for the new one. :)

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Originally posted by kptoth
Why don't you make FlashKit v2.0 100% Flash? Use the product that you are featuring.

UltraShock.com will probably be 100% Flash and it'll be tough for FK to stay competitive when UltraShock.com goes live.

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no, that's right in this way. HTML pages and flash content when it's needed.
Too much flash is like too much sugar...
[Edited by kaosmos on 04-04-2001 at 09:30 PM]

i think a rating system should be for each category in the movies section it is really hard to find the best flas to learn from at the moment

also a chatroom will be really good

COOL!
http://members.home.net/nicholashalligan">

The fee idea is good to make some money, but i wonder how many companies will pay the fee for each one of their flashers. Let's be real, if they have to pay for 5 or 10 flashers this become a big budget . And in the other side, there will be always the problem of users giving their account to friends etc. and how about the sharing of tutorials, examples and alike, it cut be harder to make someone upload something helpful to the rest of us if the site is earning money with this.

Maybe you can do it charging for online help, something like " i need help right now with my specific flash problem, not one or two days later in the board" type. I think a plenty of us are willing to pay for that kind of help.

And how about selling Flash lessons books made in Flash itself as tutorials apps for Mac and pc.

And for the speed you can try to make the home site for all and others sites for each level of flash, in this way not everybody will be fighting for the same bandwidth.

And please don´t go all flash!!!

information should be free for all to access and share. was'nt this the original purpose of the internet.

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Originally posted by banglafreak
my suggestions:

[list]
[*] a small membership fee, maybe $5 a year. its not too much but with 100,000 members it will help a lot! ($500,000 a year)

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One thing: If FK was to go fee-based, that 100,000 member count would drop substantially. I can't imagine more than 10,000 members would 'stick around' if there were a fee to use FK (even as small as that).

I've gotta think that FK needs to expand their advertiser base and set up a donation section. If smaller sites that are far less informative can survive using Paypal or the like, I'm sure FK would make more than enough.