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More GTVibes.com flak
This time, The Critic of All Media
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A model for the new GTVibes.com?
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Followers of this column would know that we are friends of both GTVibes.com’s Rain and The Guyana Media Critic blogger. Recently we found one post by the Critic criticising (what else?) GTVibes.com. To pre-empt Rain’s usual question about why we did what we did, which we are doing by reproducing part of the criticism below, you know by now that we like coax demon, plus we believe that the Critic’s usually acerbic manner of delivery aside, the criticism isn’t completely unfounded. Here is what the Guyana Media Critic had to say:
“Quite frankly we're now disappointed in GTVibes.com. We cannot keep it in any longer. Rain and her crew are clearly not keeping up with the website's popularity. Is it that they need to now be taken over by a pro? Do they need to pack it in and sell it off to people whose creativity and business acumen will be able to drive the website forward? We hope not, they have the passion, they now need to marry that passion with some common sense and initiative for further success.
It's all well and good to start off posting fuzzy photographs at every shindig around GT but once that picks up interests and people across the diaspora catch on, you've got to improve standards. Further once you're soliciting and receiving monies for ads you've got to improve the standards.
You CANNOT continue to just wildly and thoughtlessly post every photograph taken. The time has now come for GTVibes.com to raise the bar on the quality of their photographs. They should choose only the best ones, both in terms of quality and content, and post those and forget the crappy ones that they continue to feed us. In short they need to do some editing and change from being the CN Sharma of the internet world.
They ought to be investing in a decent camera (with proper zoom) that will allow them to improve the quality of their photos on the whole, especially bearing in mind that most of their photos are taken at night. They need to upgrade from that pocket sized 2 megapixel point and shoot steel plate they currently lug around.
Additionally they need to make a move forward from that amateur look they still maintain as their homepage. Surely they have enough technically expertise in their ranks to design a more attractive homepage. At the moment the website looks as though it is the fantasy gig of some 15 year old now learning Dreamweaver.”
We have one criticism to add concerning the pictures on GTVibes.com: we think it was patently unwise to present the pictures – the heart and soul of GTVibes.com – in Flash format. Since the pictures are the main draw of people to the website, it goes against the interest of the site to make this component less user-friendly. So what if people are downloading pictures off of the website? The old ‘ownership’ argument doesn’t work, especially since it’s doubtful that anyone featured in the pics ever signed a release form transferring their rights of ownership of their likenesses to the website in the first place. A good idea would be to present big, clear images like those downloadable images which can be found at Triniscene.com, complete with the GTVibes.com stamp across them. If they want prints – sans “GTVibes.com” – they can order them from the website owners; if they prefer to download the images, just let them. When they post on their Yahoo or Hi5 profiles, it’s free advertising for GTVibes.com. In fact, we would like to recommend Triniscene.com – though not perfect – as a model of what a revamped GTVibes.com could be; sort of like how Trinidad is a model of what Guyana could be.
In the final analysis, we agree with the essence of what the Media Critic is saying. GTVibes.com has to decide whether it’s going to continue being a labour of love or a business entity built upon the cornerstone of a labour of love. Anyone who isn’t seeing that, isn’t a true fan of the website.
Webnotes
Hitsandjams.com needs to decide whether it’s online or offline. Enough said.
The Demerara Lighthouse blog is really ripping things up. Watch it though or you guys may be liable for some libel.
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