Suggestions about a web site needed

Zvekan

Newcomer
Me and my colegues have an idea about a web site and before even starting to work on it I wanted to ask you guys hanging on Beyond3d for opinion as it could be of your interest.

Main idea is very simple. We would make an on-line base that would consist of benchmark results for various cards that would be obtained from different web-sites (with their permission of course). There would only be numbers, drivers used, link to review that numbers were taken from, and possibly a screenshot for comparation purposes without any text (if we can agree with the sites to take same shots or something similar).

Also based on reputation each site would have his confidence rating. So number obtained for instance from Beyond3d would have confidence rating of lets say 10, while toms would differe based on the reviewer and so on.

I know it sounds too entusiastic for now but we feel that we could get at least a couple sites to cooperate for now (they don't loose anything and can only get more hits) and as time goes by :) more would probably join. Do you think the idea would work? I know that there could be lot of issues concerning the confidence rating (pissed editors as such) but we could leave it for the readers to choose so our hands remain clean.

Thnx for any info,

Zvekan
 
PeterAce said:
What extra are you offering than the standard complete reviews?

I'm not sure if I see the point?

Well first of all there wouldn't be any testing involved, at our side.

Then it would cut time needed from making decision based on some product as you would have different imputs (also if the platform is same you could see how much scores vary and if someone is making systematic mistakes (Anands Q3 scores with FX5900)).

I think it could provide a nice overview, and if you want more details you can easily follow links.

Also you want to see how one graphic card perform on your system? You have to browse through many sites and reviews, while using this site you could specify bring me results on AXP 2400+ (or range from 2200+ to 2500+) on nForce2 or something similar?

Zvekan
 
Hi Zvekan,

Your idea actually sounds almost exactly like something I've been working on for the last couple of months (which happens to actually be very similar to an idea that Azbat came up with a while ago). It's a good idea, and if you perform some statistical analysis of the results of various benchmarks, you could probably present a lot of rather useful data to the viewers (This is what I'm going to be doing). The hardest problem is going to be figuring out how you want to store the information in the database, and also how you want to present the information back to the user. You'll want something easy for them to follow, but flexible enough to provide really useful information.

If you come up with something, please post a link as I'm sure a number of people would probably interested in seeing some results. If you take a look at this thread:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7165&highlight=

you can see some preliminary data in a histogram from about 40 different reviews for the 9700pro running DM-Antalus. It will be much more interesting once I can get my relational database setup. I'm just now finishing up touches on the ERD and should hopefully soon have it converted into tables for the database.

Anyway, good luck with your project!

Nite_Hawk
 
Zvekan,

This is very similar to some ideas I've had for doing a sequel to my Dimension 3D site, but it never got off the ground. I've talked with Joe DeFuria, my friend who helped remodel Dimension 3D the last time, and Dave here at Beyond3D about some of my ideas. Unfortunately nothing panned out. However, it wasn't their fault as I've always lacked follow through with my big ideas. Hehehe ;)

Anyway, I like your ideas and I really believe their is a need for such a site, but I think PeterAce was correct in that you still need some value. The site can't just be a collection of reviews. It really needs to be a one-stop shop for potential 3D board buyers. This means you need to provide a tailored service to each user to help them get the right product for their needs. You then need to give a list retailers and prices to buy that product. Links to the reviews just gives them more data points to make an informed decision.

That's my thoughts. If you and your are interested in some help I would love to provide you with some assistance. I don't know how to program, but I could help you with the design of the layout or interface and I still have some contacts in the 3D community that might be helpful. I even have my Dimension3D.com domain still. If your site turns out to be something that I envisioned and approve of, then I might be willing to sell it or at least point it to your site. Tried to get Dave to buy it from me, but he has yet to return my messages. If he ever does, then he would have first dibs though. ;)

Good luck on the endeavor.

Tommy McClain
 
Nite_Hawk said:
Heya Azbat,

Did you ever get the PM I sent back to you last july? Never heard back from ya. :)

Nite_Hawk

First of all, call me Tommy. ;)

Second, yeah, I got it. I thought I responded to it. However, my Sent Box doesn't go back that far. So, I don't have any proof. Anyway, send me another one and I'll try to reply back in a reasonable amount of time. :)

Tommy McClain
 
Thnx on reponse and offer for help (AzBat :) ), I'll be contacting you if we ever get to some more advance stage.

As Nite_Hawk said storing information could be difficoult. Well not storing but analyzing it and offering it to public as many reviews use different levels in games.

Right now we are thinking about building fully configurable base (special info for each entry that can be customised as results demand) but execution could prove to be a problem.

We lack a serious programmer as I relalise that my skills currently aren't up to the task and unfortunately I don't have enough time to learn (collegue stuff and so) for now.

Regarding only results. Well it is obvious that data storage and anlysis is the most dificoult part and if we build are base configurable it could easilly be expanded to have aditional commentary, links to pricewatch or something similar.

Thnx for positive feedback :), I'll try arrange another meeting with guys I'm planing this with and we'll try to put it on paper, but unfortunately it looks much more complicated that it appeared at first glance :(

Zvekan
 
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