Changing the home page?
So my thoughts have moved towards changing the front page. The front page has remained relatively unchanged for a long time, maybe a decade. But it's starting to feel a little stale to me.
What if a user isn't interested in any of the 5 quizzes that are available that day. Do they just leave?
What about niche quizzes that might appeal to a certain demographic, but aren't general enough to feature?
What if we changed the front page to include:
1) Featured quizzes
2) Quizzes from your subscribed users
3) Quizzes similar to ones you have already taken
4) Quizzes popular in your geographic area
And what if we updated the front page continuously, instead of once a day at midnight in New York?
I think it could make the site a lot better and also increase our traffic. On the other hand, I do think that JetPunk's old fashioned feel is one of our strengths. I don't want to ruin a good thing.
Let me know what you think.
This reminds me of something Stewart said "98% percent of JetPunk users don't know about non-featured quizzes" (of course I am paraphrasing, but it was something along those lines). I think this could be partially solved by you (or the community) finding a quiz you/they liked, but isn't, or won't be featured, and putting it in a small blurb above, below, or in between the featured quizzes of the day. I think this could also be an answer to the two questions you asked in this post.
Obviously, there are probably some reasons why this isn't done, and this is by no means going to cause a big uptick in traffic/revenue. It could help users discover non-featured quizzes and in turn leads to them spending more time on the site, though I don't know if this leads to increased revenue somehow.
It would also be nice if there was some small shortcut to the blogs section
I do think it should just be featured quizzes on the front page.
You could also think about possibly having ads for JetPunk on other websites (don't know if that would be possible or not).
Unfortunately, our traffic generates very little revenue per user. Buying ads is a complete non-starter. We'd spend $100 to make $1.
On a separate note, I know that quite a few people (over the course of the last few months) have said that they would like an updated front page. It'd make a lot of people happy if you changed it.
(Personally, I'm perfectly fine with the way it is but if you think it will help JetPunk that 100% I think you should do it. I'm on board with whatever you do).
One small update I would like is if you could see people's message board posts on their page (similar to how you can click on their blogs from there).
If you have maybe 2 "Featured" quizzes shown at a time, they could just cycle randomly between a handful of featured quizzes. Quizzes from subscribed users make a lot of sense. Chances are that people subscribed to that person for a reason. #3 seems tricky. I guess it'd just use the tag system. But algorithmic content seems scary for a mom-and-pop site like this. #4 is probably a good idea. German map quizzes for German people seems like a no-brainer.
Die hards also bring in very little. The first time a person visits the site we make a decent amount (assuming they are from the US). Every subsequent visit is worth less and less, until at some point advertisers bid so little we just stop showing ads.
The bulk of the revenue comes from casual users in the United States who never create a quiz or comment. And about 2/3rds of quiz takes are from people who don't even have an account.
But from a personal POV, I think making the featured quizzes on the FP change twice or three times a day may be advantageous.
Allowing a few more spotlights would highlight more unfeatured user quizzes.
In agreement with TheExiledOnes, maybe a shortcut to the blog section could replace the Minesweeper link under the message board link. There is already a link to Minesweeper in the minigames box after all.
Please don't change the font, and the simplicity of the layout is one of the best I have seen online, anywhere.
That's my thoughts for what they're worth!
If a new user someone ends up on the home page, I don't want them to see a bunch of "advanced" quizzes or whatever happens to be featured that day.
I want them to see the big, popular quizzes, like "Countries of the World", etc...
This would be good as things stand too honestly. I'm subscribed to some great quiz makers who only make a relatively small portion of their quizzes in English so I get a lot of notifications about quizzes I can't take.
I know it's pretty obvious that it's a quiz site if you look around the front page, and searching for quizzes is presumably what generally leads people here. But I feel like on a branding front it could be pushed a bit more. A cursory glance at the front page doesn't necessarily scream "quiz".
The current banner does not clearly announce what type of website the user has just landed on.
Maybe something like:
"JetPunk - World's Best Quizzes
Play, Create, Boost your Knowledge"
The choice of certain verbs seems crucial to catch users IMO.
/s
But, for the first time in a while, I am worried about JetPunk's future.
Addictive algorithmic content is eating the web. For young people, there's TikTok. For intellectuals, there's X. For Boomers, there's Facebook, which is trying to replace real people with AI slop (and will eventually succeed).
Meanwhile, our best source of traffic, Google, is pivoting towards AI and sending less traffic to independent websites like JetPunk.
People have less time for JetPunk (or anything else) because they are spending a giant chunk of their waking hours scrolling on their phone.
But I also understand that this is partially the reality of being an online business. I'm sure many casual users wouldn't really care, but I'm also sure that most of the other die-hard JetPunkers would agree with me on this. So thanks for that
I guess it's a bit different with JetPunk, but I'm certainly more partial to the timed front page.
Same suggestions already made were good. What if something similar to the "New & Popular" box also popped up on the front page instead of, say, the most popular JetPunk quizzes of all time? This would mean the "timeline" structure wouldn't go away, but the quizzes that are showing up on the side do change with every load. In this case you'd probably want the quizzes to cycle and change more frequently than they currently do with the "new and popular".
So there would be multiple rows, and each row has tiles that scroll horizontally.
The rows would be things like "Featured today", "Spotlights", "Your subscriptions", "Popular today", "Popular in your region", "Recommended for you", and "Greatest Hits".
Unlike Netflix, the order of these rows could be customized by each user.
This would make the front page much more useful. Right now, people might take a look at today's quizzes and then leave.
As someone with 'niche' interests (as far as JetPunk is concerned) I would absolutely love it if the home page showed more of what I was actually interested in. There's not really a good way to do that at the moment. They obviously don't appear on the front page, tags are often missing quizzes since it's a paid feature, and the search results are filled with the same quizzes I've already played before as well as being filled *my* quizzes (which I obviously have no interest in taking).
I also wouldn't want the categories to be infinitely scrollable, or to have new quizzes generate everytime the user enters the home page (like on YouTube or Reddit). I personally struggle alot with this kind of stuff and I'd hate to see JetPunk go down that route. I prefer having a finite number of quizzes to take, especially if the quizzes are going to be more tailored to my tastes.
Sorry for the brain dump, the idea of changing the home page just got my mind going. I hope that whatever you decide to do respects the 'old-fashioned' legacy of JetPunk while also allowing it to continue for years to come. (Also, intellectuals on Twitter? Really?)
As for wanting to direct people to the 'star quizzes' (like the COTW), if they were shown with their thumbnails the way the daily featured quizzes are, it'd probably be more effective than the grey boxes we currently have, right?
If you do make a change, please do include blogs somehow! Even if you link 'top blog series' or something. Even just choosing certain user's blogs to display
Suggestion: When users create a new account, they should be asked on the styles of quizzes they like. Eg: Geography, History, General Knowledge etc. Then quizzes can immediately to tailored to them from their first visit.
Also, if people are not a fan of the new interface, maybe there could be a setting to switch to the 'Retro' version if such a feature would be sensible to implement.
I would add that the traffic on JetPunk in Europe is very limited between midnight and 6 am, so the effect would be neglectable. I guess that it can be a "problem" only for Asia and Oceania currently, but from what I know, they are clearly not the biggest source of traffic for the site. So if we can keep the things simple...
A peer versus peer mode also makes a lot of sense if this is the way things are going. I see students playing Trivia Crack all the time because they can play against each other. Of course, I’m no coder and don’t know how awful that would be to implement, but it would definitely encourage the spreading of the site without Google being involved.
Perhaps there could be a Premium-Plus sort of thing, that gives extra privileges.
I've no idea what, but off the top of my head, maybe more Nominations or Spotlights to hand out. As it stands, the only reason I have Premium is to be ad-free. I do take user quizzes all the time, and hand out nominations most days. And I haven't had a Spotlight to use in ages.
For instance, if I could make a playlist and then get a link that allows non-members to just put a nickname in so I could see their progress and scores, that’d be amazing.