Yesterday:

Today:

Notable changes:

• Header – The new header is a bit smaller than the old one. This was done to get more information onto the homepage’s initial viewing area.
• Logo – The new logo is smaller and brighter than the old one, hopefully conveying a cleaner, more professional look
• Rounded corners – The header, the domain count, and the main content area now all have rounded corners. Apple’s homepage was the inspiration for this change. It’s such a small thing, but it looks so much better.
• Domain columns – The site now omits “.com” after all the domain names because it added clutter and not much value. I’m slightly worried that some newcomers won’t understand what the domains are without the “.com” to clarify it so I added a small line below the popularity legend saying “all domains are .com” which will hopefully eliminate any confusion. With the extra space I was able to include a valuable fourth column. Also, before when a customer hovered over one of the domains its border would turn black. Now it is a dark gray, which is nicer on the eyes.
• Twitter – I registered @domainpigeon in November while I was working on the site but wasn’t sure what role it was going to play. Now, instead of links to blog posts, the homepage will have Twitter updates. The blog will be reserved for lengthy posts, which, at this point, I don’t see happening too frequently.
• Sign In Area – This was a tough one. I liked it on the homepage, but there’s wasn’t a good way to integrate it. Now, I just added a link to a seperate page that lets you sign in. I figure cookies will keep most customers signed in anyway, so its not that important to have it on the homepage. I do think that having it ont he homepage encourages more people to sign up though, so, its definitely a tradeoff.
• In the News – You can’t see it here, but I added a great quote from the ReadWriteWeb article on there. I also moved most of the quotes to a separate page in an effort to preserve white space. Currently, the ReadWriteWeb and the CNet quotes are the only ones included on the homepage.
• Registered Domain Names – Before, the top domain in this list was #1, but its actually the last domain that was registered, so I changed the numbering.
• The domain count was moved up to the top. Also got rid of “Members can view an additional” as it’s unnecessary information. The total is fine. I think this looks a lot more professional than the way it was done before. This also frees up space on the right column. Notice the juxtaposition of the word “explore” and “Sign Up”.
• The title went from “Domain Pigeon – You’re #1 Source for Available Domain Names” to “Domain Pigeon – Available Domain Names”. I think this could still use some improvement, but I like it better than the former one, which came off as tacky.
• Link Usability – I noticed there was inconsistent use of underlines for the links on the homepage. They should all be standardized now.
• Registered domain names no longer appear along side the registered ones. This is because the 75% of the popular page was littered with pink domains, defeating its purpose.
• The primary font for the side columns is Lucida Grande. No more Verdana, ever.
• Added “Register.com” as one of the affiliates, per the request of a customer.
• Redid a lot of the CSS – I was kind of learning the intracicies of CSS as I went and now am able to go back and clean up a lot of it. There’s a lot less “float: lefts” in there now…

I’m very happy with these changes and think the site looks much better now.

Tomorrow I’m going to focus on cleaning up some of the code, writing more tests, and learning how to integrate credit card processing into the site.

From ReadWriteWeb: 

You’ve done the market research. You’ve built the killer app. Now, all you need is a decent domain name. Preferably a .com. Why? Because the iPhone doesn’t have a .net button, for one thing. But finding something short and memorable can be difficult at best. Enter Domain Pigeon, a domain search service that eschews one-at-a-time searches by allowing you to thumb through a laundry list of available domains – including the five-letter .com domains that are still available.

We’ve used a number of domain name searches, and Domain Pigeon’s approach is among the best we’ve seen. It’s simple and straightforward. Best of all, you get to see extensive lists of available domains all at once. But there’s one catch: you can’t buy a domain there.

Ironically, it’s the fact that you can’t buy domain names that makes Domain Pigeon so nice to use. Traditional domain services actually restrict your ability to research names by showing you a few domains at a time based on your searches. Why? For a very simple reason: once you search and find a domain, you’re more likely to buy one for fear of losing it.

But because Domain Pigeon is passing you through to another service – and picking up an affiliate kickback – there’s no harm in showing you everything at once. You get the freedom to look at a wide variety of domains and, should you decide to buy, Domain Pigeon still sees revenue. Win, win.

But don’t think all of the pressure is off. Domain Pigeon still does a nice job of motivating you to purchase by showing you how many other people are currently interested in that domain name. For example, 16 people are currently interested in purchasing illpe.com, so if you were building illpe, you might want to hurry.

The next time you’re still looking for that perfect domain name, try Domain Pigeon. At the very least, it will spark some ideas. At best, you may walk away with the perfect – albeit unintelligible – .com name for your new venture.

We’re looking forward to reviewing reakd, tchdo, ofgar, ainxx, and rpayi in the not too distant future.

Domain Pigeon, as it currently stands, is ugly.

My standard is this: Imagine standing by while someone whose opinion you hold in extremely high regards meticulously reviews your work.  If you can imagine yourself standing there confidently without worrying about what what he or she will find, you’ve probably got a great product. If, on the other hand, you imagine yourself thinking up excuses for why your product is not up to par, then you’ve probably got work left to do.

In Domain Pigeon’s case, I imagine myself saying “Well, I only launched it a week ago. Here’s what I’ve got planned for the future…” Instead, I want to say, “Look here, this is what I’ve accomplished.”

ECD: Sunday

Bunch of changes on the homepage:

Few things to notice:

• Domains are no longer unregistered; they are available
• No more Legend (combined it with How it Works)
• Moved How it Works up to the top, moved In the News down
• Moved the sign in area to a horizontal bar below the logo
• Added a quote from Killer Domains (not shown)
• Removed the gray gradient background and replaced it with a solid gray background
• Added a simple blog so that I can update visitors as to what’s going on (no comments yet–I’m worried about spam and don’t want to take the time right now to integrate Akismet into it

Overall, I’m happy about the progress, but these are not changes I want to show off. They’re missing something… quality?

I moved the sign in to the top to try to free up some real estate on the side columns, but I fear it looks somewhat tacky now. I may wind up just adding a link to “Sign In” that directs people to a seperate form.  I just don’t see a beautiful way to add it all.

I am happy to say that Domain Pigeon is at 39 registered domain names. Again, I’m holding off on the heavy promotion until I’ve improved a few more things. Notably, the site needs built in credit card processing. The number of people that are following through when prompted with the Paypal link is abysmal. More on payment processing numbers in another post…

It’s hard to believe the site launched less than a week ago.  Things are going very well so far, but the race is long.

The next few days are going to be spent on improving the site as it currently stands:

1) Adjustments with a focus on usability, simplicity, and good design

2) Payment processing with Active Merchant

3) Figure out what I’m going to do with the blog on the site

So, I added a blog to the site. Great. Now what? I write about Domain Pigeon’s development on here, what am I supposed to put on there? Small updates? If so, I shouldn’t really call it a blog. It should be called and updates log, or something. Blog implies lots of content. But, I also want lots of content for SEO benefits. I don’t know. Need to mull over it…

Late night edit: The more I look at it, the move I’m convinced it needs to be redesigned.