Kina Grannis

i like all the features we currently have (maybe except for when the shoutbox freaks out), but you’ll definitely need a music player streaming snippets from your new album.

i’ll post as ideas come =)

could we have a lyrics section?

I’ve seen that some other artists have a page where links to articles about and reviews of their music are posted. That might be good.

I like the green, it’s very pretty! but i think that the front page is too empty, i feel like it needs something. Maybe a contrasting color with the green and Grey perhaps dark tourquoise.. also a chords section.. that would make me happy :D

something that will make a little boop noise like tc whenever someone talks, or a special noise when a grannis is in the sb ;P

What about a preview of the blahg and a condensed bio, preview of newest cd (these three down the side maybe), a mini player (at top or bottom?), a box showing all of your youtube videos that you can click on individually? Or it might look cool if you had larger links to each of the pages in the nav on the main page, with like pictures or something. Also, I think flash stuff looks better, but regular pages are easier to use.

Would definitely like to see a lyrics and/or chords section!

I adore the lyrics idea! Well played! And agree re: need for review links, too. I know MySpace has a player function, so not sure whether you’d want to link to it or embed on the main site. . .it’s been my experience that people either loooove or hate the auto-player. Maybe a player with an auto on/off option would be ideal?

Just some thoughts! Cheers!

I like the fact that the LATEST news be on the front and then have people go to the actual NEWS page to read more. To be honest, fixed might be cool. More photos in the PHOTO section would be very nice. Maybe in the MERCH section a couple different 8×10s could be added of Kina that one could purchase, autographed of course. (Personalized could be more). The SHOUT BOX could go into the FORUM page and of course increased to allow more people at once. On the FRONT PAGE, an amazing photo of Kina with her name in cool graphics with the LATEST news and the LATEST video might be a cool thing as people could see the LATEST right when they land on kinagrannis.com On the SHOWS page, maybe there could be an archive people could click on to see the complete list of shows Kina has done since Day one. What might be way cool is on the Bla(h)g page to have Kina do an actual VIDEO BLOG in an ongoing basis so people could hear from her own voice what’s going on, her thoughts, etc,. As is, the website is a beauty but with added touches, it could be even better. Exciting to see how it all eventually looks. Lots of pictures, videos (music and blog) and even an ongoing section on Kina’s songwriting/playing and how the whole process touches her and how she makes it work for her, past, present and future.

It’s been a long time since I’ve used it, but based on the old days, I think the ShoutBox needs moderators.

Echoing what Emma said, there should be a section where you can get Kina’s press articles, interviews, reviews, etc. I guess you could include that with the news on the home page too. The newest video could be announced on there as well.

I also like the lyrics section idea.

My brain is farting so I’ll have to bow out at this point.

hmm i agree with the bloops, the lyrics, the chords, and everything dro said :P
i think that it would be good to have each weeks vids on the home page, just so passers by dont have to search for the video, its just right there :)
i also like that each weeks bla(h)gs are on the same page as the sb but yah.. the freak outs arent so great :(

i will try to think of more :)

yessss!

this. =]

with the new album, i had just assumed things around here would change :) and i guess, that’s where we are now.
like dro said, feature-wise, i like the site with the exception of the ever-present shoutbox monster who lurks & chomps away at messages as he pleases. but this might be our fault since it IS a shoutbox & NOT a chatroom. so maybe you can have a shoutbox like you have there for shouting (lol) & then a chat somewhere else (like where we have the larger shoutbox).
lyrics are on here, but you have to find them. so maybe making them easier to find would be great. as far as chords go, we know you get busy and we know you won’t have time for writing tabs, but maybe you can link to ultimate-guitar AND also post your tutorial vids in a chords section (???)
okay, my brain has officially switched to ON-mode for thinking, but OFF-mode for sorting through it all. it does that a lot! hah! i’ll be back with other stuff.

I’ve always thought that some sort of login like Facebook Connect would cut down on the need for the ShoutBox to be moderated. Get rid of the anonymity and maybe the jerks will not show up.

And I’ll third/fourth/fifth (whatever it’s up to) the lyrics suggestion!

Similar to previous posts, I believe the home page needs to be better utilized and thought of as the primary news page and center of the most up-to-date information. A fixed page is too limiting I think. The show schedule should be on the home page too. Also a “Who is Kina Grannis?” link to a complete and up-to-date bio page (still says CD release Spring 2009!). If you’re coming into a town for a show and a reporter wants to write a story, the web site should be a rich source of information, including iTunes rankings (if a song did really well one week), Number of YouTube subscribers, stuff like that. “Kina has 4 YouTube videos with over 1 million views, and 17 videos with over a half-million views.” And ditto what Emma said.

long time no post para me!

i think it would be more than awesome to have a shoebox section, where people can upload videos or images of shows! speaking of images, i think maybe some new pics on the photo page would be splendid, they are like 3 years old it seems :) oh maybe, even a Fan Art’s page? it seems many a fan sends you really cool arts, i’d love to see some :D

a lyrics section is a great idea

-evann

yea i agree with alot of these like…weekly/fortnightly vids on the home page with news of shows and stuff on the bottom? or the side? and sb getting an upgrade :) that would be awesome.

Haha. I doubt that the ShoutBox will ever be used as anything other than a chatroom. I think we’d just end up with more places where people chat simultaneously.

Front page should have:
- news
- your latest video
- your latest tweet

Also:
- on the non-front pages, less clutter (look @ how much stuff there is on this page!)
- fan photos from shows
- spotlight on someone who has covered one of your songs
- color scheme should match your YT page (or latest album)
- integrate your guitar girl logo into the new design

It might be cool if the whole site had the same look and feel as your shoutouts at the end of your videos. It’s all photos with hand-written elements. For example, you could take a picture of yourself holding a big white posterboard. Then, Misa could place the shoutbox on top of it, so it’s like you’re holding the shoutbox. Also, all of your main buttons could be made to look like the white labels you use during shoutouts.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

i think you’re right! hahahaha =P

http://www.saintetienne.com

I listen to this band. Take a look at this site for some ideas. I like it, seems organized. There isn’t a chat though.

so exciting! it’s hard to suggest improvements to one of my favorite sites, but in the end it’s the content and community (even for the lurkers) that has made it so.

that said, i’m hoping to see the new album art tied in. i always liked the simplicity of the front page but thought the old news was distracting for a first time visitor. i’d archive past announcements quickly. also, since home pages are about branding, i always expect to see kg and guitar girl logos there.

lots of other thoughtful suggestions posted too. can’t wait to see what you come up with.

I agree about the moderators. A few weeks ago this guy came on. Said some dumb things and kept going for like an hour or longer polluting the SB with his words. A moderator could’ve blocked him.

agreed, a chords section would be lovely :]

I think the “Who is Kina Grannis?” video should be in the bio section.

I’m glad the website is going to get a little remodeling, not that it is boring or anything, it’s just that its fun to see something new. As for ideas, I don’t have much and mostly everyone posted great ideas. The only thing that I think would be pretty handy, is if the Shoutbox had a little bloop noise, or any noise is fine. It would be much easier for us to multi task and talk to people in the Shoutbox. Also if there was a bloop noise, then there should be a little mute noise, just in case people don’t want to hear it.
-jaysonmooseknee

agreed, it’s a nice intro. although there are some outdated stats in that video…

I think that a short, filmed video of you welcoming fans to the site would be cool.

Maybe you could change it every few months so that things don’t get boring.

I’ve already talked to Misa and she said for now it’ll be added to the forum

I´d try to make everything as easy to use as possible. The guitar (moving up/down) thing doesn´t really work with IE (i know I can use other browsers, but there are other dinosaurs out there). It´d also be really good if you needed only one log-in to everything.

The media section needs to have more information. And we do need moderators (other than the busy Granni) who could make sure there´s no outdated information on the site (like months old shows etc).

There could be a separate “kination” section, with kination map (which, btw, at the moment crashes my browser… IE again), fan art, link to “cover of the week”, and possibly a list of all the kinerds, like the kination spreadsheet now in the forum (voluntary of course), it´d help when you´re trying to remember people´s names and other information (sb name, first name, location).

And one functional thingie… shoutbox could be made to open in a separate window, so we can browse through the other pages on the site while on it.

I think the front page shouldn’t scroll down, it should be fixed. The first page is the first impression, so I think it would be best to keep it simple and clean.
I also think a lyrics section would be a great idea.

Hi …I think …
there also could be some links to the most wanted/ or your favorite videos.

I agree with the thing about the scrolling. It doesn’t seem to work on my itouch either.

Shift+click or ctrl+click or right click and open in new window/tab on the Supersize me link, and there is the shoutbox in a seperate window ;)

Oh gosh, I am usually terrible at visualizing these things myself… But here are a few ideas that popped into my mind.

1) Front page should prob have news, but keep it RECENT news… Like, I think right now you have old news tidbits on the front page (one from February!). Like Deana said, that could be a bit distracting for new visitors. Keep it short and sweet (not quite as short as Twitter, but not as long as the bla(h)g). Just whether you are touring, working on a new album, hanging out and having fun, becoming recognized everywhere you go like a true celeb, etc. Hee hee.
Also, I think the front page should be fixed. Like the idea of logos and stuff. Bar to click on things like you have at the top…. yeah. Sounds good to me.

2) Some celebs have links to their Twitter somewhere with like… some kind of feed or something on their sites. You know what I mean? You can see the most recent 10 tweets right on the site. Then you can click on it to go directly to their twitter. That might be nice somewhere on your site, Kina.

3) One thing I would LOVE to see is like…. some type of interactive Map, where you can click on a region in the US or country and then see who the active Street Team leaders are in each region. Since Kina is busy and will prob be getting busier with the release of her new album, it might be helpful to have region leaders or something– people to contact for info and to answer questions for Kina’s newest fans. Know what I mean? Maybe Kina can have a few region leaders and have their email addresses posted somewhere on the site.

Okay…. I think that is all I have right now. Whew! I am tired. haha.

One of my favorite sites is http://www.adele.tv/. It’s a nice layout, and I can totally see you cutting down some of your live acoustic sets and posting them on the front page like this.

I like the current site for the most part. The only real change I would like to see is to the integration of all the different accounts. “Single sign-on” for us geeks. And one forum, maybe phpBB based, with separate fan and Street Team sections with centralized administration. This would make Misa’s life so much easier.

Hi Kina,
Still a n00b but willing to graduate…How about the fantastic art your fans are pumping out daily. Could you have a page dedicated to these types of things and snippets of their inspirations to create it.
There is a website http://www.thestartscreen.com where the viewers are also reviewers too. Maybe there can be a page for STer’s and fans can write pieces and you approve them weekly. Have someone else moderate but bring more action to the fans and not just the forums or chat.
One more idea”litebulb” The Kina Youtube videogame…Make a One to Ten list of incidents or items in your videos that people have to identify by name of video and timestamp. Whoever gets it weekly gets a gift from you of some kind autograph whatever
Bye for now
Gregg

I love the idea about using the handwritten elements!! Good thinking!

Hmm, brainstorming can sometimes be very .. lengthy.. heh.

A simple front page should work, like you have now. The audience that is directed to the front page will be many types, professional, fan based, commercial, etc. Of course, my thinking is old school professional rather than artististic chic, lol. This can mean nothing but links on where to go (artistically presented of course), or it can be a mash-up of little pieces of everything. I would say though to simplify your links at the top and put those links under your name (or whatever future heading you might use)

To simplify your links maybe throw in another layer that divides the sections into a professional, a fan base area and maybe a street team area (kinda like the structure here http://www.jamiroquai.com/ ). Upon entering the latter two you can have the login request. Although I do like the fact that the average user can see the shoutbox. Maybe also consider having a mobile access version (like m.twitter.com or m.facebook.com) that would allow you to have a broader and more frequent audience range and interaction.

As much as I like the shoutbox, it would be nice to log in on the same page, no jumping around. The stability of the box would be cool, although I have no suggestions on what to change to. Moderating the convos though will be needed, as your fan base grows it makes sense that the percentage of bad apples will too. Because everyone’s internet speeds are different, you may want to try to minimize the bandwidth needed to load the shoutbox page, keep things simple for the most effect, this will also be dependent on whether you consider porting in another medium.

I know I am mentioning general stuff, but this is just stuff off the top of my head. If I can find examples of structures or ideas, I’ll add the links.

I think that there should also be a page/section devoted to pictures of Kina with her Kinerds. Like when/if you get a pic with Kina, you should be able to upload and add it to the gallery or something. Just an idea.. hopefully one day I’ll have one of those pictures! :)

1. There should be a page with info about the songs.. Like what inspired you to write a certain song.. How it came about… its background history.

2. They could be a survey box… where you put out a question and people vote on some choices. I always find that fun. Nothing fancy… Keep it simple.

3. There should be a karaoke version of some of your (requested) songs… like vid with text on the bottom.

4. There should be a link titled Kanye West’s best website of all time” which links back to itself. :)

Something that is important is that you make your own style. There is something very unique about being a popular youtube artist – it’s definitely a new dimension of art, one that is very very much still uncharted territory. So by really creating a beautiful website, you could be really doing something that sets the precedence for other youtube artists… Which is really exciting, actually, haha.

So, a good thing to do is look at a lot of other musicians’ websites and to see how they organize their information. It’s important to work with an experienced webdesigner so that the information is organized in the best way possible. Accessible but also aesthetically pleasing.

One website I like a lot: http://brookefraser.com/
The website has a good intro page – it catches your eye but it’s also very simple. It’s not unique, but it’s like very… oomph! haha. screams BROOKE FRASER.
Also one thing to note is that the content itself is laid out very simply, but maybe constraining because it’s all in a small space. But what’s good is that the blog is distinctive from the rest of the website, which is something I appreciate, because then it feels like you’re entering a more personal space of the musician.
And also how she links her facebook, twitter, myspace is very uniform and very noticeable on her page, no matter where you go.
Also embedded music. THIS IS SO GOOD FOR MUSICIANS. because it’s a quick sample of what she’s capable of.

http://www.michellebranch.com/home
Is an example of a musician’s website that has content going aaaaall the way up and down. you’ll notice that her image changes with every link, which isn’t unique at all, but yeah. all of her pages look slightly different depending on the type of content, but it’s all very easy to read, even though it’s a looooot of information. So in that way the website is organized very well.

http://missyhiggins.com/
is an example of how you can make your entire image your background and have all your content sort of splattered all across the page. I also like that she has the email list sign up on every page of hers that you visit (as in it never changes its position), so that while you’re looking at her website, if you decide you like her, you can just sign up to join the mailing list.

I hope this helps~ I’m somethingof a graphic designer, so if you ever need some help, holler!

haha i agree with ru lol very good idea :D

I’ll keep it short :)

-no intro page
-no flash
-no autostart music
-fire the sb monster ;)

only thing with the YouTube stuff is that it is constantly changing :) (for the better :D)

i like all these ideas a lot :)

ooooh me tooo :)

As long as I can still somehow chat with kination and get a weekly/byweekly update from kina with her video blahg, I wouldnt care if it was all in dos mode! …welllll..maybe just some kina pics…and a way to play some clips of her music…and a page where street teamers can collaborate and maybe some lovely background scenes and …and…OK..I want it all. Give me the works Misa! java, asp, php with some dhtml on top!!!

1) Incorporate as much of your own personality as possible, like you do with the bla(h)g. (ex. David’s idea to use the handwritten elements)

2) m.kinagrannis.com

;)

ustream.tv
blogtv
etc

might be fun for new site/forum use

cat & the canary film – bob hope:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgDJO7hD5M4&feature=PlayList&p=8D2CFB1B24B163D4&index=0

this has nothing to do with the website.

i just wanted to say hi.
so, hi.

:)

hi <3

I agree!

no intro, no flash no autostart.
is it too much to ask for a mobile iphone compatible page too?

hey there tim tam fairy

that is an awesome idea..the integration of the shoutout type style would be sweeeet

oovret: Week 66

Now that you have gained another year’s worth of fans: approximately, how many e-mail/messages do you receive each week? (real e-mail)+(facebook)+(myspace)+(youtube)+(others)=(all)
How much time do you spend reading and replying to them?
What is your favorite fair food?
Do you enjoy listening to “The Replacements”?
Does Mama G interrogate your new friends like she does with new ShoutBox users?

New pictures! I’d be happy to offer a free photoshoot, it would be fun!

Agree with a lot of the comments above regarding adding more news/interactivity to the home page and maybe a lyrics section. There’s something I like about the Kate Earl site http://kateearl.com/ in having the video large as the “main image”, it might be nice to have your weekly vid as the home page focal point along with the news updates as you have now. It would bring people back to the home page on a regular basis.

I know we’re mainly discussing new features, but on the design end I would love for you to keep the heart binoculars somewhere on the new site. I like the image on the on the street team page (or something similar), I see heart binoculars and I think Kina. I also love the curly girl illustration you use as an intro to your youtube vids, maybe consider integrating her somewhere. I agree with NottaClue2’s comment of incorporating as much of yourself as possible. LOVE that you write bla(h)g instead of blog and I love the photo on the forum page of you kissing the statue. From what I gather from your vids and seeing you in concert, you seem fun/playful, and a lot of the photos on your site a little more serious.

Hope this helps! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. :-)

This is so exciting! Let me just give you a little list haha!

-Updated pictures
-Lyrics page
-Guitar girl/KG Logo on homepage of the site.
-A designated area for STer’s only (maybe password protected?)
-KinArt page (maybe?)
-All about Kina/What’s new with Kina? page
-Some kind of spreadsheet that shows where all of the STers are. (It might be easier to meet up)

I also love the idea that David mentioned earlier:
“It might be cool if the whole site had the same look and feel as your shoutouts at the end of your videos. It’s all photos with hand-written elements. For example, you could take a picture of yourself holding a big white posterboard. Then, Misa could place the shoutbox on top of it, so it’s like you’re holding the shoutbox. Also, all of your main buttons could be made to look like the white labels you use during shoutouts.”

Wells that all I have for now! Hope it helps Kina!!

xoxo
-Courtney