You could always try to hire a developer who would be interested in taking equity.

It might be difficult to find someone who would be willing to work for little to no money during this economic crisis (at least in the U.S.), but you can always try to find interns or people who would like to build their portfolio.
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Here's some advice for the site: get rid of that gray color. It's ugly, it ruins the rest of the design.
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Depending on your business model, you could open-source the software that runs your site and try and obtain developer participation via the open source community.

You'd have to contribute back any code you get, but it could be better to have open-source code than no code at all.

Other than that, I agree with the above answerer who proposed offering equity to a developer rather than cash. It's a hard sell, but you might get lucky.
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Unless I really trust, I generally never re-visit a website that has more than 1 advertisement on the first section of the page. But that's just my personal view. The horizontal add under your first story flashed, which was pretty distracting. I also agree with bugsy, gray doesn't seem work within that sidebar.

Keep plugging away though. Good Luck
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You should definitely start an email list. People visiting celeb sites are real finicky, and you need something to keep them coming back.

I recommend monetizing your email list once you have enough subscribers, by finding an advertising network that will do email advertising.

I would also take off the "This is the alpha 3 version of blabberstar", unless you have a link right on it asking for customer feedback or members who are willing to help you develop.

I'd also set up a rewards system, where you reward the most active recruiter for your site with a monetary reward, something significant like $500. I would then add a link to allow users to send emails to their friends to let them know about the site.

There should also be a "bookmark blabberstar" link somewhere on the page.

Hope that helps!!
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If you want to make money on your site, try google adsense, I use that on mine and you can make quite a bit of money when people visit your site. It's free to use to.
Source(s):
www.google.com/adsense

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I would review the mahalo greenhouse guidelines for web site inclusion for a search result. You would want mahalo to link to you would you not? I would look for a design a little easier on the eyes. As to getting a designer in these troubled times check out Elance or such sites that offer freelancers. Even better you might check out local tech schools. You might find a student willing to work for either equity or less money or nothing at all to build his or her portfoilo.
Source(s):
http://greenhouse.mahalo.com/How_to_Get_Your_First_SeRP_Accepted#Is_the_lin...

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Not a fan of the purple tones and the images on the top don't seem to fit in (IMHO). Use text for buttons instead of images.
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The design is terrible, and the ads tell people to go away. (which doesn't help in your struggle for cash). But I would start with a logo. Right now you have the name, in an odd font, with a star next to it. That says "amateur Web site." Logo first, then re-design the site around it.
Source(s):
Experience in Web development.

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"When your nosy neighbor isn't informed enough" is kind of a cute subtitle, but as a first time visitor to your site it wasn't immediately obvious to me what the site is for. Perhaps if you had something like: "BLABBER (star) NEWS Network" up there. Perhaps that is not actually what you see Blabber as, but the point is "what is BLABBER, why is it special?" Is the content user generated or staff written? An About Us link describing your vision for Blabber would be very useful.
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Your search box doesn't work. I tried "alba" "cruise" and "bush" If you have a search box you should make sure that it works well. Many people don't want to navigate when they are looking for something specific. It's a good sight but needs some work to be a great site. Start with fixing the search box.
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Honestly it seems to be perfect just the way it is.
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Not have click to enlarge buttons that just pop up a window with the same size image.... that drives me bonkers!
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Lighter design, maybe offer developers an ad revenue percentage?
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1. Lose the advertisments
2. Lose the girly theme
3. Make it more like http://www.mrhelms.com
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Normally, I have lots of feedback for websites. But, yours isn't bad. Clean focused page. Easy to navigate. RSS's on your fave celebrities.

So, I'll give you 2 pieces of advice.
1. Find your editorial focus. All of the other sites that do what you do are famous because they have a consistent hook. thesmokinggun.com is crime. Perez Hilton is gay "snap"s. Hot girls with douchebags is hot girls with douchebags. TMZ is trashy paparrazi. etc. etc.

Right now, your site is just generic news stories about entertainment. Every friggin' news source in the world has a generic entertainment/gossip section.

2. More pictures, less rank icons. People want to see their celebs. Your thumbnails are too tiny (or need to be cropped in to the detail.) The ranking icon looks nice, but is too big vs. the celeb pics.
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