an that was the frist time for me going to that site, i was a little scared at frist with all those articles almost everywhere. some more organization would be nice, just make it easy for people to look through some articles and they would probly like to "try to forcast the news." lol nice quote huh?
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Personally I would never join or register or go to a site that thinks spamming ask boards to get people to click on their site is a good idea.

Additionally you need a more colorful interface, and a big tagline that explains exactly what your site does, at first glance you have no idea what the site is about. Is it a news site, is it a prediction site, how does it work?

Furthermore you need "Calls to Action" all over the place.
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The site is great. I think that it might have a little to much going on. I think your should make it a little more colorful. Seems a little bland. Theres nothing to draw me in.
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Make-it more simple. Like really simple. Clean all the bulk and leave the most important things on the first page. Make the important features stand out, tell me what is unique about this site. Make a widget like igoogle's weather to tell me my local weather, along other useful information. Go to http://www.doineedajacket.com/ and see what you can incorporate from there. Good luck.
Source(s):
http://www.doineedajacket.com/

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I'm a regular user and would second the organization point.

In fact, let me summarize everything I'm writing by saying this: the home page needs to have compelling, easy to understand questions front and center for new users.

The home page is just too cluttered in general. One of the first things I have to do is explain to people how to navigate the site, and my usual suggestion consists of "just look at a bunch of questions and see which ones you like."

Ultimately, I think there needs to be some human editorial voice for the front page to keep the typical questions up front. There's probably a publishing schedule that could be semi-automated, as well. For example, every Wednesday, the "what movie will be #1 this weekend", every Tuesday should feature the little box you have on the NFL page that lets you quickly get to all the "win ATS" questions, etc.

This is all from a U.S. perspective, though, and I understand that your team isn't in the U.S. I think that's the other thing I've noticed, too. I get sent challenges for reality shows that are in the U.K. or Europe all the time, and I have NO idea what those are. :) This probably flows into the home page discussion because it would be great if you had a region for each question (worldwide, EU, North America, etc.) and then could customize the location based on simple IP geolocation. For performance reasons you could set a cookie for the region and let people switch it a la CNN.com or other news sites that let you choose your region.

That editorial voice would be a huge improvement for new users, bringing the most common questions forward, I think. The big list is just very daunting, and the 3 featured questions are usually not very compelling depending on region/interests.

Hope that's helpful.

Sujal
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here's what will make the site better:

1. make it fixed width (like yahoo.com) or else at least fix the width of the second column (like digg or reddit).
2. Make column 2 narrower...
3. Remove useless stuff from the home page - stuff like partner with hubdub, send to friends, etc are just clutter for a new visitor...
4. replace the whole register section with a single join now button... when clicked, use an ajax effect to darken the rest of the page and show the text fields... this will need some fiddling around
4. the tagline is weak... does not reflect social nature of site... should change from 'the world's news forecaster' to 'predict the news' or something similar...
5. too many 'hot' topics. use smaller tag cloud
6. only 10 stories on 1st page

hope this helps...
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As others mentioned, the front page is quite overwhelming at first. I see that you have a quite nice "Tour" and "About" page already set up that explains what your site is about.

Maybe you should add some kind of DHTML "splash screen" - for first time visitors, have some kind of "Welcome to hubdub" screen first, with links to the about & tour pages. A simple push of an button would then reveal the current front page, if you're not interested in the introduction.
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Here's the shortlist of getting more conversions:
1.Tagline - more like "Predict the news" or "News before it happens"
2. Kill the tag cloud, and most of the other 2nd column stuff
3. Instead of "Try Predicting the News!" call it "Join" or "Register", with a very brief explanation. Make this box visually different from the rest of the site content, and give each text field more breathing room. [While you're at it, make this AJAX, so a user can get right to predicting, rather than going through a registration process. Then, use a gameplay paradigm like LinkedIn to track and give indication of user progress]
4. Cut the top bar (the one with three top stories) and rely on the vertical linear cues of the main column. The top bar looks like ads, and is visually ignored.
5. Sorry, but nobody cares you won some internet award. Put that in the footer if it's important to you, because it's taking up above-the-fold space
6. Embed your RSS in a meta tag, and make the badge take up less space (like 16x16px in the bottom right corner of a given page)
7. The logo has a cool look to it - while it wouldn't really change any function, giving some of the visual elements the 'torn' treatment probably wouldn't hurt.
Source(s):
myself

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My first impression is that all of the information (what the site is about and why I should register) is there, but you left the work of finding it up to me. I don't like hunting for things. Maybe I should go to another website that does the work for me?

I think all it would take is changing the background of the registration area from #e3e3de to something like #e4f9ae with maybe a 1-2px border.

The signup box is in the right place, and it should be where the user looks last after surveying your page (See below: Eyetrack III, What You Most Need to Know)

All you need is a subtle effect to make it pop out over the other content. Based on my experience, I wouldn't be surprised if your new visitor to signup conversion rate increased by 1-2% with this quick fix.

Sure, it seems cluttered, but all of those nicely formatted links benefit from being on your PR 6 homepage :-)
Source(s):
http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/main.htm

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Ditch the digg look. You need to make it more delicious, as in delicious monster. Even Mahalo has a smoother look in their new answers area. Something pleasing to the eyes will make it more sticky. There are three items in a grey box near the middle of the page, no descriptors, nothing. What is the purpose of these? You need a quick purpose statement. If I jump on this page out of no where, tell me what it does for me. You have a lot of whitespace in the top of your page, use it.
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Make the background color of "Try Predicting the News" a different, bolder color.
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At first glance, I thought this site was a news aggregator, since it look almost exactly like Digg.

After reading the "About" section, I realized the true intent, and how it is slightly different. The layout is fine, but the color scheme is tired. Try this site http://www.wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html to choose something better.

More importantly, I like the idea of staking virtual dollars, but why not try real dollars? There is a site called moola.com which does something similar to what I'm proposing and it is easy to see how they make the money to afford the payouts.

The money is not easy to earn, but the gambling aspect is addictive to many people, so the prospect of winning $0.03 is actually something people strive for. It would require a lot of changes, but I know I would definitely sign up to a site if there was a possibility of earning cash, even a small amount, and I don't think I'm alone on that.
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I think throwing in some tags or having smaller sections to organize (something like CNN.com) would make it easier for my eyes.
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When I first went to the site it looked very cluttered in my opinion. Stick with something simple and clean and users will stay longer and might even sign up. Also add some graphics and create a focal point, something that will draw my attention to a certain area instead of confusing me with tons of links and articles spread all over the place.
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My two first impressions were that the home page is very busy and crowded, and I had to really hunt to figure out what the purpose of the site was. It makes the site look amateurish and doesn't make me want to give out my personal info to sign up. A clean, simple and professional looking home page will likely attract more users to register.
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I think the whole design needs to be a lot more clearer one way to do this would be to add a web 2.0 design (shadows, gradients, stripes etc).

You should try to 'unclutter' the website for example remove useless information and flashing pictures and animations.

I was able to clearly see what Hubdub was when I opened it but perhaps you could add a paragraph to explain or add a clear link to an about page in the main navigation (next to Home, Leaderboard, Forum etc.)
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I had visited HUBDUB earlier too, but the first impression i got is really not good. I am a proffesional web-designer and would to suggest some changes that could really make it big in the market:
1. Its crowded and jammed, so first unclutter the site, give the articles a more tabbed interface. Make the tabs of a brighter colour.
2. HEADER- Give it some nice WEB 2.0 colours and some nice icons
3. BRIEF DESCRIPTION- People will surely get confused as to purpose of the site
4. TAG CLOUD- Give it a better looking tag cloud
5. Reduce the width of the right column - its totally unnecessary
6. Go for a brighter looking register button
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The home page is *really* busy. It's so full of text and images, but it's hard to see exactly what I, as a new user, should be looking at. I can see this page being very useful for existing users who just want to see all of the new stories at once, but it does nothing to entice me to become a member of your community.

A suggestion:
If a user visits the site who is not logged in, make the top half of the page be a simple statement of what the site is, what makes it special, and a link to sign up. Large, blank margins around this area would be a good thing so that the eye immediately focuses on that part first.

Also, consider ditching the tag cloud. I know that no good Web two-dot-oh site worth its salt doesn't have a tag cloud, but I've honestly never found them that useful.
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You ought to create some more widgets, and move one or more of them towards the top of the page. Interactive content generates interest above and beyond simple text.
Source(s):
www.hubdub.com, www.digg.com

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