For those that are not familiar with the two sites, they are basically the two largest deal forums on the web. Pretty much any deal can be found there and posted pretty quickly.<p>I think the two sites are a mess. The frontpages are hard to navigate, and the forums don't seem like the main part of the sites' content.<p>I'm brainstorming a new deal site and would love some feedback from "hot deal shoppers."<p>Are you satisfies with one of the two sites overall? What would you do to improve them?<p>Some thoughts I had yo start the discussion:
Posting a deal as a new user can be a hassle, I am tired of tedious forum registration.
Both sites are very cluttered and resemble web 1.0: classic forum software, directories as opposed to search.<p>The obvious service they are providing is the promotion of these deals around the web, is there another place "better" that one of these two sites?
There are a few other sites that aggregate deals from various sources including those two and whats listed in the actual forums themselves. The real value in deals are in the forum discussions, not necessarily what hits the front page. This is true with most of the same type of deal sites. The forums are also a necessary function because its the community and the socialization that makes it happens, including those who submit deals.<p>I actually disagree with you that it's web 1.0 (in a sense), at least for SlickDeals. I don't go on there to hunt for deals as I have way in the early 2000s these days but I still go there to interact with the community. I can't comment on the FW side as I never got into it. But the customization of the forum software serves it's purpose in my honest opinion. And it may look like its just using standard forum software but there is a lot of heavy customization and backend work contrary to what you may believe. It just may not have that web 2.0 look to it.