I guess I could add my two sense. One thing I would do is get rid of the background. Unless it is a seamless tiled background, I wouldn't have it up there. You may just want to go for a solid colored or gradient background for now, until you decide to do something else. Two, I would add some graphics to the design. A lot of myspace users love the design of a site. I usually won't sign up for a social community, unless it is well designed and has great features. Which I know your working on, so I won't say anything there.

Here is my list of suggestions:

1- Change the background
2- Change the header | The colors don't match very well, mess around with some cool fonts
3- Add some life to the nav bar, make them more than just a clickable link
4- With the side bar(poll option, login, bookmark) make a background for them, instead of just a form border

You want to attract a younger crowd for a social network, I don't think this will do the job. Hope I wasn't offensive, just my critiquing.

P.S. I don't use myspace or facebook, as a matter of fact, I don't even sign up on Christian Social Networks, haven't found anything that has been true to what it stands for.

Getting a social site off the group is a daunting task. Where-as I can't say I would ever use the service, (I'm a face book man myself; and even that is just because that's what my friends use to it's easier for me to keep in touch with them.) I would suggest that what you need to get it off the ground is not more features, but more people.

I would really work on getting your target audience to the site. I think the only way a social site can grow is to get people in groups to sign up. Advertise your site to small groups and/or classes and try and get your site as a meeting ground for those people. As they sign up and can keep in touch with their friends, their friends of friend would want to join to keep in touch and on and on and on and on.

You'll be competing with some heavy hitters, (myspace, facebook, etc) and I can't stress enough that the "if you build it they will come" mentallity will not work on the internet. I've seen a handful of people come through this forum touting that they were making a Christian myspace and none of them ever took off. I think the reason they failed is because of this line of thinking.

A List Aprart actually had an article talking about this a couple weeks ago:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fromlittlethings

You should check that out.

I concur.
Profile Paging needs to be looked at also...

The website in general just seems to be abit... how can I say... "everywhere" ?

Not bad idea though. Just make what you've got more attractive.

Hope it goes well for you /thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumbsani:" border="0" alt="thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" />