1/22/08 Asignment - Special-Interest Website Plan

Purpose Analysis

1. There are many other sites that serve the same function of sharing reviews on Home Theater Equipment, but none really resemble the core concept that I am aiming for.
2. My site will offer reviews on a wide variety of home theater gear. The better review sites don’t limit themselves to a narrow range of equipment.
3. My site will be different in that I am not going to have ads for home theater equipment or try to sell the readers any products.
4. Readers will prefer my site because I will offer reviews on products that I actually have dealt with in a real world setting not in a test lab or an office building cubicle. I have a hard time believing that a site can provide a non biased review and try to sell you the product at the same time. I will be brutally honest and base my review on my actual experience with the equipment.
5. If consumers find that my reviews are helpful in making an educated decision on what to purchase for their homes.
6. Other people that I know that have a similar knowledge base might join me in providing a no holds barred look at a market that is dominated by people who either choose to or are forced to be biased for business reasons.
7. I expect a fair number of people to visit my site on a regular basis.
8. I expect people to use a search engine to search for a product and find a link to a review on that product on my site. Hopefully after experiencing what my site has to offer they will use it for future reference.
9. The strait forward, no BS reviews I plan to offer will be refreshing to readers that are used to a super long review that is filled with fluff and very little useful information

Audience Analysis

1. Age – 20’s to 60’s
2. Gender – Male and Female
3. Income – middle to upper income
4. Ethnicity – All
5. Geographic locations – USA
6. Religion – All
7. Reason they will use your site – no ads or products for sale pure unbiased reviews
8. Controversies they are interested in – writing a bad review for a product that has gotten good reviews on other sites.
9. Number of times the average reader will visit the site – once a week or more
10. Ways that users can interact to the site – post replies and send me messages.
11. Ways that users can contribute to the site - can send me messages or questions and I might address them in posts or reviews.
12. Ways readers can interact with other readers on my site – posting messages and replying to other peoples posts
13. Reasons my site will remain viable and useful for at least 2 years – I will post reviews on current products, some times before the major sites review the same products.

Similar Sites

1. http://www.audioholics.com – good content but still driven by ads and links to purchase the products.
2. http://reviews.cnet.com – good content and fairly good layout, questionable breakdown on scoring still has ads and links to buy the products though
3. http://www.hometheatermag.com/ - based on print version of magazine overwhelming amount of content, tons of ads.