Fine-Minds.com comes with a simple and efficient look that is uncluttered and easy on the eyes. There are however a few issues, even if minor. First, the free tour link doesn't seem to work, as it simply reloads the homepage.

The sign up button appears to be a text link on top of a repeated background image (of a button). However in Firefox 3 it looks cut on the right side. In konqueror (using KHTML, same rendering as Safari) and Midori (webkit rendering just like Google Chrome) the additional piece of the button is showing. It might be safest to make that background no-repeat. It displays alright on IE6 though, but in IE the sign in and remember me buttons display below the email and password fields jumping off the menu bar.

Finally, the footer area font color is too dark for the given background both for normal text and links, and also seems unstyled and as such extends across the whole width. It may be a good idea to prepare a container of some sort for these that would wrap them up more neatly.

The central part of the design is nice and simple. Artsy curves, flakes and dots in the background are also a nice touch.

The members area reveals a fairly clean, almost facebook-like layout, making good use of the dark bar at the top which previously only displayed the language link. The main blue menu bar works very well and also contains a drop down menu for more items. There is also a user specific set of drop down menus near the top of the central column. Everything seems to flow decently, from editing your own profile to finding others and navigating to other resources such as the marketplace, videos and games.

Design rating: 8/10

Focus:

The homepage does a fine job conveying site's purpose as a social network of business owners and entrepreneurs. It also highlights the three major aspects of what makes it potentially valuable; ability to interact with financial gurus, connecting with and advertising to like minded people and building relationships, all of which are consistent with what one might expect from a specialized social network.

Focus rating: 10/10

Content:

The site is somewhat hampered by broken links or 404 pages. The idea of having a free tour before registering is appealing, but the link doesn't work. In the members area the forums link doesn't work and clicking through to the only videos playlist available lands at a 404 not found error page. There is however an FAQ which may be useful and plenty of flash games though their purpose is somewhat questionable given the focus of the site.

Since this is a social network the bulk of the content is expected to come from members, but since this is a web site that was recently launched it is understandably still lacking. There is a single entry in the marketplace, one poll and a few blog entries, but Fine-Minds.com also allows posting podcasts, videos, photo albums, events and even applications which sets the stage for a wide variety of content that may be of interest to the business people community. Given that the community appears to be growing (there are new members nearly every day) the amount of content can be anticipated to grow at a decent rate too, which may warrant a passing grade.

Content rating: 5/10