Just to clarify things, I've been involved over the past six months in designing a web application. I want desperately to bring the idea to conception, but the process of seeking out others with technical expertise seems fairly aimless.
I wanted to create a site for wanderlusts - people who want to use the internet to find exciting places to see and things to do. Contact me if you're interested in seeing some mock-ups.If it's not overly apparent, I haven't refined my pitch yet.
It's sort of like a real-life Delicious.
edit: or judysbook or (to a lesser extent) citysearch
Every venue on our web application has people behind it, working at the venue, who are reading the user reviews, adding content, creating announcements, writing a short description of the place, uploading pictures of products or services they offer, and describing their venue using up to fifty tags.
Users can do many of these things, too, but the initial set of content is created by the venue.
i wish you the best of luck, but i hope you have a bigger differentiator than placing more of a burden on small businesses.
Would Facebook be as popular if anyone could create anyone else's page? They would upload basic information - maybe a picture or two, a few interests, add a few friends, hardly ever write in the blog.
When the person writing content for these pages has a personal investment in the business or venue, the page becomes much more vibrant. Users on Yelp are given points for adding and reviewing places, but the number of pictures they upload, for example, is a non-factor in their user ranking.
Thus, I respectfully disagree with your assessment that this will slow growth.
I'm planning on starting with a small and well-defined geographic reach - say, one small area like a city or a state. Once that user base is satisfied, then I'll work to expand the application's reach.
One more thing, though - I would not be quick to call the profile creation on this web application "burdensome." Most venues, including several branches of a national chain, have difficulty reaching their customer base. The chain "Chili's" for example, has a Web site for their national chain, but few if any (I couldn't find any on a recent search) of their individual venues have Web sites. That means there's very little interchange between the consumer and the venue.
This web application was initially created so that people could not only organize their places, but shape them to some extent. If enough people complain in reviews of an individual Chili's venue that the cash registers are understaffed, that venue will take notice.
The people can also put their info in google base or other directories.
What I want to know from you is: Why are ou going to beat yelp? Why are you going to beat citysearch? Why did judysbook and insiderpages fail? How do you compare to americantowns.com ?
I wish you the best of luck. Really, i do. I am in the minority of people who go to the internet for everything, and hope/expect that everything is going to be on there. if there was more than just the hipster-overridden yelp, then i'd be a happier man. I just don't see the business case.
What are the odds that such a Chili's will maintain a web presence? Better yet, to observe such a community.
Hint - go to a different restaurant. You'll be happier and you'll be helping to solve their understaffed cash register problem.
The "good places near new house" service doesn't seem all that compelling. If I want a skate park, I'm a skater and I'll quickly meet other skaters. How am I going to know about it anyway? ("welcome wagon" appears to be dead.)
And, you're competing with the "city" sites. They've been trying to do this for years and failed. (They've failed so miserably that it's understandable that you've never heard of them. However, you still need to understand why they failed. I can't see any difference.)
The travel thing is neat, but is it a biz or a feature of a travel site? (Yes, it might be the feature that makes a travel site.)
Unless, of course, you're just looking for contract programmers. They'll do exactly what you want, but they want cash.
It's important to realize that if most of the payoff that you're offering is equity, folks expect to contribute as well. If you want to pay folks like founders, you have to treat them like founders. If you want to treat folks like employees, you have to pay them like employees.
One of my ideas is to create a better networking application. By that I mean a better version of linked-In (which I think is a total waste since those connections at best are mostly superficial).
If you are interested, contact me. (see profile)