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Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

Restaurants aren't unique offenders. Most physically extant businesses which can't transact online suck. Try your dentist's.

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Oh my god, dentist's websites. I've one full year of dental school left, and as I'm looking around for a job, I sometimes wonder if I should just be a dental website designer instead of a dentist.

So ... why NOT be a dentist website designer, at least part-time? You know the business needs, you know the lingo of both (you're here, anyway) ... It sounds like a job that fills a needed niche! Better sites == more hits due to easier searching; there's a business case.

I say go for it.

And while you're at, write some better X-ray and tooth-photo database UI for them. I cringe at the program my dentist plods through every time she takes pictures or X-rays of my teeth.

Its been at the top of my list of software I have basically no interest in working on yet feel like I could do a hell of a lot better at anyway. Of course, I haven't researched what's out there, there may already be much better options available.

Besides being ugly, my main beef is that I have watched her drag photos, one at a time, into their proper slots in my "file" from the incoming area, even though they were already clearly labelled as to what tooth they were pictures of. It's maddening. It's only a minute or two, and she doesn't take pictures every visit, but it's the kind of thing that just screams shoddy workmanship... and opportunity.

I have watched her drag photos, one at a time, into their proper slots in my "file" from the incoming area, even though they were already clearly labelled as to what tooth they were pictures of.

Are you certain that is a software problem? It could well be a user education problem, or a trust issue between dentist and program.

Maybe she's just using an old version. I've seen quite a bit of medical equipment the last couple of months (pregnant wife), in a well-funded academic hospital, and most of that is top notch. The solo practitioners don't have money to upgrade every couple of years.

It is a tough market to operate on since a lot of dentists are busy people and usually their practice is managed by marketing consultants that do their local marketing/business promotion for them. It's not a straight forward "Let's meet and I build you a kick ass website" business.

We have been trying to crack in to this niche for almost two years with our http://patientboost.com/default.html service but it is a damn challenging market.

What the? Am I the only one seeing floating black flash boxes in the middle of the website?

How does having a better website presence bring the dentist more money? I'm having a hard time answering that in a way a halfway decent VC wouldn't laugh at, and that includes your putative answer, because you don't need a glorious site to be found via search, just a site.

When I needed to get my wisdom teeth removed I googled local dentists and found one that had a decent website with an online contact form. I made my reservation through email. The only reason it isn't more common to do this yet is precisely because most websites are complete garbage. (Flash-only with no contact info is particularly common.)

Having a good website will get you a competitive advantage in the market segment I'm a part of. (And my segment, people who don't want to deal with automated call systems or dead trees of phone numbers is growing every day.)

It really depends on what kind of dentist's ones are. If you are just a run off the mill dentist that takes care of mouth hygiene, then there is little incentive to make better website since you can probably better off doing local neighborhood direct marketing.

However if you are offering Cosmetic Dentistry, each new client can worth thousands of dollars and people will travel from their immediate surrounding to go reach your dentist practice.

Try brewery/beer sites!

The irony about these (at least in NZ) is that they're normally some of the most expensive, flash-bound websites out there.

No matter how unique a restaurant's website is, it cannot satisfy a customer to that restaurant: only the food can. Thus there is little impetus for the restaurant to try to create a good experience online.

I was going to write pretty much the same comment on the tazo tea landing page discussion, but online sales aren't the end-all-be-all justification for having a good, easy to use web site. Very often, if I'm considering going to a restaurant or coffeeshop that I've never been to, I'll look for a website to figure out the hours, location and menu & perhaps to find out more about the place. A website that is difficult to navigate or looks ugly won't hurt them, exactly, as I wasn't a customer, but a good site might compel me to visit or to try their product next time I have a chance. I've also chosen not to try out places and products before, just because I couldn't figure out an easy way of knowing whether they were open or because I couldn't figure out more info about the product.

Furthermore, there are places that I go to regularly whose easy access to info regarding hours and menu causes me to go there more often. Here is one from a place I like: http://eathomegrown.com/ Could be better (uses flash), but the info I want is there. And they have a blog and social media presence. All this has resulted in more than a few conversions into sandwich purchases from me, personally.

Oh, it will easily lose them business. Generally when I eat out, I'll have a few restaurants in mind and will browse their menus before making a decision. Even if I've been there many times, I'll compare menus so I can decide what I'm in the mood for. If it takes too long to figure out the menu (some places have an absolutely maddening UI) I just won't bother with that restaurant and move on to the next one.

You can't make money if you can't even get customers in the door!

Food and service. Service is equally important.

mediocre food and superb service gets customers better than superb food with shitty service.

I can see see a way that ... nevermind, i'll just go do it rather than let someone beat me to it.

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