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Ask YC: Feedback on my community website

villagetoolbox.com

A few very quick points:

- The front page doesn't feel "alive". It looks like a static page. You can show the newest communities, or how many people are using it, or anything you can think of to make the site look active and loved by many people. (it's also easy to overdo it and make a horribly busy front page... it's a fine balance).

- Related to the first point, consider using geolocation to show something relevant to users right away. It might not be accurate enough, or it might not be helpful until you have a lot of communities already, but I think it would be a great help if you can get it right.

- Could be because I'm not part of the target audience, but it seems a bit abstract. "Use VillageToolbox to help organize, strengthen and build your community. Creating an account and starting a new community is free, and opens a world of possibilities for you and your neighbours. Use the wiki as your homepage" is fairly abstract and doesn't actually tell me that much. "and for keeping track of community events. Tools are available for sharing skills, tools and finding sitters for your house, pets or kids." is better.

- Same as above, the sample community presents me with a lot of text, but nothing really gripping.

Just a quick note, but I was surprised that I had to delete the "City or Zip Code" text inside the search box. Would be a bit of polish to make it clear whenever I click on it the first time.

Also, as mentioned by alex_c, the front page seems very static, give me something that's showing the most recent activities/postings on the site perhaps.

And finally, I even read your about section, and I'm not entirely sure what it is you do, and why I would be interested. You may want to review your about text, share it with people who have never heard of your site, and ask them to describe, in their own words, what it is you do, and to give you an example of what it might be good for. If they don't answer well enough, you'll know you need to revise your description.

I agree with most of the other feedback as well.

Good luck with it.

I feel it is almost part of my responcibility at this site to help review other start ups. So I try to check out all the feedback on X posts.

I just don't have a need for this one at the time but could see how it would be useful. So I just tried to look around and notice whatever I could.

* The find groups in this location should empty and be ready for you to type a zip after you click in it * If it finds no results (which it didn't for my location 80304) perhaps don't show an empty map but show a "sorry but here are our most active locations" Sometimes it is cool to look at locations I used to live or my family/friends live. * are there any example communities to look at? I tried zooming all the way out and couldn't find anything? Do you have to log in to see existing groups?

That is about all I could see for now since I couldn't get in further... nice clean design easy to follow and start searching for communities... Good luck

There is a sample community ( http://sample.villagetoolbox.com ) that is linked from the from page. I'll also link it from the search results page.

Thanks for the feedback

Some initial thoughts:

There's an extra 1/10th of the "Log in" button in Opera 9.62.

I don't like how the box on the right side of the home page looks like a pushed in button. The front page doesn't stand up and scream that you're offering something I want -- try updating the design. CSS Zen Garden is a great resource for inspiration.

Sounds like you have an interesting idea there. Have you thought about selling the service instead of offering it for free? I'd imagine you could get home owners associations and other similar organizations to pay for access.

I have, I've played with various different ideas for generating revenue, but I think anything that charges for a community or for membership is doomed to fail. I'm going after hyper-local advertising. Members of a community can buy a banner ad for $4/month, and there's a nifty banner ad creator to make it easy.

I don't have time to do an in depth review but here are my first two notes:

1) On the front page, you have text in a field I need to put text in. Instead of having me delete it, use some javascript to clear the field 'onfocus' you can find the code easily online, it'll make for a better user experience.

2) I entered my zip and up comes a map of my city. Now I'm lost. The map is blank. I'm assuming there will be markers when you have communities to show. But there's no obvious guidance as to what's going on now.

I don't see any visual examples (or a tour) of why I would want to create a community website.

I've been building this in my spare time for the last year or so. It's time to go into open beta, but I'd love to hear what the HN community thinks of it. (I know, you're probably not my target demographic, but, hey)

This may be because I'm not logged in, but you don't show me any buttons to create a new community. Especially when there are zero communities in my area, such a link would be beneficial.

Good point. It's gotta be easy. Is it acceptable just explain that they need to create an account first, or would it be valuable to you if I allow creating an account and community on one form?

The main point is there needs to be a big fat "Create a community" button on the front page, even if that leads you to a "First, create an account" screen.

I looked at the sample community and went: wow a village toolbox with no tools. I think you should spend more time thinking of tools for the community not just a message board and sending emails to people, something like ning does.

This bring me to the question, if you want to build a community site how are going to be different from ning, collectiveX? Is it worth the effort of trying to compete with these guys?

My reasoning for building this was that our community had a need for an online presence, and none of the tools were quite right. The main differentiator come from the assumption that the community members are neighbours, often with a pre-existing relationship. The tool share and skill share start to leverage that.

You're suffering from a bit of a ghost town. I think more people would rather join and help build a community than be the first person to actually start a community.

Is there an existing community that's working the way you want it to? It might make more sense to start regionally and build from there a la Craigslist or Facebook.

it's not clear for me (from Europe) if or that this site is US-focused. Maybe that should be made clear in the ZIP code edit field.

I like your idea. My personal gut feeling is that there is still lots of room for innovation and money to be made in the local online market.

I think you need to find a way of getting people to come back to the site even before there are many(any) others using it. Some tool that is useful in its own right that will encourage people to sign up and keep visiting. From then on the community aspect will become a bonus as the site grows.

Also the design is quite unappealing - maybe paying a designer a few hundred dollars for a PSD would be a good idea.

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