Well, admittedly I made it partly for my own personal use and partly for fun. I just thought that most of the sites that did this weren't very well done, or didn't achieve what I was looking for completely.
It is a little discouraging to have your work dismissed in a couple sentences though. I put an awful lot of time into it.
It's happened to me to. It's hard to go directly at competitors. Users will only switch if your thing is significantly better, by that I mean some multiple better.
Anyway, it looks like you've got the skills to make something nice. Maybe you could try to push the space into some fresh direction that no one has done before, instead of doing an incremental improvement.
Honestly when you get a couple sentences from someone that is good, the majority of users give you about 2-3 seconds to show them why they shouldn't just close the tab or move to another site.
I'd get used to feeling discouraged because this is the reality of competition on the net. As someone's already noted, a couple of sentences is more than you'll get from most people who just look and then dismiss it. There's great feedback to take from the original comment even if it's short - if you have a point of difference, it's not obvious.
FWIW, I also viewed it, thought 'what sets this apart from all the other alternatives?' and then left. I think your design is really loose. Other than that, I use a snippets function in my text editor and the things that doesn't cover aren't enough to warrant using a site like yours. There might be some advantage I'm missing though?
I think your going to need something else to drive attention/use of the site.
Right now it's basically a standalone GIST app with out any of the social networking bits.
If I were to rate the idea as-is I'd probably give it a 5/10 it seems like core functional works but there needs to be more...
How do you intend to monetize the site?
(premium services, ads, acquisition?)
Somethings I'd look into.
1. Add Group Feature (Private Group Bit Repository)
2. Maybe some kind of game mechanic to drive initial traffic and increase the sites stickiness. (pts for posting, badges, etc)
3. Plugins for Wordpress, BBS, Facebook, etc.
4. Try narrowing your niche "Business, Open Source" you can always expand it later.
I've been wrestling with this question for several weeks. It seems easier if you already have a google account. Otherwise, you will force them to get one and make the login process a bit more complicated.
It seems like an OK site. With these things polish is really key.
- Use fixed width layout
- align the sign in link the the right margin
- let people see submit links even if they aren't signed in. If they click on it, then sign them in.
- stock it with a lot more bits. Right now there are just 3!
- have more than one user. Get your friends in on the beta first.
- make it seem alive and constantly changing, so people come back.
- make the bits shareable on twitter / facebook, etc
- the iconography is sort of weird, I saw a pancake, an asparagus (?), and the logo looks like a green folded piece of paper with eyes and a bite out of it. If you don't know how to design (which is totally OK), then go for minimalism.
Thanks, these are all really good suggestions, I've already fixed a couple of them. They are pretty general too, so I'll also be considering them when making future sites.
As far as the design goes: I'm not much of a designer, so I used vegetables. It seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway.
Thanks, I changed it. (languages/c++ is now also languages/c-plus-plus instead of languages/c%2b%2b). Seems like a no-brainer now that you've pointed it out.
21 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 62.0 ms ] threadIt is a little discouraging to have your work dismissed in a couple sentences though. I put an awful lot of time into it.
Anyway, it looks like you've got the skills to make something nice. Maybe you could try to push the space into some fresh direction that no one has done before, instead of doing an incremental improvement.
Positive and negative comments come with the territory once you launch/announce your site to the public.
What is wrong with other sites? What does your site do better? I put about as much care into my comment as you put into selling your website.
FWIW, I also viewed it, thought 'what sets this apart from all the other alternatives?' and then left. I think your design is really loose. Other than that, I use a snippets function in my text editor and the things that doesn't cover aren't enough to warrant using a site like yours. There might be some advantage I'm missing though?
Right now it's basically a standalone GIST app with out any of the social networking bits.
If I were to rate the idea as-is I'd probably give it a 5/10 it seems like core functional works but there needs to be more...
How do you intend to monetize the site? (premium services, ads, acquisition?)
Somethings I'd look into.
1. Add Group Feature (Private Group Bit Repository) 2. Maybe some kind of game mechanic to drive initial traffic and increase the sites stickiness. (pts for posting, badges, etc) 3. Plugins for Wordpress, BBS, Facebook, etc. 4. Try narrowing your niche "Business, Open Source" you can always expand it later.
Just some thoughts...
Good Luck
-N
It made me log in and try it out straight away.
I've been wrestling with this question for several weeks. It seems easier if you already have a google account. Otherwise, you will force them to get one and make the login process a bit more complicated.
What about Disqus? Anyone else using this?
- Use fixed width layout
- align the sign in link the the right margin
- let people see submit links even if they aren't signed in. If they click on it, then sign them in.
- stock it with a lot more bits. Right now there are just 3!
- have more than one user. Get your friends in on the beta first.
- make it seem alive and constantly changing, so people come back.
- make the bits shareable on twitter / facebook, etc
- the iconography is sort of weird, I saw a pancake, an asparagus (?), and the logo looks like a green folded piece of paper with eyes and a bite out of it. If you don't know how to design (which is totally OK), then go for minimalism.
As far as the design goes: I'm not much of a designer, so I used vegetables. It seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway.
(foo.com/c# is parsed as an anchor)