Hello Railers,
At the beginning of this year, I announced Family Connection, an open
source, free, and easy-to-use family website built using our darling
web app framework, Ruby on Rails.
Now itâ??s available as a hosted, very easy-to-set-up web app called
Family Anywhere! It has the same Family News and Address Book
features as the original, plus a new Photo Album that lets you browse
all of the photos youâ??ve shared with your family. The hosted version
is $9 per month, or less if you buy a year at a time.
Iâ??m proud to bring this program out in to the light of day, as it
reflects some of my own desire to promote a better, more family-
oriented world. I hope you enjoy it as much as our family does!
Best Regards,
Duane J.
(canadaduane)
http://blog.inquirylabs.com/
G’day Duane,
My first reaction is that I think you should have a demo site linked
to your page, so people can see what it is they’re signing up for.
You’ve got a demo site linked to your Family Connection site, but
(unless I missed it) there’s no demo linked to your Family Anywhere
site. The Family Connection site doesn’t offer the Photo Album, so
even if people go there they won’t see all you’ve got to offer for
$9/month.
IMO, the Photo Album is potentially the big seller, so I think showing
a demo would be a big positive.
Nice idea, looks nicely implemented.
Regards
Dave M.
Awesome, thanks for the suggestion, Dave. We’ll definitely be adding
some screenshots and/or a demo site.
Duane
G’day Duane,
Rather than screenshots, which can be a bit impersonal, I think a demo
site is more engaging for the type of people you want signing up. Let
them wander through the site from the perspective of a member of a
fictional family, with events from e.g. school concerts, family
picnics, etc., rather than look at a bunch of screenshots which don’t
necessarily give the “feel” of how it all hangs together and the value
it could bring to the users.
My impression is that, with social networking sites, you need to
either (a) give people a feeling of how it could add value to them
personally such that they want to “invite your site in” and make it
part of their lives, or (b) dive in with the
massive-user-numbers-and-lowest-common-denominator approach that makes
MySpace, digg et al popular. The second approach works great if/when
it reaches critical mass, but then you face your entire user base
dumping you for the next biggest thing unless you’ve subsequently got
something of high personal value to offer; the first approach is
likely to grow more slowly and steadily, and inspire much more loyalty
in the user base.
Screenshots are great for MySpace and digg, but not for what you’re
offering.
All IMHO naturally, and quite possibly total rubbish, so feel free to
ignore everything I’ve just written…
Regards
Dave M.
Hi Duane,
The one suggestion I have is to include how much time it takes to sign
up
and how many steps there are. So far it looks really neat!
Daniel
On May 24, 2006, at 10:17 PM, David M. wrote:
My impression is that, with social networking sites, you need to
Screenshots are great for MySpace and digg, but not for what you’re
offering.
All IMHO naturally, and quite possibly total rubbish, so feel free to
ignore everything I’ve just written…
Regards
Dave M.
I’ve implemented both of the above now, so if you care to take a
peak, let me know what you think. Thanks for your very valuable
feedback.
Duane J.
(canadaduane)
http://blog.inquirylabs.com/
Cool website!
I like the effect when clicking pictures.
On May 24, 2006, at 1:10 PM, Duane J. wrote:
version is $9 per month, or less if you buy a year at a time.
Duane-
Very cool site. Congrats on the launch.
-Ezra
Cool site, Lee family here I come!
I must know how you did those screenshots! That’s some nice AJAX
(right?)
Good luck,
Jin L.