Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

First, be more careful about open access without restriction.  Even Craigslist has limitations about what you can sell, give away, and adult content.  There are federal laws you need to comply with to be protected as a safe harbor service provider.  Otherwise you could be held liable for any criminal activity of your subscribers.  And as Craigslist found, there will always be people trying to do something patently illegal.  Things like selling guns, explosives, or even wine.  You should at least have the user acknowledge the terms of use before they can make a page.

The Ads by Google expand the page off my screen, so if you`re using frames you should look at reducing the size of your editorial section.

I had no problem creating a basic page, but here are no instructions or code examples of how to format the page or add photos.

I`ll leave the technical comments to others more qualified than myself.  Overall you have the right idea of a free service paid for by the advertisers (Google AdWords).  Perhaps in a future release you can give the user templates for their page.

Finally, the name "InstantGoodness" does nothing for me.  It might be appropriate for a vitamin supplement site, but I would recommend something more funky.  Even nonsensical.



-------------------------

Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

I haven`t even looked at the site yet, but as a writer, my main question would be, "what`s in it for me?" (Lemme go look now...) 

Well, I have to say, it`s messin` up my machine. I went to the above link, clicked the big center page, then got totally side-tracked by the "Hate this page?" I clicked that, nothing happened, then tried my "back" button. That put me who-knows-where! So I started over, and ended up on a different home page! Yikes!

At one point, looking at something about Nintendo, my hourglass started spinning and I couldn`t go anywhere. System stopped while I-dunno-what tried to download and refresh the screen.

So far, not too thrilled...

How come there isn`t a category for employment--help wanted or résumés? Oops....just saw that "Jobs" category :-)

All in all, it comes down to there being a whole lot of places these days for writers to put up content. Some even offer money to be earned, a la Constant Content. Craig`s list is all about selling things, and places like MySpace are all about personal stuff, not to mention WordPress etc., for blogs.

So again....what`s in it for the person who`s visiting? Why should they choose your site to put up a free page? See?

Some time ago, there was a humongous thread all about tag-lines. In that mass of discussion, several concepts emerged. One of the best---more important---introduced by CookieMonster at the time, was the distinction between "what you do," versus "what you offer."

The thread was: "Brand Building: Post Your 10 Words Elevator Pitch Here" (all 99 pages of it!)

Too many people try to spell out what they do in their sales writing. They don`t explain what they`re offering to the potential customer. Right now, you`re offering a free Web page. So? How is this a good thing? What does it benefit me, when I can get a nearly free entire Web site?

Although some of the technical stuff on the site can be fixed, to answer your more important question about attracting page-makers, I think it`s going to be in your branding---how do you differentiate yourself from your competition.

I need the schpiel ... why would I use your service instead of someone else`s?

I`m not getting that from your site.