

Looking for feedback and some advice on how to get more users - missha

I wanted to ask you for some feedback about a web app that me and a friend have developed: WOLPY, a web application for tracking your travels.<p>http://www.wolpy.com<p>It's currently an alpha version where you can create a map of your visited places (I think we've developed the easiest and quickest interface for doing that). We are going to add soon some more features to share your travels (dates, tips, photos...) and to grow the community (forum, contacts importer...)<p>We've made 1000 registered users in 3 months, which, for us, it's great, but I find this figure low compared with other startups. What are we missing? How can we get more users?
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hooande
Bottom line, I think the site needs to be much easier to use. There are
already a few apps like this, but one place you might be able to compete is on
convenience.

First off, you might want to consider letting people play with this more
without making an account. The registration was short, but making yet another
account is still a big jump for some people (like me). You should let people
enter cities and put pins in the map before they register so that they can
play around with it and feel more comfortable. I think that would increase
your conversion of visitors to sign ups.

You should find a way to add accounts via SMS or even the iphone GPS. That
would make it way easier to track the various places I go than going back to
the website. More moible integration seems like it's a good idea...these
people travel a lot right?

I think your social system (the list of thumbnails when you click on "viewed
by __ other people") looks pretty cool. Only one thought: That method of
listing people places a lot of emphasis on the photos. It might be better to
show more information about less people so that people can scan for something
other than an eye catching photo.

Nice guy, keep it up guys

~~~
missha
Thanks for your feedback!

Letting the people to create their map before signing up is an option we take
into consideration but finally dismissed. Perhaps it's time to rethink about
it.

The mobile integration sounds great! We had thought about making an iPhone app
in the future but I think that there are more mobility options to explore.

You're right about showing the photos of the people who have visited a place.
It's great for places with a few visitors but it becomes too much information
for much visited places. We are going to remove that ajax for the next version
but I think we should keep looking for an information design which would fit
both cases.

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noodle
its a nice looking, easy to use application and the concept is good.

however, you're pushing your way into a market with a good number of existing
applications. you need to make yourself stand out. the application is
currently very simple. as you mentioned, you're going to be developing new
features soon. pick what you do carefully and deliberately in order to make
yourself stand out from the pack.

a few thoughts on features:

    
    
      - it took me a while to figure out how to delete places.  consider making it more clear, with a delete option on the city page where the "add pin" option used to be.
      - perhaps a friend suggester that bases suggestions off of cities that both people have visited.
      - perhaps a feature that allows you to also build routes/trips/itineraries where you can connect the cities that you've visited on a single trip.  
        then, you can visually display the itineraries (or browse other peoples') and write information on them beyond the information you write about the individual cities' reviews.
      - allow commenting on more things.  like individual users' profiles.  the user profile is a commonly traversed place.  allow for that interaction.
      - hook into wikipedia for the bigger cities.
      - add in some sort of landmark feature into individual cities that allows people to easily and quickly identify things to see and do that are special for the individual cities.  
        so that people don't have to read every review to see whats interesting.  allow people to add them onto the map by a right-click interface so that they will show up on the map of that single town only.
      - iphone application.
      - clickpass integration
    

what can you do to get more users?

    
    
      - consider building a facebook and myspace application and try and get your current userbase to make use of it and push it to their friends.
      - get to a point where you think your application is good, useful, and ready for people to really look at.
        then, ask your users nicely to spread the word about it.  send a short invitation to review the application to the larger web app and/or travel blogs.
    

hope these help. also, full disclosure, i think i might've applied a while ago
to a job posting of yours on FS :) so, i've thought about what to do to
improve the app in the past.

~~~
missha
Wow! A lot of food for though here! Thanks noodle!

The main problem with the Facebook application is that we would need to
require a login and, since there are several facebook apps which does the same
that currently Wolpy does, it would be a handicap for us.

By the way, I owe you an email about the FS offer!

~~~
noodle
no problem.

your application would do the same thing as some of the other apps, yes. but
the point isn't to develop an awesome FB app, its to provide another outlet of
passive advertising for your web app, bringing people in to try it and
hopefully love it.

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geoship
I'm a big fan of not making people register until they're already committed to
your service. Maybe instead of asking users to "Sign Up" right away you can
have them just "Try it out". Then once they've input some data if they want to
save it they can create an account.

And since I didn't sign up for the service, how are you enabling users to
share what they've created? This is key to building your user base.

~~~
missha
Yes, I should work on that idea of letting the people try the app before
singing up.

For sharing their map users have the option to embed it in their websites and
blogs. There are two versions of the map: an interactive one (with Google
Maps, which can be zoomed in) and a static image (which can be embed in places
which doesn't support iframes, like Myspace or Flickr profile).

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solost
Why do hackers build applications without having a distribution strategy? You
can build the best application ever, but if no one finds it you are going to
have the issue you have now.

Before even starting a project like this you need to be asking 2 questions.

1\. Is this an application that is going to really solve a problem people
have? 2\. After building the application is there a viable distribution
strategy for it?

I know that doesn't directly answer your question on how to grow your
audience, but I think the question you are asking is something most hackers
overlook and maybe this will help others still deciding on what they want to
do.

To directly address your question, I would seek out and open conversations up
with sites like Gusto and other social travel sites. You might be able to
piggy back off of their audience or become a potential partner or acquisition
option for someone a bit more established.

