Tigers X - Number one Source to Talk Auburn Tigers Sports
The Library => Haley Center Basement => Topic started by: lifesapplepie on August 18, 2008, 03:29:25 PM
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So, me and a buddy of mine decided to create a new website for the Birmingham area. Birmingham is our beta test city and planning on launching the site in 7 other cities by the end of 2008. Basically, it is a Entertainment guide for the Birmingham Market (for right now) where you can access a number of different things, from Drink Specials to ordering movie tickets. Check out the site and please feel free to give us any feed back... As you can see there is not any content on the site yet for we are not marketing it until the first of September.
The site... www.MyCityScene.com
Hope you like!!
P.S. Please hold the Video jokes to a minimum! :)
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It'll be of more value to you to have us review the site once there is some content.
One thing I noticed is that your list of restaurants includes standard fast food joints. This says to me that you either copied and pasted the list from a database (thus, making me think that you put no thought into the list) or that you think your target audience is a bunch of mouthbreathing idiots that can't find the local McD's or need a review of the McRib before deciding on their dinner location.
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I think the idea has promise, but you're going to need a shitload of people to keep that site at high quality. So many specials are changing from place to place, and there are a thousand different things to do in each city.
Also, there are plenty of other publications that produce the same information.
A suggestion - I'd try to be a little more investigative about it. Maybe look up the schedule of events in Bham, do a couple of interviews with the people putting on the events, then go back and write if you think they're going to suck or not.
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It'll be of more value to you to have us review the site once there is some content.
One thing I noticed is that your list of restaurants includes standard fast food joints. This says to me that you either copied and pasted the list from a database (thus, making me think that you put no thought into the list) or that you think your target audience is a bunch of mouthbreathing idiots that can't find the local McD's or need a review of the McRib before deciding on their dinner location.
We are not going to have any fastfood joints on the site...where to you see them? They are not supposed to be on there.
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We are not going to have any fastfood joints on the site...where to you see them? They are not supposed to be on there.
Under the restaurant listings, I saw a few "Arby's" listings. I didn't really do a comprehensive search.
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I think the idea has promise, but you're going to need a shitload of people to keep that site at high quality. So many specials are changing from place to place, and there are a thousand different things to do in each city.
Also, there are plenty of other publications that produce the same information.
A suggestion - I'd try to be a little more investigative about it. Maybe look up the schedule of events in Bham, do a couple of interviews with the people putting on the events, then go back and write if you think they're going to suck or not.
The cool thing about the site is the bar/resturant manages their own account. We have it set up to where the can manage all there own sites from just managing mycityscene. So in other words, they can manage their event calendar, drink speicals, menus, etc.. on mycityscene and that information ditributes to their own site, Myspace page and any other site where they manage a calendar. They can also send their calendar to black and white and birmingham weekly, etc...from mycityscene. So really it is cutting a TON of time for the bars/restaurants, and at the same time is keeping our content up to date. So there is no overhead for us!!! We have gotten GREAT feedback for bars and restaurants about the site. Watch the video for more details about that...
Also,we have a service for our theater section where local theater times will be updated daily. You can also view trailers, there will be reviews and you can purchase tickets. It will be the same complete service as like a Yahoo. Again, no overhead for us!!!
We have firgured this out so that once the site is up and running we wont have our hand in any of the daily operations.
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Under the restaurant listings, I saw a few "Arby's" listings. I didn't really do a comprehensive search.
Thank You for pointing that out... I will make that change. That is not the content we want for our site!!
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Also, there are plenty of other publications that produce the same information.
Please send me one site were they can get all this information from in the Birmingham area... and dont send me a myspace page or a bar page.
I think Publications is you key word there... but we are not trying to compete with B&W or any other paper.
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http://bwcitypaper.com/SitePage-9227.111115_NightclubsLive_Music_listings.html?-token.menuseclooptracking=6&-token.menuitemlooptracking=612
B&W has a site too.
I had this same idea a little while back, but never went through with it. My idea was more wiki based though. The idea was to try to give bar staff the opportunity to post who was playing that night, and bands could also post where they would be playing. Then you could search by parameters like genre of music or location. For example, you could search for a country band in 5 Points, and it would show which bar in 5 Points has a country band that night.
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I think that it's a good idea, but you need to do more to distinguish yourself a bit more from CitySearch.com.
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http://bwcitypaper.com/SitePage-9227.111115_NightclubsLive_Music_listings.html?-token.menuseclooptracking=6&-token.menuitemlooptracking=612
B&W has a site too.
I had this same idea a little while back, but never went through with it. My idea was more wiki based though. The idea was to try to give bar staff the opportunity to post who was playing that night, and bands could also post where they would be playing. Then you could search by parameters like genre of music or location. For example, you could search for a country band in 5 Points, and it would show which bar in 5 Points has a country band that night.
Not even close to the amount of content that we are going to have.... it will actually be more of a myspace "profile" but we have control of the templete (in other words the profile will be a lot more clean and easy to read and be dedicated to bar/resturants), and the infomation will be searchable by the user.
As far as the band playing... that is a phase 2 part of the site.
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I think that it's a good idea, but you need to do more to distinguish yourself a bit more from CitySearch.com.
Citysearch is overloaded with Bad content. Over half their listings don't even exist anymore or out of business!
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Citysearch is overloaded with Bad content. Over half their listings don't even exist anymore or out of business!
I couldn't agree more, but they're still the go-to site for people visiting a new city. I think your idea can easily work, but it will require heavy moderation/administration to validate content and continuously keep prior ads/entries up-to-date. You do need to differentiate yourself a bit more though. At first glance, the sites look too similar.
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heavy moderation/administration
With this being the case I know right where you can get help.
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With this being the case I know right where you can get help.
Would that be a Nation?
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Nothing like a pack of gloom and doomers to suck all the fun and life out of your idea, right? Well, let me pile on.
You promote the "freshness" of your content. And today it might be. But as someone experienced in the development and deployment of content that requires maintenance or upkeep on the part of the end user, let me tell you that it really won't be for long. The "hands-off" approach you're embracing is the path to ruin. At first people will be gung-ho about doing their own stuff, but that initial enthusiasm will very quickly wane. What you'll end up with is a bunch of outdated, broken, and irrelevant information. And because you can't control what they do, you won't have much recourse to rectify the problem.
If you seriously want this to work, you need to recruit people to fill the spots for you. You need to recruit bloggers to review the restaurants, insiders to give real tips about the hidden gems on the menu, You and your partner need to be actively involved in the day-to-day content decisions. You need to constantly evaluate what is on the site, what works and what doesn't.
The idea of "no overhead for you" will carry you directly to "no income for you" either. And that's the bottom line.
Your idea is not bad. But there are tons of great ideas out there. The difference between a great idea and a great business comes down to three basic things: 1) Committment, 2) Opportunity and 3) Execution. I think you've got some committment but you really need to go all-in to make something like this work. There may be an opportunity (although the field is crowded). What kind of marketing budget do you have? Word of mouth won't carry it. As for the execution.... well.... I can tell that nothing anyone says is going to make an impression. You've taken the other constructive criticisms posted here and instead of hearing them, you've attempted to debunk with your own logic. Carry on. I wish you well.
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DITTOS to everything Kaos posted. CitySearch has failed me too many times, and it's because they are following a model not too different from yours. You can't make people keep their info up to date. You have to do it for them.
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You promote the "freshness" of your content. And today it might be. But as someone experienced in the development and deployment of content that requires maintenance or upkeep on the part of the end user, let me tell you that it really won't be for long. The "hands-off" approach you're embracing is the path to ruin. At first people will be gung-ho about doing their own stuff, but that initial enthusiasm will very quickly wane. What you'll end up with is a bunch of outdated, broken, and irrelevant information. And because you can't control what they do, you won't have much recourse to rectify the problem.
Points well taken, I promise!! But, i dont know if I am explaining myself correctly. This is a benifit for the profile managers... The fact right now is our prospects are currently updating each and every site like their myspace page and their own website calendars. You would not think it, but this actually takes a while to do. They also have to create a calendar each week for publications like B&W, Birmingham Weekly, etc... I know this for a fact doing the research myself. They are doing the consistenly every week, and if we can get them in the habit of doing this on MyCityScene, then it will be perfect for the profile manager as well as keeping our content up to date. Some companies are even paying others 100's of dollars a month to do this for them. They just send them the calendar and this particular company filters it to all the other sites.
With our MyCitySCene you fill out the information once on the site and it distruibutes the content to all the other sites, including publications, saving them time and in some cases money.
We are franchising the business plan out, and have commitments in 7 cities throughout the U.S, Hopefully with more to come. So there will be a contact in each city. We will not be maintaining all the cities.
I promise I am taken all of your comments and are jotting them down to go over with my partner! I was not trying to debunk them, just explaining how we are different then other sites. Sorry if I came across as defensive.
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You better not forget this thread once you get rich as hell. We'll need our compensation.
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You must know some of the same people I do because I have a couple friends that joined your facebook group for the launch party.
No invite?
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You must know some of the same people I do because I have a couple friends that joined your facebook group for the launch party.
No invite?
No love in this motherfucka'
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For those that live in Birmingham, we are having our luanch party for www.MyCityScene.com tonight in Lakeview at the Rare Martini. Directions... http://www.theraremartini.com/location.asp It starts at 6 with good drink specials, and there will be TV's for the SC vs NCST game. Should be a good time!! We would love to see you guys come out.