Rehashing of Entire Site - Thoughts?

Hey Guys,

A while back I posted a thread on this forum regarding a new website which I started up called "Recommend Me!" www.recommendme.co.za

I got some valuable feedback and I have since implemented most of it. In spite of this, I feel that the site has still not gotten the reception that I'd hoped for and I'm now at the point where I need to either look at it from another angle or pull the plug entirely.

I figured that people love giving advice ad nauseum, but they wouldn't necessarily start ranting off advice to everyone. Perhaps I've looked at the from the complete opposite direction in that respect.

Instead of forcing people to register, add a business & write a review, why not let people ask a question like "plumber, midrand", then the mandatory "Recommend me: " gets put in front of that question, and then that appears on the homepage, together with other questions. Anybody can then answer the question without registering, by clicking "Recommend" and enter the answer into a simple text box.

This can also be time-based i.e. you need an answer by 1 week or 1 day.

The search function can search through all the questions asked and also through the business database.

Registration would only be needed for reviewing a service/business.

I think perhaps the most important question I should have asked myself before going into this, is what would compel somebody to actually want to give advice or more importantly, review something? Even if I were to introduce gaming elements like badges/trophies for rewarding certain actions, I still am finding it very difficult to figure out what would make this both fun & relevant.

Any ideas? Criticism is MOST welcome

Looking at the StackExchange network, points/awards/badges do seem to make a big difference. For that you would need to register your users, but people don't seem to have a problem with that - particularly if you implement the single login from facebook/Google/OpenID et al.

Regarding the interest aspect - perhaps you could get some sponsored prizes to start a launch competition with. Give away to the highest rated company as well as the most active user, or something like that...

I came across a great book that you'd love. It's called The Referral Engine and it may help you gauge what you're doing wrong if anything

The single login works currently with Facebook so that's sorted.
Also, the functionality with respect to the Q&A format exists currently on the site but in its current form, it is more of a secondary feature.

I was thinking of launching a promotion whereby those who rate/review the most varied businesses would stand a chance to win Shopping Vouchers to the Value of R2000. Since I'm doing this project "all by myself" P), money is tight so I can't splash for the obligatory iPad 2.

I see nobody has commented on the actual relevance of the site or the idea of Q&A.

PS: Will check out that book...thanks

Jamie_Ramsamy said:

I see nobody has commented on the actual relevance of the site or the idea of Q&A.

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Funny you should mention that. I was wondering if I would use the site myself.

I guess I should have considered asking that BEFORE launching the site

Jamie_Ramsamy said:

I see nobody has commented on the actual relevance of the site or the idea of Q&A.

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Well you really answered the question yourself by stating:

I figured that people love giving advice ad nauseum, but they wouldn't necessarily start ranting off advice to everyone.

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The book I mentioned confirms this and will answer any other questions you have

Way to busy.

I like that Britannia Hotel was on the main page - because it's awesome
The reviewing is a bit weird, because I wanted to have good and bad points, but both of those covered anything I would have said in the comment section, but you aren't allowed to leave that section blank...

My initial thought when going to your site was "woah wtf is going on?". I think you need a "blurb" on the landing page summarising what the hell the site is actually for in about 2-3 sentences or so. I see you have this paragraph:

Here, we offer you the consumer a unique platform to actually rate a service, or service provider that you have had the pleasure or misfortune of dealing with based on YOUR experiences. Read More..

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but perhaps think a bit more along the lines of http://www.apple.com/

I also think "Recommend me!" isn't a great name, mostly because half the people I know can't even spell "recommend". Perhaps something simpler, for example "digg" has a cool name.

I'd definitely remove the big "advertise here" banner. Make it a link in the footer. Your priority should surely be that the site is for the consumers benefit so I'd leave the stuff appealing to businesses etc out of the main view. If you can build the target audience then businesses will surely want to advertise and they will look for the link etc. I'd also hide the rest of the stuff on the right bar like online users and latest users. If I'm looking for reviews for a restuarant etc I don't really care about who's doing them etc. Maybe only show this to signed in users?
Also something that's nice on hello peter is the "ladder" of top companies so you could do the same for companies that have the most recommendations etc (obviously encouraging them to get some).

Perhaps you can do whatever foursquare did to somehow get a whole lof of business listings on there, then work on your SEO so that when I search for a restuarant name etc I'll come across your site.
I'd also try encourage businesses to display some sort of "badge" on their site, ie. like the facebook one that will show I have "x likes" etc.

Edit: Oh yes, also remove the "Beta" stuff.

rorz0r said:

I also think "Recommend me!" isn't a great name, mostly because half the people I know can't even spell "recommend". Perhaps something simpler, for example "digg" has a cool name.

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While I partly agree with this, I think in most cases if you tell your mate to goto recommendme.co.za or digg.co.za he will get both wrong. Atleast for the former he can easily lookup the spelling.