I think this responds to Facebook's continuous decline in service. They have messed up the algorithms so bad that News Feeds tend to be more static than ever before, back in the good days, people checked Facebook a hundred times a day because there was something new all the time. Today, if you check your Facebook 5 times during the day and you will probably get the same news as before.
They also pissed all their page owners off with Edge Rank, which was rolled out too aggressively for my taste. Since not every facebook page owner is a facebook or SMM genius, a lot of small pages lost a lot of engagement, which turns into less engagement on the site overall (from users and page admins).
I started using G+ a couple of months ago because of their Hangouts, but am gradually becoming more engaged on the site.
Facebook will fall, and pretty soon I think. Too much spam, horrible filters and crappy customization on your share settings make it a shitty service now. As G+ emphasizes share settings control, I can see why it will take over pretty fast, they just need to gain a little more momentum.
Plus, the only ads that seem to work for advertisers on Facebook are scams.
All the other revenue is coming from companies who aren't measuring. But soon, they'll realize what a waste it is, and once they pull out CPC is going to dive. And if Facebook decides to artificially inflate CPC, fewer people who aren't running scams won't pay.
The thing about IE is that once they gain some market share, they start trying to push their "own" standards, even if the community is moving in the opposite direction. That is just the way it has been since IE6.
The ad targets haters that convince "regular users" that IE sucks...haters needed to do that because regular users couldn't totally grasp how much their web experience is affected for using that crappy browser and how many features they were missing.
The fact that a lot of them do not realize how awful their experience is, is due to countless hours of near-suicide frustration from programmers and coders around the world trying to make IE compatible applications.
I can feel what you say suhastech. But I don't think that is particular to developing countries. I am from Ecuador, and when I was maybe 9 or 10, was given my first Commodore 64. My dad taught me some BASIC and there I was making my first crappy programs. Of course they cared a lot about grades, like any parent.
Being born in a developing country screwed you up because technology took ages to get to you. Man, they still have 128K connections there...
Congrats to the OP by the way!
Hi, a couple of suggestions here:
1. Landing page. It is not very clear for me what is the basic "free" course. Will I be able to go all the way up to building my app with the free one? If you write it as Course 1: RoR Basics, you lead me to think you will only tell me how to define variables and then try to charge me for it.
If the case is that you can build all the first app for free, I would change the wording to: Course 1: Your first app, or something like that.
2. Once I click on take the course, you redirect me to a page where I only find text. Wait...this is not what I wanted...bail.
I think that once you redirect, the first thing you should see is the course (or the console), so you can start exploring and falling in love with RoR.
3. There is way too much content in that second page...it feels more like a blog post. I would put a link to that content in the main page under three small links: Why codelearn? Why Ruby on Rails? Do I need Ruby? or something like that.
4. Most important: Why is all the scary code in the first class? If I am a newbie and I see that, I would think its way to complicated! Start with something easy...there is a reason why "Hello World" is the first thing you learn in any language out there.
5. Also, I cannot try the things as a anonymous user (I don't know about registered ones), because the console is nowhere in the page!
Point 1 & 2 taken. I agree to your observation. The user should be shown 'Aha' moment ASAP & we are only delaying it which is bad.
Point 3 - guess this is classic example of we founders trying to show the philosophy as the first thing to the user. While he/she wants to learn RoR. Guess we should create a separate link 'Philosophy' on the main page & link the content there. Something like https://supportbee.com/ .
Point 4 - guess the command out is too long (especially the rails new part) which is making it look long.
Point 5 - a linux user is needed at the backend & hence there is a signup process for that. We need to figure out a sub-optimal way to provide console access to non-signed up users as well like what Codecademy etc do on their main page.
This is Hemanth, other co-founder at codelearn. all that code you see is actually command output, not exactly code. You only have to type in small commands at console, for first 5-6 lessons.
Hi, I think there is room for improvement. It is not clear to me exactly what the app does. At the beginning I thought it was an app to create real treasure hunts (like in a game). But now I think its a way to discover new places within an area? (Maybe I'm just stupid...but its the impression I got)
Check this post out, it gives some ideas on how to increase your landing page conversions: http://t.co/ZMaDaL17
Is there a social element on the app? Can you share your tours? Share your logs? I think that people would like to know that!
What is a "gem"? Who are the people that decide whether a place is a gem or not? Are they restaurants? Sights? Strip clubs?
I also think the 100% free for a limited time is confusing. Is it going to be 50% free later? I would revise the wording there...
I would also improve the design a bit, and change the background. It would be super cool to have something like a "pirate map" representation of NYC or some popular location in the background.
Hopefully this helps, I wish you good luck with your app!
>>Maybe I'm just stupid...but its the impression I got
Absolutely not! It's my job to be clear and based on your comment and other, I'm obviously falling short.
>>What is a "gem"? Who are the people that decide whether a place is a gem or not?
The "little gem" thing is a figure of speech but I see now that it could be confusing in the context of pitching a brand new product.
Wanderous has defined 8,000+ Points of Interest algorithmically by analyzing social and photo sharing geotags to determine where the destinations worth visiting in our world. Users are encouraged to explore places they wouldn't go otherwise by creating walking or driving tours between one or more of these destinations.
Love the treasure map idea but it's a bit outside of my skill level/budget for right now.
They also pissed all their page owners off with Edge Rank, which was rolled out too aggressively for my taste. Since not every facebook page owner is a facebook or SMM genius, a lot of small pages lost a lot of engagement, which turns into less engagement on the site overall (from users and page admins).
I started using G+ a couple of months ago because of their Hangouts, but am gradually becoming more engaged on the site. Facebook will fall, and pretty soon I think. Too much spam, horrible filters and crappy customization on your share settings make it a shitty service now. As G+ emphasizes share settings control, I can see why it will take over pretty fast, they just need to gain a little more momentum.