At the end of the line, there’s only one big decision left to make - how exactly do I end this? Admittedly, I’ve thought very little about exit strategy from the time I started Lopico. When I started in 2004 - or rather before I started - I thought about it a bit more. I thought there would be a quick exit, I knew it would be a runaway success. I was wrong. I was not very internet savvy, and beyond the things I’d read in print magazines, I didn’t know much about the true nature of the internet as a business. I had to learn quickly, and I did. Now, I’m coming to the end of this journey that produced a website, that though not a runaway billion dollar success, was in many ways a great triumph. It’s here that I find myself once again forced to think about exit strategies. There’s a good chance I could sell the site, but I’m not sold on the idea just yet. A part of me just wants to shut it down and move on. A part of me wants to keep everything and relaunch in a year. The only thing I know for sure is that there’s at most one month left of Lopico, and then the exit (at least publicly) will be complete.
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I have decided that I am shutting down Lopico in the coming weeks. It was a tough decision, but ultimately the best decision for me. There are two primary reasons for this decision: time and a desire to pursue other opportunities. Lopico has been a great learning experience for me, but I can’t dedicate the amount of time I need to make it what I want it to be. When I visit the site now, I am bothered by its look and its current feature set. While, I was in the process of a redevelopment and redesign of the site, I do not have the time and resources to make it what I want it to be - this is the drawback of having a single-person operation. I have often said (and it’s true) that the site can run on auto-pilot, but that’s not what I want. I don’t want a desolate and static (in terms of features) site. I want something I can be actively involved in - as I was with Lopico in previous years. With my current schedule, it’s unlikely that I can make this commitment to any site - but having Lopico just makes this more difficult. Lopico was a great experience for me - but my heart hasn’t been in the local review space for awhile - I want to move to other projects and projects that are more on the cutting edge. As long as Lopico remains, I will dedicate the time I have to it - time that could be used for other projects. By ending Lopico, I will free up what time I do have to explore other projects - something that is pretty exciting for me. So… yes, it is a little sad for me to be shutting down Lopico, but there’s more excitement in the possibilities of what is next. Thanks to everyone that has supported Lopico, I will also be posting on the Lopcio blog shortly.
I’ve been making a ton of progress (well, relatively) on Lopico lately, but I still have a long way to go. One thing that is pretty much set at this point is the new logo:
Let me know what you think.
A comment by someone (hi lisa) on my last post, posed the question: “what happens to Lopico now?” That’s a good question. I have a new job, live in a new city, and don’t have much time available for it. I’m working on getting into a better routine for blogging / writing code, but I’m not there yet. My simple answer for Lopico is: it’s not dead, but it’s not at its peak either. I’m more or less putting development of Lopico on hold. It’s set up in such a way that my involvement can be fairly minuscule and it will run just fine, and at least cover costs. I can’t be completely dedicated, but when I have time I’ll work on new features / design. I’m not going to throw it away (I still have too much that I want to do) but I’m not as dedicated as I would ideally be.
This may work out for the best. If I make it more of a long term project, and worry less about getting new features rolled out every so often, then I will dedicate more time to getting the right mix of features… at least that’s one potential path. And if it takes me a couple years until I can back into it that’s fine. Letting it grow slowly and adding some years to the Lopico domain will give me a better place to resume when I do get a chance to put more effort into it. I can’t really say what the ultimate future is, but I will say that the whole experience has made me want to start more things… and if that’s the best thing to come out of Lopico I’ll consider it a success.
Continuing with my posts on the thoughts and concerns I have about Lopico, today’s post concerns the structure of reviews.
One of the biggest issues with any local review site is the content of the reviews. There are many issues involved, including among others: accountability, bias, saturation, and the reaction of reviewed businesses. Reviews on Lopico currently attempt to find balance through structure. When you review a business on Lopico, you’re asked to input both “what you like” and “what you would change” about the business. Lopico has always focused on the positive, as it is intended to be a directory of only favorite businesses, but the “what you would change” input also provides an outlet for constructive feedback to the businesses listed on Lopico. That’s the plan anyway. Things don’t always work out that way.
To this point my answer to the issues surrounding user reviews has always been providing structure, but that too has problems. I’ve been experimenting outside Lopico with a more free form method of writing reviews with my own Tumblr microblog. Truthfully, I like this method of reviewing better. I like that I can write as many reviews as I want about a business and I like that I dictate the structure. The challenge (and I think I have the solution) for Lopico is finding a happy medium.
I know I have some smart readers, even though comments have been slim lately, so tell me something you think about user generated local reviews and the best ways to tackle the problems
Last time, I talked about the challenge of conversions on Lopico, but there are other challenges as well. Recently, I revealed the top 25 most voted for businesses on Lopico; something I hope to repeat on a quarterly basis. The Top 25 represent perhaps the biggest challenge to Lopico - concentration. Of the Top 25, the majority are businesses that are in Akron or have a presence in Akron. So, I was able to get a strong amount of input in Akron, but I need to be outside the Akron market too. It’s a good list and a good start - but three years into Lopico I need to be doing more in more places.
The easiest way for me to get rid of this problem is with advertising. I rely (most of the time) exclusively on organic results. When I advertise, I see growth in the markets I advertise in. This is easy enough, but unless the money spent to advertise leads to quality conversions, I’d rather not spend the money. I am sort of at the point of “grow or die” with Lopico - and to grow it’s going to take a larger time and monetary investment that I can provide right now.
There is something to be said for concentrating growth, then expanding, but I don’t know that Akron is exactly the market that can fuel the sort of growth needed to expand to other areas. It hasn’t been thus far.
How would you guide Lopico into new markets?
Today, I’m going to take you through a my viewpoint on conversions on Lopico. That’s what it’s all about. Getting people to Lopico has never been a real problem for me. The problems lie in the conversions. The first person to comment with any suggestions related to this post gets a preview of the next version of Lopico, that has never been seen before, and a preview of the new site that I soft launched today.
There are essentially five types of Lopico users:
1. Info grabbers
2. Adders / Businesses
3. Reviewers
4. Voters
5. Rock stars (people that do it all).
The info grabbers are fine - they make up the majority of Lopico’s visitors and they are the people most likely to click on ads - but I want more from them. The info grabber is not someone that is leaving the site in any better condition than when they arrived. These are the hardest people to convert. Their mainly just trying to get the info and go. I’m working on a couple of features geared toward this set of users. More features that don’t require sign-up, like the recently launched Reliability Score, will help in this area.
Then there are the Adders. These visitors add businesses to the site, but too often do little more. Some never come back. I have a pretty good idea of how to fix this problem and it will likely go away before long. This is often where businesses tend to fall - they want their information listed, but have little desire to participate in any social aspects.
The next toughest group to convert are the reviewers. These users tend to only write reviews and rarely if ever vote. This is great, but I’d like the next step to be taken. Reviews make for interesting content and comprise a large portion of all page views on the site… but these people have accounts and I feel I could get more out of them. I have a couple of ideas here too.
Voters are usually pretty easy converts. Well, the heavy voters anyway. There are people that will go on Lopico everyday to vote, some stick around forever, some come for a month or a couple of weeks and then move on, but these people definitely add value to the site (in more ways than you might think). Best of all, the amount of time that these users spend on the site usually leads them to engaging in other activities such as writing reviews and commenting. I have ideas to boost this as well - and hopefully you’ll see all of these ideas come to light in the next version of Lopico.
Finally the Rock Stars. These users take advantage of all the features that Lopico offers, BUT… they need to be converted backwards. These are typically not the ones that generate any revenue for Lopico. So, they are my favorite users - but they do the least for me in terms of direct monetization.
That was a little long, and certainly could have been three times as long, but that’s a general run-down of my users. Comments = rewards; put your best foot forward and let me know what you think I could do to convert more users in any of these groups.
Since I like my readers - especially the ones that comment - I thought I’d give you a sneak peak at the next version of Lopico. I am speculating getting out of the local reviews game - but that doesn’t mean I can’t play with the css a little before I go. And please, let me know what you think…
I may be giving up Lopico. I’m not 100% sure, but I think it’s time for another project (or two). I’ve had a lot of fun with Lopico and learned a lot - it has been an incredibly valuable experience - I just don’t know that my heart is still in it. This current month has been the worst since Lopico relaunched, and I’m apathetic. Things were going well for a while - for a long time - but I don’t know, I think it’s nearing the end. The local niche / vertical just doesn’t do it for me anymore. There are so many other ideas I’d like to try out and other things I’d like to do… I think some time away from Lopico will do me good. I’m not going to close the site, I don’t even know that I won’t finish the redesign - I’m just saying I need to try some other projects.
NEO2.0 is my newest project - I think it has potential, but needs a LOT of work. For NEO2.0 to really work I need to have more time for it, and I only have so much time to work on my own projects. Cutting back time from Lopico will help. I also registered a new domain for another new site today that I think has a lot of potential. It’s focused on something that interests me more right now than the local vertical.
So… what do you think?
Twitter. MyBlogLog. MySpace. These sites all have a few things in common, but the one I’m concerned with is the ability of allowing users to link their own sites. Allowing users to link to their sites seems relatively unimportant (sometimes irrelevant) until you think about how the web has changed. Now nearly everyone has a website, and nearly everyone thinks people should go to their website. For people to get to your site, you generally need links to the site. That’s the basic rule of SEM. A smart user of a site that allows you to link to your website won’t just link to their website, they feverishly add friends to their account. The more friends they have, the more pages there are linking to their user page on the site. The more links to their user page, the more important search engines think the page is, and thus the more valuable the link back to the users own site becomes. My guess is that this easy type of linking is greatly facilitating the ability of a number of sites to “be viral.” This is just one of the numerous things one should consider when developing a social networking site (or any type of site requiring an account) and one that I’m considering as I prepare to redo and redefine how social aspects are handled on Lopico.
I set out to do start-up review week with 5 companies in mind and 5 days to do it. But, there just didn’t seem to be any interest, so I’m killing it, just as I will soon be killing this blog. I don’t have the time to write a struggling blog. When I could write daily I really enjoyed it… the chance that I may be able to do that again some day is what keeps this blog alive. Between what is arguably my most demanding semester of school ever (at least it’s my last), my pursuit of a career after school, and all of my other web projects (I think it was 9 last count) this blog just can’t get much attention. March may just be my last month of blogging.
side note: this morning I woke up thinking I could cut the code that serves up reviews on Lopico in half, I did that and then made a couple other changes - you can read about it here. It’s the first time in a while I’ve had a chance to do any programming on Lopico, and a reminder as to why last summer - when I didn’t have a “real” job and worked on Lopico for about 12-20 hours a day - was perhaps the best of my life.
I relaunched Lopico on July 24, here’s a look at some of what’s worked and what hasn’t in the 6 months since relaunch.
Working
Search:
Search continues to be my number one strength. The majority of Lopico traffic comes from search engines, with Google accounting for just over 50% of all traffic (see Top Referrers below).
inFAQs:
I posted about this recently on the Lopico blog. Getting rid of the FAQs has had a fairly positive effect on the site. I answer more questions than I did in the past, but they tend to be questions I would not have put in an FAQ. This has also enabled me to make some connections with users that otherwise would not have happened.
New Design:
I’m basing this one solely on the amount of time spent on site, but it seems to be working and I certainly like it better (though I certainly have some planned changes).
Remember my location:
This one should have been in the old version, but remembering location has been a nice addition.
This blog:
Not listed below but, jdamer.com comes in as my number 8 referrer. Though I plan on getting rid of it by the end of the year, the blog certainly has been valuable.
Maps:
Not long after I added maps, they started appearing near the top of my most popular content.
Akron:
I’ve listed the top cities by Page Views below, but that doesn’t capture the fact that Akron has about 15x the number of page views as number 2 Milwaukee and about 50x number 6 Manhattan.
Costs:
I’m spending next to nothing on the site. I haven’t advertised in a long time but traffic (despite my tanking alexa ranking) is way up. When I first started I relied heavily on AdWords, more heavily than I could probably afford to do at the time, it worked well but I’m pretty happy with not spending money.
Unpopular cities:
This was one of my homepage experiments, I added links to unpopular cities directly on the homepage. I’ve been through a few of these because linking to the cities from the homepage gave them a search boost which in turn pushed them higher on the popularity rankings within the site (though the current group has been up for quite some time).
Not Working
Jobs:
This one I don’t take the blame for. I had a partner lined up to supply job listings and it completely fell through. I’m now considering other options or I may just remove the section from Lopico.
Social features:
The lopico social features haven’t really taken off the way I would have liked. I know I need to work on this side of the site, and I know it’s not the main draw, but I still think it should be further along than where it is.
Bookmarks:
I love the bookmarking feature, as well as the mobile bookmarks, but I’m a rare user. In fact the average number of bookmarks per user is less than 1.
Monetization:
This one I’m surprisingly not upset about. Of course, I don’t have anyone to answer to other than myself. I’d rather see the other features of the site develop than be making gobs of cash from the site. Long term it’s more important for me to have a great product than to have financial success now. I’ve come to terms with the fact that Lopico is not going to be a large enough direct source of income for me to live off of, and that’s okay. I’ve even thought about completely removing all ads from the site. If/when I do the next version that will probably be a reality.
Register on the homepage:
This homepage experiment did not go well. Going with the philosophy that more people aren’t using my site than are, I thought it wise to put a quick registration form on the homepage. It was scary (that’s what I heard anyway) and eventually I switched to a sign in form with a link to register - shortly afterward registrations increased.
Some Stats:
Top Referrers
- Direct
- CNet
- Yahoo
- MSN
Most popular cities (by Page Views):
…looking back at my goals for the new version, I’d say I’m doing alright, but I’m certainly looking for more improvement. It’s really all about time, which is just one more reason I need to quit blogging.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best web designer, but I’d also say that I’ve come a very long way from where I was a couple years ago. But I really enjoy design, I used to be a fairly good artist and still try do a few things every now and then, I’ve even done a couple of paintings in the past couple of years (I’ll post photos some other day).
Anyway, my current design outlet seems to be destruction of the Lopico header. I now have a large number of redesigns and different themed designs for the Lopico header. You may remember that I put up a different logo for the week the Buckeyes played michigan:
Now I’m working on a holiday header, and want your thoughts.
As you can see I have 4 areas of concern on this header. Clicking on the image above will take you to a larger version of the image without the circles. If I don’t get any responses to this I know the changes I’ll make, but I want to let you have an impact. So please, tell me what you’d do.
More often than not I read about scale in terms of scaling up an operation, but I’m thinking about scaling back. Looking at the numbers for that directory project of mine, it seems that there may be some definite advantages to reducing the size of the site.
The fact is, I need to take my own advice. The things I say to people often conflict with what I am myself doing with Lopico. If I tell someone that’s starting something new I say ‘just do it small scale and see where it goes.’ But for Lopico I’ve tried to cast the biggest net I can (almost) and the results are exactly what I’d expect. My problem has been thinking more in terms of page views and SEO and less in terms of the user - something I need to stop.
I really shouldn’t be blogging this, but it’s time for a change. A smart kid once told me to do this same thing and I didn’t listen, instead I kept going on the same track. The problem with staying on the same track is that nothing changes. And while things may be alright on Lopico, they’re nowhere near where I’d like them to be.
So this is what it means to try to get bigger by getting smaller and we’ll see if it works. No time table on the change, school, work, and life are sort of in the way - but you’ll be the first to know when things change.
I started working again today, so far so good. I will likely be leading the charge on putting content into RSS and or blogging so that should be interesting – can’t really say too much more.
The new format of the blog seems to be working well. Readership is increasing and it’s easier for me to blog everyday. I probably prefer a less structured approach, but there certainly are advantages to the structure – and I will tweak the structure if need be.
Not much to say from the Motask, Lopico, or BCO front. I’ve made some minor design changes to Lopico but haven’t added anything new in a few weeks (I also found an error that I’m fixing right now, but I don’t really want to brag about that). I’m thinking I might try to sell motask in the coming weeks – I don’t have to time to do with it what I’d like but I don’t just want to shut everyone out that uses it. BCO needs some momentum – interestingly more people have bookmarked the event in del.icio.us than have signed up. I haven’t done much with BCO yet, other than getting it blogged on Brewed Fresh Daily – one of Ohio’s most popular blogs. If you’re interested pleas sign the wiki.
Newbs and Exes - blogs/feeds I have started reading or have stopped reading this week
In:
Mike Davidson
Threadless Weekly
Out:
AU Blog
Riding Rails
Marketing Vox
All that with 33 minutes left before Tech News Tuesday.
Lopico turns two-ish today. This is the 2 yr anniversary of my registering of the domain, however the site did not actually come online until December. A lot has changed since then, and more continues to change. In fact since the relaunch of Lopico in July I’ve even changed a handful of things; I added search in some cities, RSS feeds for reviews, mobile bookmarks, and there are two more announcements today which you can read about on the Lopico Blog.
Oh yeah, it’s Google’s birthday too. Happy b-day Google. Lopico relies on a couple google services including one you’ll read about in the Lopico Blog - so I’m happy to share the birthday. I just hope Lopico makes it to year 8.
What better to do on a friday than make RSS feeds. Today I added RSS to motask and Lopico.
Motask’s RSS is limted because of privacy regarding to-do lists, you can only get the feed to work properly as a live bookmark. Perhaps more importantly, I also added RSS to Lopico Reviews. I did this to make it easier for businesses owners to find out when their business has been reviewed.
For the past two days I’ve been working on search integration for Lopico, and it’s good enough… in fact it could be up, but it’s not perfect. I’m having some design problems (ie of course) and there is at least one feature I’d like to add, so it will have to wait. It’s too easy to go with good enough. If Lopico is going to be as succesful as I’d like it to be, I can’t settle (like I used to) for good enough. Of course, I’m very serioulsy considering selling lopico - so who knows.
Found via Screenwerk.
The New York Times ran an article yesterday on local search. It’s interesting to me because of what it says is missing from local search: quantity. Not quantity in the number of competitors, but quantity in the number of reviews. The thinking is that it takes a large number of reviews to generate a trustworthy opinion. I would have to agree and disagree with that. Even if there are a large number of reviews, what are the chances that these reviews represent the average opinion of a customer of these businesses? I’ve accounted for that exact problem in two ways on Lopico.
First, reviews are not the core of the site. The core of the site is the listings and the votes. Before a business is even listed, someone has to take the effort to add it to the site; essentially giving the first endorsement that this is a quality business. Then the businesses are voted for, this is what really separates Lopico. It is very easy to see with one look what the best places in a city are (really only in Akron right now and a little in the other popular cities), at least much easier than other sites make it. To me reviews are an after thought, not the focus. If you want more info, check the reviews, but if you just want the mass of opinions, you don’t have to read anything. Voting is a lot easier to do than writing a review and also a lot easier for the information seeker to decipher.
Secondly, I’ve accepted the fact that reviews are going to be either really strong for or against, and have created a review system that requires a reviewer to think about both sides. I’m gong to do even more in the future in terms of user ratings but for now, the combination of votes, user experience ranking and balanced reviews is working just fine.
The Lopico account system just launched, so I don’t have a large enough user base yet (anymore?) to really compete on mass, but as it grows I believe Lopico will emerge as one of the most, if not the most, valuable resource for finding local businesses. I’ll add to that, that since Lopico relaunched on the 24th (almost two weeks ago), the site has not yet been fully reindexed on all Search Engines, in fact only about 6 cities (3%) are indexed right now (and only on Google), yet I’ve ranked first for almost 700 keywords or phrases, and close enough to the top to generate clicks on even more queries. And, these aren’t just one page view clicks, the average number of page views is around 5, with the top ranking query producing over 200 page views. That may not seem like that much, but without being indexed, search really isn’t that big of a factor right now. I’m not as bold as Barry Diller, but I think that’s a decent start.
If you ask someone to reccomend a restaurant or a bar or a mechanic, most likely they won’t waste your time giving you the names of every possible place in your city. Instead they’ll tell you the best, they’ll direct you to where you’re going to have the best experience.
If you asked 100 people for the best place to go, you’ll most likely come out with one clear winner, and that answer will probably be better than the answer given to you by the one person in the first example.
Every city has 100s of businesses that no one would mention, they wouldn’t want to waste your time. That’s how I feel things would work in real life, so that’s how things work on Lopico. Lopico is never going to be a directory of every business in the united states or the world, it’s only going to be a directory of the ones that are worth your time - at least as long as I own it.
Okay this will be the last on Lopico for at least 2 posts; here are a few of the new features of the site.
1. Design - completely redone, all css based, nearly table free (I’d say my design skil;s have improved, but I’m still getting better).
2. Picks - Adding places to your picks is like bookmarking them - I really like this feature, it allows me to keep all of the numbers of places that I call often on one page. Uses a little AJAX for this - see my picks.
3. Directory B - New feature that enables you to create custom categories.
4. Friends - This is sort of a social feature, and the last thing that I added - so it’s not quite perfect yet - this allows you to see reviews of people that you have added as friends.
5. hRev and hCard - Lopico now supports microformats.
6. Instant vote updating - old voting took time, this was first on my list to fix.
7. Now LAMP based - the old format wasn’t really working out, Lopico is now coded in PHP and much more functional and scalable. (I did all of the coding except AJAX code which is openly available).
8. Easier Reviews - old review used a content overlay and there was no direct link to review a business, new system is much easier and also updates automatically.
9. Homepage Experiments - I already blogged my theory on having the registration box on Lopico’s homepage, my other experiment is the “unpopular cities” - hopefully I’ll draw some attention to these cities and people will add more stuff.
10. Accounts - this may hurt more than it helps, but I’ll be able to do much more now that Lopico requires registration.
———–
Things I need to work on:
1. Creating passionate users
2. Photo Handling
3. IE7 problems
4. Social Features
5. Lopromo - local offers via RSS (only avail in Akron right now)
6. Business - I have a self serve ad program that I’m working on that will be done soon (1 ad, 1 day, 1 dollar)
7. SEO - The worst part about taking down my site for so long was that my search traffic plummeted. Luckily I think it’s even better this time around, just need to get back into all of the indexes.
8. PR / Marketing - I need to be much more active, this probably isn’t the proper forum, but there’s a lot more that I can do now that Lopico has a stronger architecture.
Last note - I submitted Lopico to TechCrunch, but doubt it will be reviewed, I know longer fit the TechCrunch niche, and that’s okay with me. If it’s on TechCrunch great, if not I understand TechCrunch is a business and should only put on the stories that are going to be the best for its business.
… no Lopico posting is going to be tough I have a lot more to say.
I put Lopico on Digg today - Digg it if you like. Thanks!
Sorry that these have been all about Lopico lately, but I just stopped lopico for the first time in about 18 months. The content is still online (that’s coming down Friday) but when you vote or add a favorite or review you get a screen saying that Lopico is closed. Sorry… it was just getting to be too much of a hassle, since the database that current info is sent to is not the same database that info will be sent to on the new version, I kept having to go back and update the new database… and well it’s just one less thing for me to do right now.
After Lopico closes on Friday I expect anywhere between 1 and 3 weeks before the relaunch depending on how the beta group does. Taking it off line sucks, but it will be well worth it.
Blogged with Flock
I’m getting extremely close to being finished with the next version of Lopico. So close that I didn’t really realize that it’s a Friday until just now. Anyway… I’m looking for a few more preview testers — looking for both casual users and people familiar with LAMP technologies, web design, microformats or AJAX (I may have just given away too much about the new site). There will be more announcements about this coming soon. If you’re interested email jda[at]jdamer[dot]com - or comment.
Technorati has just released a microformats search and it couldn’t have come at a better time for me. As I am rewriting Lopico I’ve decided to implement some microformats (I won’t say which but it should be fairly obvious). I was planning on doing this despite not really being sold on the benefit of microformats. The potential was always there, but I really think that the people behind microformats have done a fairly bad job of selling the concept. I listened to a podcast not long ago with Tantek Celik and Dan Rohit, and it was sort of a waste of my time. They talked more about organizing soccer practices with microformats than they did anything else. But now with the new Technorati microformats search the reality of it is starting to become more tangible. Hopefully, Technorati won’t be the only place where microformats are put to use.
I probably should not be blogging this but…
I was contacted recently by someone about the possibility of selling Lopico. I couldn’t do it. Not yet anyway. I’m not ready to let go of Lopico. In another year, after I graduate Law School, that may be a different story, but for now I’m having way too much fun and enjoying the challenge far too much to get out.
Plus with the recode under way it’s just not a good time.
Here’s a preview of the new site:
I’m sure you’re as excited as I am now.
Lopromo is now offline. It was supposed to be my next site but, I feel that it will work better as a feature of Lopico rather than as a stand-alone. It will be amongst the many new features that you’ll see in the next version of Lopico.
The site had a sign up form on it for future info on the site - if you’re still interested just subscribe to this blog or the official Lopico Blog.
I’m very excited about the next version of Lopico. I will admit that the first time around I really knew nothing. I was just a guy that got a bad haircut who was looking for a better way to find local businesses. Now I know a lot more, and I’m much more capable. There are going to be some big changes that should make the Lopico experience better for all. I want to save the details for later but here are a few highlights:
- Lopromo - my side project - will be incorporated, rather than being a stand alone
- Lopico Lovers will be redesigned and more prevalent
- RSS will be a big factor
- You’ll be able to do more in less time
- You’ll have more impact on what is on the site
I can’t really say more than that, but I’m looking forward to getting the new version up. I’m always thrilled when Lopico gets mentioned in various places across the web, but really I haven’t even started to do what I want to do with Lopico. Look for the next version to launch late summer or early fall.
…but hey, I’ll gladly loose to the likes of Craig’s list and Judy’s Book.
Lopico received honorable mention in the Web2.0 Awards for the category of Classifieds and Business Directories. Craig’s List won the category and Judy’s Book took second. Maybe I should have called it J.D.’s Pages?
Anyway, not bad for a site run by one 23 year old from Akron, Ohio.
I’ve been way too busy to blog lately, but here are a few quick notes:
- I’m starting a new blogging network with 6 bloggers from accross the USA. I’m the only one that has blogged before, and I don’t think anything like this project has been done before - more details later.
- Lopico has a new look homepage, including a display of recent lopico lovers reviews. Unfortunately this isn’t exactly consitent with the rest of the site - but it’s a good reason to redesign the interior pages.
- Lopromo has been scaled back and should be ready to go in the next few weeks.
- Not long after I said that Digg was falling into the worng hands, it was used in a newly deceptive way - altering stock prices.
- I decided that I am going to run a marathon in the fall.
- Craigslist may be getting a makeover.
The last point about Craigslist is one that I plan to revisit once I have time to blog again (something along the lines of .. everyone says craigslist design is part of its charm, but apparently the Craigslist crew thinks otherwise…), but who knows when I’ll have time.
Blinkx.tv just launched Blinkx Pico - from a tradename / intellectually property / branding standpoint, I’m not exactly thrilled about this.
Starting to see more 
’s across lopico. Here’s a quick sampling of some of the recent reviews:
and Turkeyfoot Lake Golf Links in Akron.
Enjoy them (I especially like the Turkeyfoot review) and feel free to review your favorites.
One thing that I used to always do when I started blogging (very early in the short Lopico timeline) was give out monthly summaries of Lopico’s health. Back then I thought my numbers were okay, looking back at them they were horrible. I no longer give out exact numbers, and I won’t talk about my advertisers, but starting with February I’ll be going back to the monthly review.
Positives:
February was a record setting month for Lopico in terms of uniques, but only by about 4000. Seems like a decent number, but some sites get that in a second.
I was back on eHub this month with an interview. This generated some extra traffic, and helped me get the word out about my new review program.
I received a record number of new additions from one ip address in a day - someone added 250 new businesses in one session.
The number of cities on Lopico has increased from 155 to 170.
In the middle:
The review program is moving slowly, but I’m starting to see more reviews come in. I think that it has some potential problems / barriers that I need to work on. Anyone that has used this or is willing to give it a try, I’d appreciate your feedback. Lopico Lovers.
Negative:
I didn’t launch Lopromo as I had anticipated, but that’s for good reasons.
And worst of all…. I went to my parents’ house the other night and saw that my mom had a different local service up on her computer - ouch!
I started Lopico because I needed to find a good place to get a haircut in Akron. I’ve used Lopico to find some great places in Akron that I didn’t know about. Other people use Lopico because… well I don’t know why. I know why I want them to use it, even beyond the original goal of finding a me a new barber (which still hasn’t been done). But why do they use it? The other day I had one visitor add 250 different businesses on one visit, why? I can’t tell you why others use it, I’m just glad that they do. I can tell you why I use the web services that I use:
I use Technorati and not Google Blog Search, because Technorati uses tags and gives me more ways to search.
I use Word Press and not Blogger, because Blogger is consider juvenile by many in the tech crowd.
I use Bloglines over every other RSS reader because I found it first, and I don’t want to move all of my feeds.
I use Google IG over My Yahoo because I like the 3 column layout.
I use Google Search over Yahoo Search because I like the way the results look, and because I use Google IG.
I read blogs and not the economist because I can get blog feeds for free.
I use Meebo and not AIM when I’m at work and can’t download AIM.
I use Trillian and not AIM because AIM has a habit of restarting my computer.
I use the Facebook and not MySpace because it looks clean, because it doesn’t look like it could give me a virus at any second, and because my girlfriend uses / lives on it.
I use Feedburner because it gives my readers options.
I use GMail and not LiveMail because the interface is clean.
I use Del.icio.us and not any other bookmarking service, because it has the largest number of users, because of the firefox extension, and because I found it before any others and I don’t want to move my data.
I use AdWords and not Overture because Overture has created too many obstacles.
I use Springdoo but not Springdoo phone because I pay enough for my phone.
I use BitComet and not Azureus because I don’t have to specify ports.
I use Firefox and not IE because it has tabbed browsing and extensions.
I use Firefox and not Flock because it lets me dictate what extensions I want.
I use Firefox and not Opera because I don’t want to worry about whether or not a website is going to work.
I use Pandora and not Last.fm because I’ve heard all of the songs Last.fm will play for me.
…and the list goes on.
So if you use Lopico, why? And if not, why not?
Just a couple of quick notes:
- I’ve added a few more cities to Lopico - the total is now 170.
- I created a new page on this blog called “My Comments” - this page uses a del.icio.us link roll to show blogs that I’ve recently commented on. I think that organizing / tracking comments is going to be a hot area soon, if only temporarily. I created this because I think it enhances web conversations. While I may not have the strongest following on my blog, I’d like to see this idea implemented by popular bloggers so that I could contribute to conversations they are in that are outside of their blog.
Another new city added to lopico: Charleston, SC city #166.
technorati tags: lopico, charleston