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Terry Howard Orlando, Florida |
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Gooruze Needs To Go Back in the Oven |
Posted by Terry Howard @ 10/17/2007 
So I jumped right on board when I read the initial launch press release. But I find myself having to just stop going to the site and try it again in maybe 3 months or so. After realizing that mine and everyone else's initial activity has been nothing more than pointing out the endless myriad of bugs, missing critical features, design flaws and on and on, I just have to ask myself: Why am I bothering?
It's a great alpha, but you guys opened this site up before you bothered to even implement relevant title tags, RSS feeds, or even basic cross browser testing for CSS issues. This should never have been launched in this state and presented to the online marketing industry of all people. You target audience should never be your beta testers.
Labels: marketing, social networks
Related Link6 Comments:
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At 2:06 AM,
Jackie Bayer Shervington said...
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Thanks for you Comments Terry.
I wish we had invited you into the 100 pre launch private beta members who have been testing it for the last few weeks.
I'd love to see you back in there - by the way the RSS help functionality is there and we have responded to your request. And thanks for the email tips - will be done tomorrow. -
At 11:39 AM,
Clay Cook said...
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Hi Terry
Thanks for your feedback, all feedback is welcome.
I am sorry you feel this way.
Just so you know, we certainly didnt launch with SMX in mind. We are aware that there are a few bugs to be fixed and additions to be made, however I believe members and visitors are getting great value already from the site.
Regards
Clay -
At 10:29 PM, Terry Howard said...
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I'm not discounting the value of the site in the least bit, and I've made an effort to express that along with every post I've made on this. But, I guess the issues really aren't bugs, but things like the lack of basic SEO strategies being in place and having to hunt forever for a way to post to a group. Usability and SEO are at the core of what you are trying teach people with this community, and it should have been at the core of your product at the time of a public launch. You could have just used Ning or installed Joomla or something and gotten a better end result from a technology standpoint, but instead it seems a custom route was taken, which is great, but I'm feeling it almost seems to have been at the expense of the fundamentals of what you are trying to do, create a niche social network for the exchange of ideas related to online marketing. How can this be accomplished with SEO and usability issues getting in the way?
Am I being critical? Yes, I critique websites for usability and SEO as a function of my job. So does your intended audience. You had to expect this. -
At 5:38 PM, Xavier Vespa said...
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Hi Terry,
I think you're making a really good point here. This story kind of reminds me of Blogrush. Too soon, not ready, too bad because the online word of mouth is really effective.
Just like Patrick Schaber said: "like many other social sites, you get out of it what you put in." -
At 4:23 PM, Terry Howard said...
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I thought it interesting to note that to date NONE of the issues mentioned have been addressed. Still zero SEO, not even title tags that differ from page to page or any use of RSS to follow your groups. Still see the same basic CSS positioning errors that run text off of buttons and there is still the same double secret link for posting to a group (hint, you have to click the title of the group, which is white text and has no designation of a link).
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At 1:24 AM, Terry Howard said...
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Just another note, as of November 18th all issues still remain. No SEO, obscure navigation (still have to figure out to click the blog title to post to it), no rss links or auto-discover tags and rampant CSS alignment issues clearing showing no thought to cross platform/browser testing.