Looking for feedback and some advice on how to get more users

[missha]

I wanted to ask you for some feedback about a web app that me and a friend have developed: WOLPY, a web application for tracking your travels.

http://www.wolpy.com

It's currently an alpha version where you can create a map of your visited places (I think we've developed the easiest and quickest interface for doing that). We are going to add soon some more features to share your travels (dates, tips, photos...) and to grow the community (forum, contacts importer...)

We've made 1000 registered users in 3 months, which, for us, it's great, but I find this figure low compared with other startups. What are we missing? How can we get more users?

[hooande]

Bottom line, I think the site needs to be much easier to use. There are already a few apps like this, but one place you might be able to compete is on convenience.

First off, you might want to consider letting people play with this more without making an account. The registration was short, but making yet another account is still a big jump for some people (like me). You should let people enter cities and put pins in the map before they register so that they can play around with it and feel more comfortable. I think that would increase your conversion of visitors to sign ups.

You should find a way to add accounts via SMS or even the iphone GPS. That would make it way easier to track the various places I go than going back to the website. More moible integration seems like it's a good idea...these people travel a lot right?

I think your social system (the list of thumbnails when you click on "viewed by __ other people") looks pretty cool. Only one thought: That method of listing people places a lot of emphasis on the photos. It might be better to show more information about less people so that people can scan for something other than an eye catching photo.

Nice guy, keep it up guys

[missha]

Thanks for your feedback!

Letting the people to create their map before signing up is an option we take into consideration but finally dismissed. Perhaps it's time to rethink about it.

The mobile integration sounds great! We had thought about making an iPhone app in the future but I think that there are more mobility options to explore.

You're right about showing the photos of the people who have visited a place. It's great for places with a few visitors but it becomes too much information for much visited places. We are going to remove that ajax for the next version but I think we should keep looking for an information design which would fit both cases.

[noodle]

its a nice looking, easy to use application and the concept is good.

however, you're pushing your way into a market with a good number of existing applications. you need to make yourself stand out. the application is currently very simple. as you mentioned, you're going to be developing new features soon. pick what you do carefully and deliberately in order to make yourself stand out from the pack.

a few thoughts on features:

  - it took me a while to figure out how to delete places.  consider making it more clear, with a delete option on the city page where the "add pin" option used to be.
  - perhaps a friend suggester that bases suggestions off of cities that both people have visited.
  - perhaps a feature that allows you to also build routes/trips/itineraries where you can connect the cities that you've visited on a single trip.  
    then, you can visually display the itineraries (or browse other peoples') and write information on them beyond the information you write about the individual cities' reviews.
  - allow commenting on more things.  like individual users' profiles.  the user profile is a commonly traversed place.  allow for that interaction.
  - hook into wikipedia for the bigger cities.
  - add in some sort of landmark feature into individual cities that allows people to easily and quickly identify things to see and do that are special for the individual cities.  
    so that people don't have to read every review to see whats interesting.  allow people to add them onto the map by a right-click interface so that they will show up on the map of that single town only.
  - iphone application.
  - clickpass integration

what can you do to get more users?

  - consider building a facebook and myspace application and try and get your current userbase to make use of it and push it to their friends.
  - get to a point where you think your application is good, useful, and ready for people to really look at.
    then, ask your users nicely to spread the word about it.  send a short invitation to review the application to the larger web app and/or travel blogs.

hope these help. also, full disclosure, i think i might've applied a while ago to a job posting of yours on FS :) so, i've thought about what to do to improve the app in the past.

[missha]

Wow! A lot of food for though here! Thanks noodle!

The main problem with the Facebook application is that we would need to require a login and, since there are several facebook apps which does the same that currently Wolpy does, it would be a handicap for us.

By the way, I owe you an email about the FS offer!

[noodle]

no problem.

your application would do the same thing as some of the other apps, yes. but the point isn't to develop an awesome FB app, its to provide another outlet of passive advertising for your web app, bringing people in to try it and hopefully love it.

[geoship]

I'm a big fan of not making people register until they're already committed to your service. Maybe instead of asking users to "Sign Up" right away you can have them just "Try it out". Then once they've input some data if they want to save it they can create an account.

And since I didn't sign up for the service, how are you enabling users to share what they've created? This is key to building your user base.

[missha]

Yes, I should work on that idea of letting the people try the app before singing up.

For sharing their map users have the option to embed it in their websites and blogs. There are two versions of the map: an interactive one (with Google Maps, which can be zoomed in) and a static image (which can be embed in places which doesn't support iframes, like Myspace or Flickr profile).

[solost]

Why do hackers build applications without having a distribution strategy? You can build the best application ever, but if no one finds it you are going to have the issue you have now.

Before even starting a project like this you need to be asking 2 questions.

1. Is this an application that is going to really solve a problem people have? 2. After building the application is there a viable distribution strategy for it?

I know that doesn't directly answer your question on how to grow your audience, but I think the question you are asking is something most hackers overlook and maybe this will help others still deciding on what they want to do.

To directly address your question, I would seek out and open conversations up with sites like Gusto and other social travel sites. You might be able to piggy back off of their audience or become a potential partner or acquisition option for someone a bit more established.