2007 Year End Update
Good News
- We've used the Inside Advantage methodology to identify our core customer. This is already helping us focus our efforts. For example, our three new offerings targeted at our core customer are going live next week.
- Whois refresh - this project seemed simpler when first conceived, but "the devil was in the details" and it took far longer to get going than expected. I am happy to report that we are now updating at the rate of 85K records/day and should be "caught up" in 2 months. The expected result is an overall increase in the quality of site content and greater search traffic.
- The PortlandTech Portal has almost 1000 good articles, good overall structure, maps, calendar and is generally at a level where we can show it with pride.
- We are working with some new clients to build out "Made to order" Portals.
- We continue to do a great job with Welcoming. I understand that the number of folks we welcomed in December is already greater than the number we welcomed in November (1,650) and October (1,072) - Sweet!
- Portal Functionality is increasing
- Portal badges are now in use as a standard part of any important portal
- Maps are going! This is a huge increase in the attractiveness of a portal
- Calendars are going! We've found a reasonable solution where before none was thought possible
- Granular Recent Changes - the changes exist, but we are not yet displaying them on category pages. This will allow us to show casual users that there may already be "heat" around a given topic and also possible co-collaborators.
Bad News
- Traffic down in December. After an entire year of increasing traffic, this will be our first downturn - and it is especially painful because our projections for both traffic and revenue must necessarily be adjusted. Again, the key realization here is that we are NOT in control of what traffic the search engines send us and therefore we need to focus on what we can control, which is engagement.
- We have not accomplished as much as we'd like in the last 6 months. Execution has been weak (my fault) and we must focus on communications and efficiency at the expense of non-critical efforts.
- Communications with Lahore has been difficult and yet we know it is critical to our success so this is an area of continued focus
- AVNAds for pages that are possibly Adult has been very disappointing and we need a new vendor/strategy there ASAP
Content
- We need to pick up the pace at which we build portals and we need that report so we can measure both progress and results more accurately.
- Make sure we do a great job with initial clients.
- Continue to deepen the PortlandTech Portal -- this is our flagship example.
- We should consider attending local events, taking pics, videos, doing caricatures and other stuff to create a "buzz" as we did with Icannwiki.org
- Continue to deepen the PortlandTech Portal -- this is our flagship example.
- Tech expansion - in particular SeattleTech and LahoreTech
Community
- We cannot control traffic, but we can and must control engagement
- Provocative Edits with the goal of demonstrably increasing engagement (users on at at time, # of outside edits/day, # of badges loaded, and other Core Customer Metrics)
- Welcoming and any other activity whose main goal is increased engagement
- Messaging and Videos to more clearly explain to users what we do
Product Strategy & Development
- Site Layout Draft
- Shorter Cycles
