Comments on: SmallTown.com: Small Town Reviews, in Flash

By: Technology and Gadgets Review » Smalltownâs WebCards: No Longer Just Hyper-Local

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:00:38 +0000

[...] first reviewed Smalltown in October 2006 when it launched a destination site for so-called “WebCards”. These compact mini-sites [...]

By: Smalltown’s WebCards: No Longer Just Hyper-Local

Smalltown’s WebCards: No Longer Just Hyper-Local — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:00:38 +0000

[...] first reviewed Smalltown in October 2006 when it launched a destination site for so-called “WebCards”. These compact mini-sites [...]

By: Cassia Teixeira

Cassia Teixeira — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:53:14 +0000

I liked your blog. Just be in this way!

By: Todd Langlin

Todd Langlin — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:38:20 +0000

I think “flash headers” are OK but not a full page of flash. I came across a forum web site, that seems to be devoted to low gas prices in small towns and big towns for that matter. It is at: http://www.gassos.com
The whole site seems to be about saving fuel using electric cars and discussions about fuel savings. They having nothing to sell but encourage people to participate in the conversations.

By: Return Of The Tech Coffee Mug » Webomatica

Return Of The Tech Coffee Mug » Webomatica — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:23:09 +0000

[...] The company is located a walk away from our apartment, so naturally, I’m wondering what their proximity to Amici’s Pizza and the former YouTube offices is. That pizza is important. Here’s the obligatory TechCrunch take. [...]

By: James Shaw

James Shaw — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:18:59 +0000

Been there, done this. The problem is that small local businesses don’t belive in web advertising. Good salesmen can sell them door-to-door, but not remotely. I tried this for a few years, went nationwide but inevitably gave up because I couldnt find a way to monetise. Wish you luck!

P.S. Google will penalize you in many subtle ways as you grow..they have Google Local, you know Don’t count on search engine traffic

By: Duncan Gough

Duncan Gough — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 11:42:14 +0000

It’s interesting how local news ebbs and flows in popularity. I’ve just been part of a small team that launched ecolocal, a local news site for green and eco-friendly news:

http://www.ecolocal.com

By: michael_morrison

michael_morrison — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 04:02:54 +0000

for a snapshot of your home town,,,,just type your zip and click all interest
on the new social networking site http://www.iPoste.org:

INTERNET NEWS & NOTES

——————————————————————————–

Web Site Created To Connect Communities

(NAPSI)-There’s good news for Internet users who find searching for information about their interests can be time consuming and frustrating.

A free search engine and interactive Web site has been created. Its purpose is to connect people with their local and interest-based communities and provide only the most relevant search results based on a user’s search parameters.

Called iPoste.org, the site collects timely news feeds and provides a forum for posting classified ads, jobs, calendars, real estate listings and user comments about specific areas of interest-at no charge and on a single Web page. The site is said to organize and display timely information by city or zip code, free of pop-ups and other commercial distractions.

According to the site’s manager, Dave Collins, it’s a place where people can easily and efficiently find and post all sorts of useful information about a specific topic, either locally or nationally.

To learn more, visit the Web site at http://www.iPoste.org.

A new Web site is said to offer a snapshot of timely information about your community-with the click of a mouse.

By: Cathleen

Cathleen — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 18:45:58 +0000

I am not a designer nor a programmer but in my opinion, Smalltown, is an elegant, informative, fun site. After viewing the “how to” video I was able to create my own webcard. And even my 80 year-old mother was able to navigate the “listings” section to find some local fabric stores. This is welcome addition to the local community sites. In fact, I think it sets a new bar in regard to authentic, helpful content and beautiful design.

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 03:29:16 +0000

Not only is the flash annoying, it’s slow, slow, slow! I’m on a fiber connection…not worth even checking out.

By: Smalltown : Local Search with Flash

Smalltown : Local Search with Flash — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 01:06:12 +0000

[...] TechCrunch’s Marshall Kirkpatrick has a negative assessment of the use of flash on the site. I agree with him that the interface is not 100% intuitive; consumers will have to explore and use the site to become comfortable with it. But it’s not all that complicated either. [...]

By: Matthew Leitz

Matthew Leitz — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:27:12 +0000

Being from a small town I think the concept is great. Just one problem….PEOPLE IN SMALL TOWNS OFTEN USE DIAL-UP. Believe it or not many small towns still do not have access to high speed. If you have ever tried to use a flash site with dial-up you know that it is just not happening, therefore illiminating a portion of the already segmented market they are targeting.

By: rickdog

rickdog — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 22:07:24 +0000

At $3,000,000 for three cities, it’ll only take a few billion to add all of the small towns.

I think they’ll fail because of the lack of towns, almost all users will pass on this site because their town is not included. You’ve got to grab as many potential users right away, I sure don’t go back to a site that has nothing to offer me.

By: B. A.

B. A. — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 21:55:06 +0000

I like the blog post smalltown blog post… http://hrucker....biquitous_.html

“Do gas stations really think I can’t figure out that $2.49 per gallon is only a penny less than $2.50? Yet this pricing method is so prevalent it would actually look strange to see a station selling gas at a price rounded up to the nearest whole digit.”

Um… yes they do and you just proved it… You’re paying $2.499 per gallon, 1/10 of a cent less. That means they round up until you pump that 10th gallon.

By: Todd

Todd — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:37:08 +0000

too clunky for me, too hard to use. i hope they read these comments and make some adjustments.

By: Basicity.com

Basicity.com — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:30:05 +0000

I find the site design and layout unattractive. Nice soft colors but there are way too much color contrast and tones.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:23:02 +0000

As I am sure most here do, when you use Firefox with a mouse gestures extension for navigation, and you get to a flash site – you right click and instead of moving back and forth through the site, you get that flash settings menu.

I immediately unbookmark and move on. Flash has its place, but IMHO it is not for an entire site.

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:23:05 +0000

DavidEzra is right. You need some existing community to make this work. If Smalltown is the egg, something like http://www.brooklynrecord.com is the chicken.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:21:46 +0000

I think most of you are taking the name SmallTown too literally. New York can be a small town if you focus on your neighborhood. I hope they will not limit themselves to cities with a population of less than xx.

Yellowpages.com is a disaster. Citysearch is barely ok. I’m glad to see smart people with resources working on local search.

By: TC fan

TC fan — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:17:01 +0000

3million for this?….. I’ll pass

By: mahalie

mahalie — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:55:50 +0000

Small towns? as someone mentioned San Mateo is hardly small. In the case of such “towns” I wonder if they want to be considered such. If they are trying to get traffic from truly small towns, such as those I grew up in in Colorado and Iowa they are missing the mark. There are a lot of folk who still have crappy bandwidth…that’s the number one argument against flash imo. Although dependency on any plugin / activex control is a bad idea for “small town users” as you can’t rely on them to be up to date.

$40/month for a small town business is too much. Again, I guess it depends on your idea of a small town.

The ever-loving Flash debate…I’m one to skip it all together, and my experience is not based on banner ads but obnoxious designer sites that think their fancy display is worth my waiting. For this site in particular, if they’re attempting to help small town businesses with visibility, WTF are they using Flash for?

By: TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » SmallTown.com、Flash利用のスモールタウン向けレビューサービス

TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » SmallTown.com、Flash利用のスモールタウン向けレビューサービス — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:53:32 +0000

[...] [原文へ] SmallTown [...]

By: Smalltown - Una red social B2B « |-Multitag-|

Smalltown - Una red social B2B « |-Multitag-| — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:45:11 +0000

[...] Ya vi en un par de blogs (venturebeat, techcrunch) info sobre este start up al cual le acaban de poner 3MMUSD. [...]

By: cvos

cvos — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:35:49 +0000

wow – bad idea. the flash is quite slow, and totally useless on older browsers and mobile phones. also there is no search engine benefit to having a listing on this site. all the gray colors really make the design uninteresting. The worst of all: NO BACK BUTTON

flash (in firefox) alerted me that the site was trying to retrieve personal information from me – always a big turnoff.

unfortunately i really don’t see where this company is going.

By: DavidEzra

DavidEzra — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:11:24 +0000

I’m a bit curious how they plan to gain “traction.” Said differently, it seems that SmallTown has a “Chicken / Egg” problem.

SmallTown is only useful to local residents if it has something appealing to offer – a lot of useful information (as in comprehesive) about local businesses / services – and it is only useful to businesses if local residents are actually perusing the site – especially if they have to shell out $40 a month / ~ $500 a year for their listing. (Besides the obvious question as to whether their will be return on that investment, how many “dog walkers” or “baby sitters” are willing / capable of paying such a high fee … just wondering as “unindexed businesses / services” seems to be SmallTown’s core “reason for being?”)

Overall, I think SmallTown is a great idea. However, I think this service would only generate sufficient “Traction / Velcro” if it were bundled with another site / offering. (Think of a mall, there are 3 to 5 “Anchor Stores” and then 20 to 50 “Peripheral Stores.” The “Peripheral Stores” need the “Anchor Stores” to attract customers / survival. SmallTown is a “Periferal Store.)

If someone from SmallTown could please help me see why this is not the case, I’d be very appreciative.