It reminded me of a service from a few years ago. It was an on-line forum sponsored by the TV station KITV4. It was a teen forum, which you could anonymously post your ideas or questions on topics such as sex, relationships, and other teen issues. I remember that place to be filled with posts. hundreds and hundreds of them. Thus I know that this WIB is something that has potential. It just has a few problems.
Truthfully I think it flopped due to numerous problems. However, I think it was a good idea and I think it could be improved.
The first thing I didn't like was that it was too hard to find. I found the page by typing "WIB" in a Search Engine. But I only knew to type "WIB" because I knew what it was. What about the rest of the world? They have no clue it even exists! The links in the Search Engine didn't work either.
Because people didn't know about it, there were hardly any posts from people other than their friends and classmates. I think it was mostly due to the underexposure of the site.
Another thing I didn't like was that the WIB page was unattractive. I mean, all it has is a little picture saying that it is the fist "WIB" on the web. From the looks of that picture, it must not be very professional. There is no background and the overall impression I get is stale.
I think that people on the web are afraid to disclose their feelings, ESPECIALLY if you have to leave your name and stuff. If you could be anonymous, people may be more likely to leave posts. True, you will get "stupid" posts, but that makes it all the more popular! You can always screen the posts, anyway.
Next, we could change the entire Homepage. Fix all those bad links. A nice Table, or CGI Map would be nice. Make it presentable! Most importantly, CHANGE THAT GIF! They should ask Ed Sugimoto (my classmate) to make a nice professional-looking one.
Now that we changed the format and made the page all nice and neat, we have to ADVERTISE better. Ask people to make links to the WIB page. Ask UH to make a link on their page. The more people that know about it, the more people will use it. Knowing that people won't type "WIB" on a Search Engine, we could put the link in specific categories for people who browse around. All the students should e-mail all their friends to check it out. If people see a lot of posts, the more likely they would be to leave a post of their own.
If it is nice enough, people should submit the site to like Cool Sites of the Day, and all those places that have awards and stuff... More exposure is what you want!
Of course you would need people to maintain the pages. Guys from past generations are long gone. This WIB is a great idea, really, but would require a lot of work to make it popular...
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