How to get exposure for Movie Moocher?
October 9, 2007 10:51 PM Subscribe
I just started a new website, Movie Moocher. It's a great site, but there's one problem - I need people to join. Any ideas on how to promote it (the cheaper the better, but expensive could work too)?
I spent the summer working on Movie Moocher. Basically, it lets you (a college student) sign up, add the DVDs that you own, what dorm you live in, and then you can search through all of the DVDs on campus, and request them from the owners very easily. You can search by dorm, do all sorts of neat things, yada yada yada.
I actually made the front page of Digg recently (15,000 hits!!), but only around 100 people signed up, and they were all from different colleges.
Obviously, the site needs people in order for it to work. And I think it would be a great asset to most colleges (I know some colleges already have sites like this). You can visit the site at www.moviemoocher.com , and sign up if you're a college student. If not, you can still read the FAQ / Contact page, and hopefully help me brainstorm ideas. Thanks!
I spent the summer working on Movie Moocher. Basically, it lets you (a college student) sign up, add the DVDs that you own, what dorm you live in, and then you can search through all of the DVDs on campus, and request them from the owners very easily. You can search by dorm, do all sorts of neat things, yada yada yada.
I actually made the front page of Digg recently (15,000 hits!!), but only around 100 people signed up, and they were all from different colleges.
Obviously, the site needs people in order for it to work. And I think it would be a great asset to most colleges (I know some colleges already have sites like this). You can visit the site at www.moviemoocher.com , and sign up if you're a college student. If not, you can still read the FAQ / Contact page, and hopefully help me brainstorm ideas. Thanks!
This post was deleted for the following reason: If you'd like to ask this again next week minus as a straight "how do I get eyeballs/members for service foo" question without all the namedropping and boosting for your site, that'd be fine. In the mean time, Projects is the part of the site reserved for self-promotion.
Response by poster: Um, the name of the site is Movie Moocher.
posted by cybertaur1 at 10:58 PM on October 9, 2007
posted by cybertaur1 at 10:58 PM on October 9, 2007
Look up some university film groups, screening groups, etc., and send the leaders an email asking them to announce it. Might get you the critical mass you need in those places.
posted by alexei at 10:59 PM on October 9, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by alexei at 10:59 PM on October 9, 2007 [1 favorite]
Well, self-linking on Metafilter Answers isn't a very good way to do it. On the other hand, it's a pretty good way to get banned.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:00 PM on October 9, 2007
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:00 PM on October 9, 2007
After this thread gets (rightly) deleted for being a very thinly veiled abuse of AskMe for self-promotion, post it in Projects where it belongs. Aside from that, your problem is probably rooted in overestimating people's desire to lend their movies to strangers, even when mediated by a super-cool web app.
posted by nanojath at 11:06 PM on October 9, 2007
posted by nanojath at 11:06 PM on October 9, 2007
Try spamming a large community website.
posted by felix betachat at 11:08 PM on October 9, 2007 [4 favorites]
posted by felix betachat at 11:08 PM on October 9, 2007 [4 favorites]
Yup, MadamM's got it -- a Facebook application's all you need. If you can write it so that it integrates with an existing app, that would be cool too.
posted by spiderskull at 11:08 PM on October 9, 2007
posted by spiderskull at 11:08 PM on October 9, 2007
Ignore the people who are complaining in thread; they're breaking the site's guidelines more than you are.
trevyn's got it. Start by showing it can work at one school - like Bowdoin College, where you're enrolled - and then *after* you've demonstrated this is something that can work on a small local scale, try scaling it up to a second university. But to be honest, I think nanojath's right: you've invented something there's not gonna be a lot of excitement to try.
posted by mediareport at 11:50 PM on October 9, 2007
trevyn's got it. Start by showing it can work at one school - like Bowdoin College, where you're enrolled - and then *after* you've demonstrated this is something that can work on a small local scale, try scaling it up to a second university. But to be honest, I think nanojath's right: you've invented something there's not gonna be a lot of excitement to try.
posted by mediareport at 11:50 PM on October 9, 2007
Just to clarify; I've known a lot of film buffs, and am kinda one myself. Loaning DVDs to strangers is not something any of us are really dying to do.
posted by mediareport at 11:52 PM on October 9, 2007
posted by mediareport at 11:52 PM on October 9, 2007
1. Change the name. I'd be, um, hesitant to lend my DVDs to random "moochers". Call it a "collective" or something similarly hipstery and underground.
2. Create a successful model with your school, as trevyn and mediareport said.
3. And don't spam. If a site needs to spam to get attention, it's probably not worth my time.
posted by QueSeraSera at 1:32 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]
2. Create a successful model with your school, as trevyn and mediareport said.
3. And don't spam. If a site needs to spam to get attention, it's probably not worth my time.
posted by QueSeraSera at 1:32 AM on October 10, 2007 [1 favorite]
What you need to work on is your sign-up ratio, rather than your exposure. 100 out of 15k is pretty poor.
Your design needs some work - I'm guessing a pre-built template because I've seen it before - can't remember what it was for (see how memorable the site was!), I do remember it being some informational page for some project or idea or something but it really didn't grab my attention, so I left.
Your site has 'beta' in the title.... not that encouraging when it means giving away your stuff to strangers.
You don't offer any assistance if DVDs aren't returned - not very appealing.
A 'tour' of a site, usually takes you step by step through the site features with nice little screenshots to illustrate - yours is just a list of pages and short descriptions.
Theres no 'call to action' on your homepage.
The first title on your homepage is 'Borrow your friends' movies' - well I can do that without your help - its not really about borrowing my friends' movies - its about borrowing films from strangers.
Its bland, its boring and it doesn't make me want to sign up. If you spend money on driving traffic to the site it will be money down the drain - you've already wasted a digg fpp.
posted by missmagenta at 2:12 AM on October 10, 2007
Your design needs some work - I'm guessing a pre-built template because I've seen it before - can't remember what it was for (see how memorable the site was!), I do remember it being some informational page for some project or idea or something but it really didn't grab my attention, so I left.
Your site has 'beta' in the title.... not that encouraging when it means giving away your stuff to strangers.
You don't offer any assistance if DVDs aren't returned - not very appealing.
A 'tour' of a site, usually takes you step by step through the site features with nice little screenshots to illustrate - yours is just a list of pages and short descriptions.
Theres no 'call to action' on your homepage.
The first title on your homepage is 'Borrow your friends' movies' - well I can do that without your help - its not really about borrowing my friends' movies - its about borrowing films from strangers.
Its bland, its boring and it doesn't make me want to sign up. If you spend money on driving traffic to the site it will be money down the drain - you've already wasted a digg fpp.
posted by missmagenta at 2:12 AM on October 10, 2007
Make an easy to copy press kit for kids to print stuff out and post around campus. They'll want to do it because it would increase their available selection of flicks. Just do the standard Letter page flyer with tearstrips at the bottom and say "post these in your classroom buildings and student unions to grow your college mooching community"
posted by ijoyner at 5:27 AM on October 10, 2007
posted by ijoyner at 5:27 AM on October 10, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by rhizome at 10:54 PM on October 9, 2007 [3 favorites]