Help me point this thing at teh intarwebs

June 4, 2008 1:04 PM

Built a little website, and now would like the world to see it. How best to do this?

I've built a web app that I'd like to spread around, but after 10 years in this industry I still haven't picked up any good tips on the best ways/people to break this site with/to. Without begging for direct contacts (which certainly is not what I want to do in this particular forum, fair MeFites) can anyone give me a few good ideas about how I might generate some interest?

I've done all the obvious things, but even great meta content and good links can't do everything for me. I also want to avoid the "get your buddies to Digg your site 8,907 times" route. I'd like to build a stable group of users who like this idea as much as I did—and keep them happy and around for a long time—rather than having a rush of six million people over four days and then nothing.

Should I write a press release and take my lumps with TechCrunch, or is there a better route? For what it's worth, the site is sort of in "beta" just now, but still very useable and fun. Be gentle, it's my first time (other than my blog, and I could put state secrets on it and no one would ever know.)

posted by littlerobothead to computers & internet (9 comments total)

I'd mention it on your own blog (hoping you have a blog where you could mention such things), put it in your email sig file that goes out on every message, maybe mention it on any other service you use (twitter, flickr, etc). You could also post it to MeFi Projects as a member wanting to show off your latest creation.
posted by mathowie at 1:10 PM on June 4, 2008

Metafilter Projects? Also, look into conferences and events where you can pitch it to people.
posted by parmanparman at 1:26 PM on June 4, 2008

Typically I would recommend participating in the communities that would contain your users, putting a link to your app in your .sig, but it all depends on what your unstated ambitions are.
posted by rhizome at 1:40 PM on June 4, 2008

A little perspective would be helpful here. You're not the only one doing this kind of thing; there are ten million other people out there who also want attention.

And they can't all get it.
posted by Class Goat at 2:15 PM on June 4, 2008

Thanks for avoiding the self-link, but it would be nice to know what kind of web app we're talking about here so that we can recommend more specific resources that would be relevant.
posted by zachlipton at 6:46 PM on June 4, 2008

My best exposure (and on very small scale compared to most) has been by getting recognized and linked to by other sites interested in the same subject. It's astonishing how even a few links in key places can make a difference.

Class Goat, thanks for widening my internet experiences: your link will not open in FF RC1 because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression, the first time I have ever seen that error.
posted by maxwelton at 6:51 PM on June 4, 2008

I've put the project up on MeFi Projects, which has been really cool so far. Thanks for reminding me of the link that had been hiding 300 pixels away from my face for so long :) The project is here. To save you the trip, it's a universal wishlist app with RSS and other goodies. Thanks for all the input so far!
posted by littlerobothead at 8:06 PM on June 4, 2008

This looks like a perfect fit for the audience at Lifehacker - try submitting it as a tip to their editors. And google "life hack" for other sites in that area (Zen Habits comes to mind as a pretty prolific one).
posted by jbickers at 4:22 AM on June 5, 2008

A friend built a small blog/site with tips for newcomers to one of her favorite hobbies. She uses Google adwords to draw people to her site, and within a few months it had been picked up by some fairly big-name blogs. In time, I think she's going to put Google adwords ON the site, and have it generate revenue as well.
posted by jcdill at 2:50 AM on June 6, 2008