A few days ago, I responded to a comment by bloggergirl offering to read anyone's web copy and help. I shot off an email hoping for a paragraph or two of feedback on my startup's copy.<p>Instead I received a professional, detailed deck of tons of invaluable well thought out feedback. It must have taken her an entire afternoon.<p>Here's a link to it: http://www.slideshare.net/shereefb/recommendations-for-bettermeans<p>To top it off, this isn't someone with a lot of free time on her hands, she's only days away from launching her own startup (page99test)<p>This community blows my mind!
HN is rapidly changing in to some real-life version of pay-it-forward. I'm going to have to think hard on a way in which I can contribute to this phenomenon, I think that some amazing stuff may grow out of it.
SHEREEF, thank you! I really didn't expect you to say anything about this little PPT. Much appreciated. :) <i>blush</i> Honestly, how nice of you!<p>I really hope your site does well because BETTERMEANS.COM is a super-smart idea. It was a total privilege to get involved with your website at all. I hope everyone checks it out.<p>BTW, I received an email from you and will get back to you pronto privately. In the meantime, much appreciated. And to everyone else who wrote to me re: help on copy, I'm happy to get back to you over the coming days: joanna AT page99test DOT com.<p>Go, Hacker News community!
Clickable link: <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/shereefb/recommendations-for-bettermeans" rel="nofollow">http://www.slideshare.net/shereefb/recommendations-for-bette...</a><p>Poster is not kidding about how complete and professional this slide deck is. I'm impressed!
Wow, that's amazing.<p>bloggergirl, you need to write and sell an ebook on web copy. Marketed correctly (and I have no doubts that you'd be able to), you'd make tens of thousands of dollars at the least. I mean, a $20 or even $25 ebook on web copy that will increase my conversion rate? Incredible value prop. I'd buy it.
Wow, the amount of time and effort that she must have dedicated in completing her feedback is astounding.<p>The least we can do is bump up a post about her startup the day it launches.<p>Bloggergirl, get ready for the voluminous amount of web traffic on launch day!
Bloggergirl, you inspired me to create an account here! Love reading about people sharing their passion and helping others along the way.<p>I would also like to help review copy and provide feedback if anyone needs it.<p>I do brand management marketing at my day job and have a near-obsession with clear messaging. It's a shame if you have a great product/service but your customer doesn't understand the benefit.
It's going to be very interesting to see what happens when HN continue to grow. I don't know how big HN is right now, and I don't know where the breaking points for an online community are, but growth does mean change. I remember some years ago I'd go to slashdot to read the comments...<p>This is and has been a fantastic site (I'm personally fairly recently a registered user, before that I was just reading), and I hope it will continue to be. But I do also know that if it continues to grow, it will mean there will have to be changes (more people = more trolls, etc). Dealing with change is always hard, I hope the spirit of HN will remain.<p>EDIT: actually meant to be a follow-up to jacquesm's post. It appears I failed :-/
This is a real bar-raiser in terms of community help. Seeing a submission to someone of this quality at no cost is inspiration to participate - to both keep the ball rolling, and also to compete for "coolest free help" spot number one.<p>Very positive outcome.
This is why I love the age I live in, the internet & HN.<p>Someone takes the time to invest a few hours into helping a fellow entrepreneur with a particular strength they have.<p>Word gets out, and it turns out that the specific help they gave is directly related to the purpose of their recently launched startup.<p>This could be either a brilliant PR coup, or just genuine good-neighbourliness coming home to roost.<p>I love it when a plan comes together.
This sounds like a business idea: Let people upload an image, URL, or copy, and charge for reviewing: $n for a five minute lookover, $m for an hour. Editors reply with an updated draft and visual diff of changes.
Bloggergirl did a fantastic job on these slides. It is amazing that she took the time to go through the site in so much detail. Thanks for sharing the slides as this is good advice for anyone.
I would pay for someone to review <a href="http://readness.com" rel="nofollow">http://readness.com</a> and produce slides with feedback on the messaging, how awesome.