Friday, July 17, 2009

Man on a daily mission

If you haven't heard the news, I've had another life-altering July. More about that later.

Like many of you, I use the web for work. We even have a term for this: web worker. No, it's not the most poetic. But it does state the plain truth. Also like many of you, I use the web for fun. And we each have many different terms for this. The web is littered with fun and entertaining places. Some of them can become quite the time sink. I'm a sucker for a good site that wastes hours of my time.

I recently met a guy from Philadelphia. Eli likes to have fun and he wants you to have fun. But he doesn't want to waste a bunch of your time. Though you are free to do so if you like. Eli has created a site called Daily Mission. Daily Mission has a single aim: to get you and others collaborating on some good old fashion fun. Things like posting and commenting on silly pictures, caption contests and funny phrases. Yes, there are legions of sites like this on the web. But Daily Mission's aim is to get you in, get you contributing, and get you back out. In seconds, if at all possible.

Eli and I have been chatting about my joining his team. It's currently staffed by two developers and a UX person. They're looking to add someone who can provide strategy and guidance. A grizzled online veteran who still knows how to have fun. Someone... like me.

But if I join Eli, that means I'm going to be talking about Daily Mission. Quite often, in fact. And before I do that, I want to make sure that it's something worth talking about... something remarkable. I have limited exposure to sites like these though I understand their appeal. So I'm reaching out in the hopes that some of you will tell me what you think. I've spent some quality time with the site and have already given Eli some strategic and tactical advice.

But I'm just one guy. One guy who doesn't spend a lot of time on this stuff. I'm betting that some of you spend more time on sites like this. So I'm reaching out. Specifically, I'm looking for just for those who care or would care about a site like this. I'm looking for your honest evaluation of the site as it stands today. I'm not being compensated by Eli for this outreach. It's not part of a stunt. Right now, I just really want to know: what do you think of Daily Mission?

4 comments:

  1. Pluses: Looks like you have a number of active members, has potential to be the kind of site I actually go to regularly.

    Minuses: Crowded with too much content on the homepage. Also, it's kind of corporate and boring-looking for a site that wants to be about Fun.

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  2. Home page is a nightmare. TOO MUCH.

    Daily Mission should have one mission per day on home page. :)

    Learning curve for the site is STEEP. I have no idea what todo or even how to do it.

    Clear instructions need to be implemented.

    Missions seem completely isolated to site. I'm a photographer so when you said:

    "Things like posting and commenting on silly pictures, caption contests and funny phrases."

    I thought: Cool get more comments on my fun flickr images. Would be nice to utilize online content and tap into established online communities. (less duplication across the web).

    2 cents. Hope it helped.

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  3. Looks fun, but the home page confuses the hell out of me.

    After clicking around for a while, I still had no idea what the site was about.

    No collaboration on anything.

    And, with that, I have completely agreed with Tyson Crosbie.

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  4. Thanks for your feedback, folks. I hope it helps Eli to make a better product.

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