Criticrania – World’s First Multimedia Social Network

4 thoughts on “Criticrania – World’s First Multimedia Social Network”

1. Ignoring design, what do you think of the concept?
   The most important feature I see, after just a couple minutes at your site, is the ability to review stuff, and use my social network to filter and help me find stuff I might want.  This is an idea that needs to happen.  Now, why this isn’t already done at Facebook, I can’t guess.  This idea isn’t all that novel.  I had actually considered starting something similar, and I doubt I’m alone.  Funding, if you need it, may be complicated by how easy it would be for Facebook to squash your startup.  If you can do it without funding, or just friends and family money, I say go for it.
   Is the user interface easy to use?
   I haven’t signed up, but it looks simple enough.  It certainly didn’t scare me.
   Can you find everything you are looking for?
   No.  Having some standard most popular categories is a great idea, but I believe that if you let users create categories of stuff they want to review, you’d find that there are hundreds to thousands of categories people care about.  Where’s wine?  Resturants?  Dog breeds?  Cars?  There are huge fan clubs for way to many areas to list.  Of course, the site only claims to deal with multimedia, and in that context, you’ve covered the biggest areas.A
   What are you looking for that doesn’t seem to be there?
   A compelling reason to sign up.  There’s always that hurdle… my friends aren’t on the site, so why should I be?  It’s the standard problem faced by web-startups and unknown authors.

2. Thank you very much for the response. Using your pre-existing social networks is a good idea and something we’ve written down to look into. Granted, it may not be a novel idea, but our goal is to make it easier and more exciting to use than anyone else has done. We’re not the next facebook, and we’re not trying to be. We want our niche to be media. And we do have to draw the line somewhere, which we did with our 5 media types. The reason to sign up is of course the most difficult. The incentives we have in place now are a suggestion feature. Based on how you rate things, and that of those you “follow” we can give great suggestions about what to watch, play, read, etc next. Add that with the ability to compare your tastes with your friends and see how similar you really are and we hope it gives reason for people to join.
   Thanks for the great feedback though! Really appreciate it.

3.  

   Ignoring design, what do you think of the concept? Its Ok. But what makes it different from other review sites? Most other review sites gets you rewards, money, revenue from page views, etc. So, what am I getting when I write a review on here?
   Is the user interface easy to use? Yes it is easy to use. I signed up and its pretty easy to use.
   Can you find everything you are looking for? No. As the previous review mentioned – where are the other categories? Cars, pets, electronics, beauty products, etc. There are so many more things that people like to review. Let users add categories. OR at least let them send category suggestions to you (or other admin) and you guys add it. Look at review sites like View Points – there are hundreds if not thousands of categories.
   What are you looking for that doesn’t seem to be there? Other categories. Something that tells me why I would want to leave reviews on your site vs other sites like View Points or the many other sites that allows me to make money/gift cards/earn points towards stuff.
   Please share any additional feedback/comments you might have. Like I stated – tell me why I should sign up? What perks are in it for me? Why should I spend my time on your site? Why should I give you my reviews? Tell me why you are better than the other sites.  Thats what I look for when I am to give my review. I also review these things on my blog – but for those I get money or product. So for me to give my review out for free like this is not going to happen. I would rather give my review on my blog or another site that pays me or gives me various perks, than to give it to a site where I get nothing in return. And I know lots of bloggers and non bloggers who would feel the same way. Theres a lot of us making money from home by doing various things online, and this would not even make it the bookmarks.

   
   
   Thanks for the opportunity!
    

4. You addressed several things, which we appreciate. So first off, thanks!
   I’d say the biggest problem you felt is that you get no compensation for your reviews. I think you may have missed the basis of our site, which very well (most likely) may be our fault. Criticrania is a social network. Everything is based on how you rate an item of content out of 10. The review is to back up your ratings and give people a reason to trust your ratings.
   It is our belief that while your personal rating of some movie or book or what have you maybe receive compensation from sites or be a part of your blog, that leaves it as as singular review. Criticrania is a place to find an overall feeling about something. Or to follow what your friends are doing or members of the site whose opinion you have come to respect. It is a social network at heart, based on media. With that in mind, we aren’t competing with sites who pay for your reviews as we are trying to build more of a community where media can be discussed and compared.
   Hope that provides some form of clarification, although you do raise obvious concerns that we will forever be trying to address. Thank you!

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