Angela Review Of Stanford Trading

Angela Tenney

Jay:

At a first glance, the website looks professional and very easy to  use.  While the large amounts of text were understandably necessary  for class assignments, I would strongly suggest paring them down, or  at least adding headings as discussed in class yesterday, so the "how- tos" of the site are more easily found; even after having read  everything, I found myself having to go back and browse the text  blocks to remind myself what I had just been told.

Your long term plans are clearly well-thought and and show a lot of  perception on your part.  However, the part that seems to be missing  is how you expect to gain the users you predict.  Yes, Wikipedia did  experience huge amounts of growth, but they were helped by, among  other things, an article in Time magazine, which reaches a huge  reader pool.  Do you expect to flyer campus with advertisements?  A  possible idea, though I probably have seen more flyers for websites  that failed than those that worked.  Facebooks ads?  Using the ASSU  for support?  Once you have an initial customer base, as long as you  keep the website functioning well and allow for lots of user input so  you know what its issues are, you can probably rely on word of mouth  and recommendations to get you by, but you probably need some way of  getting your site out there to more people than your dorm, close  friends, etc.

The forums part of your website, presumably the main focus, seems  very appealing, though with virtually no posts now it's hard to tell  how easy it will be to use.  You look like you've set up the  overlying structure nicely; I particularly like how the help and  support section is just as obvious and available as the trading one.   Are you planning on adding more categories than computers and bikes  as things get posted?  As long as other things are being sold,  perhaps you want to market your site as a textbook exchange place as  well--there has yet to be a well-established website for that on  campus, and there is certainly a huge market there.

Overall, great job!  I look forward to seeing how the website turns  out, it's got great potential.