Steady progress

This past week has been a productive one. The website now shows advertisements (which means we've started collecting revenue) and the team has been adding more content everyday. We're looking to officially launch the Friday after spring break (in about two weeks). We want to accompany the official launch with a bit of marketing to spread the word. We decided the best thing we could do is get an article about us into the school newspaper, The Breeze. It's a good way to reach our target market, and will be essentially cost free.

Mike was able to talk to someone from Clementine and learn about how they market and if our project is something they would be interested in. He gave us several good tips. He said he doesn't like marketing in newspapers because there's no way for him to see his return on investment. He liked the idea of only paying when people see an advertisement, and seeing data about how many people actually saw the ad. This is how Facebook ads work, and how ads for local businesses will work on our site.

Through talking with friends and classmates, we've gotten some preliminary feedback on the site. People mostly  like it, but we learned that we should focus on restaurants, deals, and live performances to really draw people onto the site. Also, in order to drive viral growth, we really want to include a Facebook 'like' or 'share' button that way we can leverage people's existing social networks. We'll be in a good position if we can get people sharing in this way.