For some reason, and I'm probably projecting, I thought hey, I'll be able to create my own bulletin board. I think there's still room for a good solution there since Y! Groups seems lost, Google Groups seems a bit abandoned and a ton of other people are in the groups space but trying for something complicated (Ning).
Once I figured out what it wasn't, I had a hard time figuring out what it was. What sort of discussions is this for? StackOverflow isn't just for any sort of questions, it has a very clear purpose.
I forget who told me this, but someone once gave me design advice along the lines of figure out what the number one thing people want to do and make that thing twice as big as everything else. I often remind myself of that once I've finished building cool tech that could be used for anything and everything. I think that advice would be a good starting place for this site.
Aside from lack of purpose I can see a lot of potential in this sort of software as a platform.
I hope that's helpful. I'm hoping to post a "Review My Site" here next week and I'm already nervous about putting myself out there. But early feedback is good to get.
The "only focus on one thing" advice you give is our strategy at GridSpy (http://gridspy.co.nz) too.
We can monitor solar systems, water levels, fuel levels, solar hot water performance, temperature, humidity, battery levels and yes AC power usage.
We can also do automation, controlling all sorts of stuff in all sorts of ways.
However, I'm focusing only on AC power monitoring on our site, at least for now. Anything else is hard to explain and install, and much more expensive to sell.
Thanks Tony. The site is useful for creating discussions in variety of categories and not limited to a single subject like stackoverflow is. This might look like a difficult aim to achieve. I am willing to take the risk. Later on I plan to set preferences for individual users so they get to see topics relevant to their own liking.
Once I figured out what it wasn't, I had a hard time figuring out what it was. What sort of discussions is this for? StackOverflow isn't just for any sort of questions, it has a very clear purpose.
I forget who told me this, but someone once gave me design advice along the lines of figure out what the number one thing people want to do and make that thing twice as big as everything else. I often remind myself of that once I've finished building cool tech that could be used for anything and everything. I think that advice would be a good starting place for this site.
Aside from lack of purpose I can see a lot of potential in this sort of software as a platform.
I hope that's helpful. I'm hoping to post a "Review My Site" here next week and I'm already nervous about putting myself out there. But early feedback is good to get.