Kristen -- Before I get into anything else, I suggest you ask your web team to fix your secure certificates, which are not working correctly, at least for non-Microsoft user agents. (Most Firefox-using authors simply won't be able to file their claims. Safari users will be able to, but will get alarming messages during the process.)
Whether this solicitation is appropriate use of this forum I'll leave for others. I think it raises a fascinating subject and I'm about to go off on that, but please, folks, don't let that deter you from offering your opinion on whether the message was appropriate for the group. (I kind of think it's OK, but I don't really have a strong opinion on that.) This is basically what us Intartubes marketing types call a "land grab": Get control of a big virtual space (by creating it, if you can, or just by providing radically better access to it -- or a combination of the two, as in this case), then "invite" everyone to play in the sandbox in the hope that if enough of them come, it will become popular enough that everyone will go there. (To paraphrase The Yogi.) Eventually, if FiledBy's business plan will out, the "author sites" become sufficient link-bait that it's against an author's interest to not "claim" them (which adds link juice to FiledBy's URLs). If I were a better scholar of the SF canon, I believe I could probably cite a half dozen similar plots from major writers. (Simak? Kornbluth? Pohl? Tiptree?) I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing. On the one hand, FiledBy are arguably not taking bread from anyone's mouth. (Arguably. See below.) Your own case would probably be that you're providing opportunities for sales and "social networking" to writers. While leaving out the benefit that accrues to your company from the association -- it confuses the pitch, after all. Which pitch is a little deceptive, let's be honest: "with over 1.8 million author sites" really means "we got a data dump from Books In Print and created a record corresponding to each listed author." It's certainly true that writers can benefit from social networking, and there's a litkelihood that FiledBy can make some $$ off it through various means (affiliate sales, advertising, additional paid services TBD). But the pitch makes me think about *Who's Who* books: "You're in this! You should buy it!" And also yellow page ads, which have traditionally been sold with some variation on a theme of "everyone's getting this, you HAVE to be in it." Part of me looks at this and sees a smart play: It's snappy (that's some good infrastructure, especially in view of the fact that you seem to be using Microsoft products to drive it -- no mean feat to get those to perform well in a large scale web app!); you've got a sharing widget for every major "social bookmarking" service (and a few that aren't major yet); and it looks like you're using some pretty comprehensive stealth marketing strategies to activate Word Of Mouth channels. (aside: I'm a little troubled by the use of the Vanderbilt.edu address. It smacks of stealthing. More up-front would be to use a corporate address, if you're in fact an employee of FiledByAuthor.) On the other hand, part of me looks at this and says, "why should anyone let themselves be bandwagoned into this?" Because as much as it hits all the buttons it can, an author's real best strategy would include FiledBy.com only as a dotted-'i' in one of the last lines of the business plan. Facebook, Amazon author-blogging and a decent personal blog & website at a domain name owned by and associated with the author (like http://nancykress.blogspot.com/ or http://planetlactose.com) are really far more important steps. This kind of thing distracts writers from more important steps they could be taking. And if the effort is well-executed, and you get all the author participation you'd like, it actually fights more on-target, content-rich self-marketing venues like blogs. If FiledBy becomse as big a success as you hope it will, authors will waste time blogging on a "wall" in space you own, getting minimal social networking capital benefit and sacrificing ownership of their own blog posts. (See: http://www.filedby.com/service/terms_of_service.aspx ) So, yeah, I realize this is long, but my suggestion to authors is that once they "claim" their "site" (i.e., convince FiledBy that they are THAT Craig DeLancey, Steve Carper or Nancy Kress -- which they should do, out of simple self-protection), they should post nothing at all to the FiledBy.com "site" except a link to the place they REALLY want people to go. (And make sure that they have affiliate purchase links to all the major online retailers on their own site....) On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 11:49 AM, KB <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, my name is Kristen and I’m with a new company called FiledBy, Inc. > We have a website that you guys might be interested in: > http://www.filedby.com/. > Here writers and readers can set up their own web page and interact. > > FiledBy launched in March 2009 with over 1.8 million author sites. The > FiledBy platform enables authors, co-authors, illustrators, > photographers, editors and other contributors to easily build an > online community where they can promote their work and interact with > fans and peers. Authors can register, claim their site, and start > updating and enhancing their content. Readers can join as well and > discover authors, buy books, write reviews, join groups and create a > bookshelf on their personal page. I hope you have time to check us > out! > > Best of Luck, > KB > > > -- eric scoles ([email protected]) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. 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