The site "www.OnTheMap.ie", our first, ground up written in Ruby on Rails is being launched before the summer. We'd love some serious constructive feedback on the site itself, look and feel and ease of use. The concept was to go away from the overcrowded web page look, trying to keep it very clean and easy to see things, and of course logical to use.

In addition, as part of our market research we're asking everyone we meet whether they think that a 'Yelp.com' - like Review Based Yellow Pages is something the small businesses in Ireland, those that don't have any web presence or are currently paying too much for or not getting enough benefit from existing directories ... is worth being a part of ?. Hard question, but ... what would small businesses be willing to pay annually for having such a listing ?, and more crucially, are the Irish ready to 'give their opinion' on that Butcher, Dentist, Mechanic, Chemist, Cafe, etc ?.

If this is the wrong forum to ask the second question, apologies I'll post it in the correct place ... once someone can point me in the right direction :0).

In either case, all input ... good and otherwise ... is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Attila

Interesting idea.

Until you have a lot more content I can't see how anyone would want to pay for a listing.

Maybe you should give away the listings for free until you get the numbers up?

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ok I said 0 ... based on what I'm seeing in the site. You may be trying to go for a clean look but its not working for me ... reds and whites are just too harsh.

Your top "banner" piece is full width ... your main is what 1024 x 768 ?

I wanted to be able to click "onthemap" ... Maps .. Reviews keyword search in your logo.

As Michele said ... I'd wait for a while before requesting money for it ... it'd need hundreds / thousands of business listings before it becomes any major use apart from the link use

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I've voted 25 - 75 if the site had a good flow of traffic, ranked well and was friendly for visitors/search engines.

Just to let you know that I am lost looking at this. If I go into a category that has listings nothing is actually listed, I'm I looking at this wrong?

For example: under the business category it says there is 2 listing but clicking on the link only gives me a map.

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As Gavin said. I don't get it.
What's supposed to happen when you click on a category?
You show us a Google map, but what am I looking for?
A bit of "How to?" might help.

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:. Web Design & Development Web Design Ireland
:. Search Engines Optimization Search Engines Optimization
:. Directory Submission Directory Submission
:. News & Press Release Ireland GiveItSocks.com
:. Used Cars Ireland, Car Parts & Car Audio Cars For Sale, Car Parts & Accessories
:. I Have 2 Find It Directory SEF Directory

If something needs a how to text its too complicated.

SEO friendly URLs would be good for the categories as well.

Figuring out where the user is coming from (assuming ireland) and having it default to their county might be handy ? ... majority of times I'm looking for someone local the extra clicking is unnecessary and would get to be annoying.

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That's not as easy to do as you might think, since the IP ranges in this country are so broad. An Eircom DSL line in Carlow will show up as Limerick

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could also be costly getting the ranges no doubt if they were available .. have the country ones which can be way off at times as well.

At least have a remember my county link so you don't have to go entering it all the time

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Nah. Most of the GeoIP databases aren't that expensive ... Maxmind is only about a tenner a month - we use it for CC fraud checks

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OK, I can see how you might want more when you click on a category on the front page. I suppose I was just preempting the time when there'd be just too many places registered. The point of showing a map was to get someone to pick a location (using a map) for the category they'd just chosen ... category alone isn't mush use if the person is looking at all-Ireland. However, some hints as to what to do next are missing, fair enough :0).

I would have put up a map on the home page, but I wanted a home page that worked without Javascript. I've still some trimming to do on the home page to limit news, events, reviews text to a short sentence ... with a more ... link ... but for now I thought it would suffice.

As for getting folks to pay something, I was between a rock and a hard place. The problem being that for 50 quid the subscriber is getting atleast 3 things, of different value to each type of person ... web presence including interactive content, geocoded directory listing and reviews. To a small business that has no web presence, having effectively a very simple web page, backed up by a single 'News' page (and upto 10 Events pages) where they could publish their latest 'Specials' or something news-worthy, or some more info about their business ... is surely worth 50 quid ?. A proper web-site will cost a non-technical type anywhere in excess of 500 euro ... upto thousands of euro for interactive content ... which is what they have with our offering.

The directory part of it isn't going to cut it re: being worth 50 euro until we get a critical mass ... upwards of 10,000 businesses ... but we all gotta have more than one string to our bows. The only way we see this actually working is by strong branding, and that's gonna cost big money. We're happy to go that road, if we believe that the idea is novel, and Irish business owners put value in cheap web-presence, being found easily (re: location) and being reviewed.

As for the look and feel ... we'll take another look at the simplicity side of things .. thanks. As for the colors ... let's get some more opinions (maybe suggest an alternative ?) ... 'cause we thought there was just enough to not be too 'in your face' ... whilst still being memorable in a not-unpleasant way :0).

Thanks,
Attila