I submitted this to the UtahPulse.com feedback section earlier tonight. Enjoy.
As a member of the Utah tech community I hoped to find UtahPulse.com as a place to connect, learn & find fresh utah oriented content. Unfortunately that is not what I have found. I hope this feedback finds a reader who understands that this criticism may seem harsh on a beta site but without such feedback this site won’t make it out of beta.
What I have found has been a drab site with little content (forgivable as its in beta) and what content I have seen does not grab the reader in any way shape or form. What I have seen is a press release aggregator. Zions bank is a great member of the community, but the link & image at the top of the page is more than enough to advertise for them, no need to reproduce every tech related topic from them and make UtahPulse look like a shill for them. Additionally, there are no images for a story therefore making the content seem dry, newswire-like.
Integrating yourself into a community like the tech community of Utah will take much work but I don’t believe that it will be hard. You need to get people into the community not just a site. If you are to join the tech community of Utah then you must /join/ the tech community of Utah. What I mean by that is that you should be networking with the networkers & utilizing the technology talent that is readily at hand. Get local bloggers to blog about UtahPulse, get involved in the worldwide discussion. Join & use tech that excited the tech members of the state you are trying to grab the attention of. What about a fan page on Facebook? Thats pretty mainstream. How about organizing a meetup using Upcoming.org? Or how about getting really crazy and utilizing the bleeding edge that we are using like Twitter? Or how about grab a Qik account and broadcast live online from a cell phone some of the pivotal tech events that occur on a weekly basis.
The conversation is waiting for you, are you ready for it?
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