Simon Willison’s Weblog

How does a new Website that depends on content from users start?

10th September 2012

My answer to How does a new Website that depends on content from users start? on Quora

The tried and tested way to solve this problem is with a closed alpha period. Launch the site as a private alpha, then invite a bunch of people you know and trust to start trying it out. Once you launch to the public you’ll already have some content and more importantly you’ll have set an example of how new users to the site should behave.

If you don’t have enough friends to pull this off your site is probably doomed, but you could always try what the Reddit guys did and invent a bunch of personas that have conversations amongst themselves! http://arstechnica.com/business/...