Documenting. So _not_ fun.

In any case, I've come to realize that the journaling world is incredibly crowded. Between Xanga, Livejournal, DiaryLand, all the LJ clones ... it's going to be very hard to find users who will remain loyal and pay. I feel I've put up a decent product which is semi-easy to use and is packed with features. I've also tried not to limit free users in what they can do (I hate that crap).

The next stage is documentation. I've started writing tutorials, some aimed at complete newbies ... some aimed at advanced users, and some aimed directly at users of Xanga (you can see what audience i'm targetting here).

My goal is to get someone who knows NOTHING about the internet be able to read these tutorials and learn how to create/maintain a journal. Honestly, I want my mom to be able to use this service with ease.

Which means, I might need your help. If you know anyone who has a remote interest in journaling but has _no_ experience in using the computers, let me know. I want them to try to use Tabulas once I get my tutorials up to get some feedback. It's very easy for me to just say "go to the galleries page" since I wrote the frickin system, but I need someone who's never used it to try these tutorials and find weakpoints.

So if you know anyone who loves to journal online but is scared about having to "learn" something new or needs someone to hold his or her hand, let me know. I will be granting out beta tester accounts for these people.

The older audience (35+) is never targetted by these journaling services, and I have to wonder why. They usually have the most interesting things to say and are usually willing to dispense advice. I personally think it's because they just don't know how to use these new services.

A tool is no good if someone doesn't know how to use it.
Posted by roy on July 24, 2003 at 01:53 PM | 4 Comments

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Comment posted on July 25th, 2003 at 04:52 PM
yo, i have a friend who i'll try to get to do this once you're finished with the tutorials and stuff... she's still runnin windows me, and didn't know that her laptop came with a cd with windows on it... somehow she managed to erase windows on her hard drive so her laptop is at best buy and they're trying to figure out how to fix it for her.
Comment posted on July 24th, 2003 at 02:29 PM
i seriously thought you would have asked me to help, since i've been really good at bugging you to death ;)
Comment posted on July 24th, 2003 at 02:28 PM
yo, i know nothing about those things, let me know how i can help
Comment posted on July 24th, 2003 at 04:23 PM
ditto? like uhm, how? like uhm, do i like uhm... like uhm... uhm, yeah. like whoa, this thing is like uhm, kinda confusing? like uhm... uhm... yeah. like help, you know? like yeah. like totally.