How can Yoomoot best be explained to newcomers?

Present Yoomoot as 'forums 2.0'

I'm thinking that 'organized discussion' and 'organized collaboration' are too broad and nebulous. We need to get more concrete. Google Wave sold itself as email 2.0, so maybe Yoomoot is forums 2.0. It's true that Yoomoot is more than a forum and that it improves much more than forums (it improves wikis, blogging and Q&A) but it solves forums' problems more clearly than it does other tools', and in order to explain Yoomoot coherently, we have to initially focus on something simple and easily graspable, and explain the bigger picture later.

I would present Yoomoot as forums 2.0 in the following way:

• It's great that people use the web forums for big, complex discussions, like  this fantastic debate about global warming
• Unfortunately, all the ideas and insights in these discussions are more-or-less lost to oblivion because big online discussions are extremely messy and time-consuming to read through.
• By requiring everyone to speak only in Q & A, by emphasising collaborative-editing of existing posts and through various other features, Yoomoot discussions are much more navigable and concise than standard forum discussions.
• At a glance, it may seem similar to Yahoo! Answers or Stack Overflow, but the resemblance is superficial because these sites can't facilitate the big complex discussions which people often have on forums.

This is very similar to the way of presenting Yoomoot in a brief introduction to Yoomoot
but I think it has the following advantages:

• People understand the point of forums, so they will understand the point of Yoomoot
• By giving them something familiar to compare Yoomoot with, they will be able to more clearly see the advantages of Yoomoot, and give them something to judge it by.
• It emphasises Yoomoot's current target user group. Yoomoot.com is for people who appreciate reading and contributing to web forums. For people who don't value that, there is no value in Yoomoot.com at the moment. Therefore 'forums 2.0' avoids creating false expectations.

• By Nicolas Holzapfel
• Oct. 18, 2009

Replace the homepage text with something more clearly explaining Yoomoot's value proposition

We should use the homepage text to immediately explain Yoomoot's value proposition to newcomers. We need to be aware that at the moment, people are coming to Yoomoot and thinking "Okay what's this all about? Why should I care?". I don't think the current text answers that.

Most people don't click on "more info" so we need to make better use of the homepage text to get the Yoomoot message across.

Clarifying notes to Rocky in response to a revision request: This answer does answer the qustions, it just answers the question vaguely. This was deliberate. There are many different ways in which the homepage text could be changed. It makes sense to first agree that the homepage text should be changed, then decide separately exactly how it should be changed. People might agree that the homepage text needs replacing, but disagree on my proposal for replacement text. Therefore I have addressed that issue in a separate follow-up question.

• By Nicolas Holzapfel
• Oct. 18, 2009

Change tagline to 'conversations of scale'

 

This term captures Yoomoot's two key value propositions – it makes very long discussions manageable and it makes genuinely many-to-many conversations possible. The term makes it clearer what Yoomoot.com is trying to do more than 'organized collaboration' (which is more suitable for Yoomootpro).

• By Nicolas Holzapfel
• Oct. 18, 2009

it's something new: it's not a forum, it's not a wiki it's Yoomoot

if we call it forum 2.0 - people might expect to see wiki-forum (so ability to edit each other posts) - but that, only one thing what Yoomoot is all about: organisation, quality content, no repetition.
Talking on Yoomoot is different than talking anywhere else - Yoomoot is a new way of talking by using the goods of existing communication solutions.

You can say that Google wave is email 2.0 - because of the way it looks like - it is actually gmail with ability to communicate real-time and more visual threads - it doesn't change the way you communicate.

• By Barbara Nowacka
• Oct. 18, 2009

Change tagline to 'coherent mass discussion'

Not very catchy, but I think it explains Yoomoot.com's (not Yoomootpro's) value proposition better than 'organized collaboration' or 'organized discussion'.

• By Nicolas Holzapfel
• Oct. 18, 2009