City photos site development

[admin]

Greeting to all,

It appears like we succeeded in making a useful site about world cities.

Eventually, we'll make improvements to it. We'll try to make it even more useful. Unfortunately, due to current work load and other contstraints, it can't be done fast.

But you are welcome to suggest ideas for the site improvement wish-list.

When we are ready for the next iteration here we'll consider them all.

As people travel more and more these days, the site may help some of them in solving practical travel problems: where to go, where to stay, how to buy and sell a used car, what to see / not see, what to do / not do, etc.

Every place is different. Local rules and conditions apply. A short trip to Costa Rica is very diffrent from a long expedition around Australia. A traveler (especially business traveler) must know the rules to make his/her trip successful.

Well, let's try to improve the site to make it more practically useful. But how? This is the question.

Nik

[Pavel Viaznikov]

I suggested already: 1) the number of comments to each photo should be visible so that the author could check them, in order to see whether somebody asks a question, like somebody asked me how to get to New Jerusalem from Moscow while I did not see this for a while. Perhaps, when one opens My Photos section, he could also see My Comments (all comments to all person's photos).
2) perhaps a separate blank should be added - "how to get there"; once completed, it should be permanently linked to the place name. It should be also editable. Also, see in (4) below - "ho to get around there"
3) Wikipedia connection should be thought of, I cannot imagine the exact method - but...
4) one more thing possible - "useful tips"; this could be also linked to Wikipedia - and, perhaps, to comments.

[admin]

Pavel,

Thanks, nice ideas. When we are ready for the next iteration we will consider them all.

Just a small note on expectations. Here is what's going on around here. We have only one part time resource for all web projects, and it is currently busy on WR CMS development - http://wrconsulting.com/content/index.htm which is a simple content managemnt (+ hosting) solution for small web sites and is offered for a small monthly fee.

All products coexist together in a balanced way, where cash flow stays positive (we don't burn investors money). We are trying to market commercial services, which (if successful) will get us funds for free and open source projects.

By the way, if you have any comments on WR CMS please let us know. For some reason we don't get enough trials and we don't understand why.

As per http://cityphotos.info - yes, it could be improved and the possibilities are endless. And it needs additional marketing effort, too. What I would like personally is some very practical advice on travel throughout places. For example:

- Who knew that you can't put a "for sale" sign on a car in Brisbane, Australia?
- Driver reviver stops (free coffee) - are very useful for long trips (seen them between Sydney and Brisbane on highway 1).
- Rules for buying and selling cars are different in different states in Australia. Knowing them in advance could save you time and money. One must research things before getting a second hand junk. And if you plan to go to the Outback - make sure it's road worthy and can handle the heat. Some cars will not survive it. And you'll need an air conditioned car and lots of water.
- Working on the road and especially Internet access could be problematic in Australia. The further north you go the worth it gets. May be it's my own experience, but it did not work out nicely for me. A $10 Global Gossip card only allowed me to download mail - very slow, expensive access. Theoretically you can do anything, but practically time runs out and you end up with nothing done because of a slow channel.

Etcetera...

Sections to put notes like this would be nice. We need to design them properly when we are ready.

Nik

[Pavel Viaznikov]

I wonder whether it would be possible (once) to post photos by bigger numbers then by 2 - say, so that a user could either choose from a meny how many photos he wishes to post, ot there would be more blanks on the Add new photos page (say, 5), so that one could send in from 1 to 5 pictures...