We launched!
On July 2, 2007, we sent an announcement about Zipcode Village to subscribers of the HybridCars.com newsletter—the first time we invited the world to take a look, sign up, and begin using the site. It was exciting and nerve-wracking because we didn’t know what would happen. Would everything work?
The goal of the site—to help people build connections in their neighborhood—is a noble one. And we put tons of effort into the project and we think we’re on the right track, but ultimately it’s all about the users. What would our first visitors and user think? All and all, the feedback from email (and from a few bloggers) was excellent. Amanda from Enviroblog wrote:
You mean it’s about… meeting people? Like, in person? What a radical idea!
Well, by the end of the day, more than 200 people had signed up for accounts and about 50 posts had been created. Also, a set of about dozen (mostly minor) bugs were reported. We’re busy fixing them as soon as we can.
Five days later, we’re nearly at 300 users, mostly folks who have come to their zip code and made a single post. That brings us to the biggest early challenge: encouraging users to reach out to their neighbors and let them know about Zipcode Village.
The whole point is to build connections between people. It doesn’t make sense for our early adopters to sit alone inside their Zipcode Villages. So stay tuned as we provide better tools on the site and more information in this blog about grassroots efforts to make our Zipcode Villages thrive. A big thanks to our early adopters! We won’t let you down.