This story that Ender posted yesterday is so good I'm posting it again.
Posted by
Diva (aka Diva)
Nov 15 '08, 05:48
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"The big draw at UrbanBaby.com used to be the discussion boards. The forums were completely anonymous, without even nicknames or handles to identify the participants. As you can imagine, the anonymity sparked some scandalous, rollicking threads�descriptions of boozed-up parenting, icy marriages, and moms who flatly regretted having procreated.
"But the nine-year-old Web site aimed at mothers in big cities like New York and San Francisco wasn't all titillation. The boards were also extremely useful. When my wife asked questions�What do you do for colic? What's the best school in Brooklyn?�she received four or five thoughtful replies in less than a minute. I'd never seen such a dynamic, active online community.
"Then in May, UrbanBaby, which was purchased by CNET in 2006, launched a redesign. All hell broke loose.
"The changes weren't huge, but each of them subtly altered the flow of conversation. CNET added a wide sidebar on the site to create space for ads. This reduced the reading area, a big problem on a board with hundreds of comments per hour. Discussions had been organized chronologically, but immediately after the relaunch, the default setting had "most popular" threads at the top, even if they had been started days earlier. Worse, you had to refresh your browser to see new posts. UrbanBaby users went nuts, demanding a return to the old design.
"They soon got it. But not from UrbanBaby. A week after CNET rolled out the hated redesign, a couple of work-at-home computer programmers�longtime UrbanBaby users themselves�launched a rival site called YouBeMom.
"They perfectly re-created the look and feel of the old boards. Better yet, they made improvements, including a souped-up search engine and privacy controls that make sure your spouse can't use your computer to find out what you've been posting. They also set up a blog to capture users' requests for site improvements and to outline what YouBeMom plans to do about them."
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