BUT
This is not useful to me as a student if I have to enter all of my assignments manually. If I know what to enter, why do I need to be reminded?
If there were some way to import assignments and classes from somewhere else, then it would be very useful. I don't know how feasible that would be, but there's no way I'd use Soshiku without that feature.
last.fm shows you calendar events for concerts by artists you listen to. when another user adds an upcoming concert for that artist, you're automatically notified of it just by being a listener of that artist. your site would probably have these group memberships more defined, but same concept. that way you eliminate the duplication of data by 10 users in the same class entering the same assignment, and the 1 user that wasn't paying attention in class automatically gets notified of the new assignment.
Also, look into whether or not www.quizlet.com has an API so you can help students collaborate not just on homework, but on studying/quizing too.
But the moment you call it a startup, I have to ask how you make money. So, how do you plan to make money? Students are poor, and cheap, and I'm not sure ads would fit it even if you had the traffic.
It also makes the thing actually useful for me -- I don't want to have to remember to add the assignments to it myself. I already know what my assignments are and I don't have time to type them into yet another place.
For study notes, I think an Amazon affiliate model would probably work best. Ebay would be tempting (i.e. potentially cheaper) but likely to throw up less relevant results.
As for packaging up and selling to schools - great, but even greater would be to provide schools with their own hosted version instead. They set up a CNAME off their domain pointed at a hosted version and students can work within their own schools. This would also work for colleges.
Have it marked to dive in deeper later.
However, I don't think your site solves the problem better than a pen and a piece of paper.
I'm going to paraphrase a quote I read once: "the web is your hammer, and everything looks like a nail." Every problem is not best solved via the web. I think this may be one of those cases. But I could be wrong.
Either way, great looking site and good luck.
Unlike the real world where you often call one person and that person calls another person in the group and so on. Where there is no central repository for sharing links/resources for the school assignment.
Soshiku has a great design and fills a sizable need in my opinion, getting schoolwork done. I for one, probably would have used it in high school.
I'm not saying this is a bad idea. It's definitely something useful. I just think it's not a great business idea. I think you have demonstrated great abilities, and you could put those to work on harder, more profitable problems.
組織 【そしき】 (n,vs) (1) organization; (2) structure; construction; (3) tissue; (4) system;
(1) 役員評議会が組織されて新提案を協議した。 An executive council was formed to discuss the new proposal.
Looks like そしき is a nominative word which can be used as part of a compound verb, as in 組織する [to form an organization]. (soshiki-sarete in the example given is in the tense "was-formed / was-organized").
I love variety in both human and computer languages.
Digressions aside, I like the name. And the site itself looks fantastic. Good luck!
Yes, I blame Chrome and not your site.
Update: I find the images on http://soshiku.com/tour a bit too big -- the page is really big right now (i.e. lots of pixels). Lots to scroll even on a 1920x1200 resolution.
An me nagging about such small detail proves that you overall design works for me!
Gives full access to virtual machines with different versions of Windows and different browsers. I tried it, bought some credits and loved it.
The largest button is not only the most visible activity, but it's also an implicit suggestion to your users. Do you want people to sign up, or do you want them to take a tour? Plant the idea in their mind with design.
Smaller notes: I have no idea how to generate that funky calendar I saw in the tour, or to tell the system that I've completed an assignment once created. Also - just to be picky - the header colors really don't work for me. Blue and green and another blue, and another blue and dark grey and light grey? Multiple borders and banners? If you aren't working with a designer, try keeping the site simple and iterate towards a more attractive site. Design that adds complexity works against the impression of simplicity and usability (it communicates money). I believe your logo against a simple white background would be more attractive to potential users than the ruckus up there now. Simpler design would also call more attention to the content you really want users to see.
The design is nice, but it looks like a secret love affair with 37signals products. I guess some might say that's a plus...
I'll also echo the comment that I'm not sure this is particularly useful/needed.
Zacharye, that certainly was my goal. :)
Aston, yes I'll fix that right away.
Siong, thanks for the suggestions. You can (mostly) do all of that by adding partners to your account, and then using the discussion pane on the assignment page. And for "peer pressure", a users' total grade does show on their public profile.
About monetization: for now I'm focusing on just unobtrusive AdSense ads, but I'm definitely brainstorming about the future.
Jbenz, yes it's 100% free and I plan on keeping it that way. Should I replace "But that's just the tip of the iceberg." with "And it's totally free." with, say, a yellow highlight?
The name is a bit obscure and hard to remember. Might hurt word of mouth (which could be a big deal on campuses).
I'd recommend getting rid of the adwords. Highly doubtful that they'll make you much money, and its a big distraction.
An alternative monetization approach would be to search for keywords on peoples pages and have a sidebar that recommends books (on amazon affiliates) based on the keywords on their notebooks. Call it a book recommender. Fairly easy to parse out keywords and query recommendation on amazon, and you could even run this as a cron job nightly. Here's a good libary: http://www.caliban.org/ruby/ruby-aws/
Nice move focusing on email, sms, and facebook integration. This is the key features that will keep people using your app. More than any fancy html management interface. May be worth looking at iPhone/mobile interface and meebo support for chatting with partners.
Just a few random thoughts. Hope they are helpful.
Seems that this is implemented very well. Will check it out in a deeper fashion soonish.
One suggestion would be to have the Tour be a multi page process, so there isn't so much scrolling, also I am a sucker for videos demonstrating functionality. Just something real simple showing how to do each of the different functions.
I work at a university so I will be recommending it to any students I meet. Great work.
How are you planning to monetize this? Hitting up the PTA or college groups?
However, one thing I would personally change is a small usability issue I noticed on the Courses page. I would like to be able to add a course, and not have to navigate back to Home to be able to add a new assignment. I think it would just really clarify things a bit better.
Good luck with the site though.
Great design. It look professional because it's so simple.
I'll definitely use it when (if?) I start a Masters degree.
How do you make money? Book sales?
Understood it in a few seconds!
