x03

Some entrepreneurs can have a little trouble translating their ideas into, effectively, textual sound bites -- condensed yet exciting paragraphs that technology blogs, like The Startup Foundry, rely on to get quick overviews of what's being submitted to them. So we at PearWords do that for them (on the basis of a 100% refund policy).

We're pretty new, but we've had some initial traction that we're super-happy with, so given that we've now "proven" its useful to ourselves and others, we thought some folks on Hacker News may be interested.

As a quick note: although not officially announced on the site yet, we're trialing writing copy in Arabic, Italian, French, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish in addition to English and German, to further assist startups in getting in contact with foreign technology sites. If you're interested in that, please make a note of it in the "Notes" section of your request.

The site is online at: http://www.pearwords.com

Thanks. :)

Hi there,

I've developed a website to act as "an ad hoc perpetually published online journal of publication-worthy essays written by a global community of (egotistical) undergraduate International Relations students to act as a platform for the dissemination of and discourse on their new, interesting and engaging takes on international affairs." As the homepage spiel puts it...

I've done a little bit of advertising with StumbleUpon, where I received a "thumbs up" rate of about 1.5% of my total hits, with 0 "down thumbs" -- but also 0 new sign ups. I've had the link passed around to friends-of-friends who the site is aimed at, but registration still remains extremely low and site interaction is practically at a standstill.

The site is, to me, relatively polished, straightforward, easy-to-use and otherwise a relatively neat little concept that does hold some sway in its target market as there are other sites that convey revision material and such as part of gigantic "student portals".

Thus, my question is: does the way the site operates suck? Is it a poor execution of a good idea, or the other way around? Is there anything I could do to help highlight the benefits of registration right from the index page? Being a member lets you submit papers and discussions, comments and also earn "points" (upvotes)...

I appreciate that the site doesn't fall into HN's typical remit of being a "start up", but any feedback on the website from a few Internet-wise veterans would be welcomed.

The site URL is: http://www.thesjia.net

Thanks, x03.

Edit: I think what I've failed to convey is that this is essentially meant to be an online study group for undergraduates who want useful summaries of topics written by undergraduates rather than as a proper and full Journal to compete with well established ones. It's called a Journal semi-mockingly and doesn't really aim to take itself too seriously...