Announcement server Sepulka.ru

Startup - is it when you quit your job and invest all the power and balance of your last salary in your site, hoping to have time to buy an island in the Pacific by summer? Then I have a typical startup :) True, there is something that distinguishes my startup from the classic ones - I did not bother and invent a new idea (or rather, I was tired of bothering and inventing new ideas).

It all started as a result of the fact that in December last year I happened to submit several ads within a week (my own and a couple of friends' ads) with the help of well-known services - Izruvkruki , Shans , Avto.ru. The shock from the experience of user-friendly usability has passed and it was decided not a little more - to change the world for the better.
')
Meet: Ad Server Sepulka.ru

What did not like the existing services?

First, registration. Well, it would be if it were “on the level”, with normal captcha, with validation of fields before sending (well, or at least the already filled fields were not added if there was an error entering captcha). With the delay of account activation, in order not to wait for half an hour a letter - you can immediately log in hospitably and remind you to follow the link in the letter later ... Although, I understand, this makes life easier for moderators and complicates spammers.

Secondly, the form for submitting ads. It's just "dashing nineties"! Everywhere you need to fill out several forms in turn. In case of an error, returning back fields are reset. A hard-loaded dozen photo disappears! You start all over again ... Believe me, this is not the first year on the Internet, but here’s the feeling of trying to post an ad with a photo - how to go to the security office or to the tax district of our region! But that's not all - when on the Izrukvruki website I finally filled everything “correctly” and grasped their Zen Buddhist captcha, the answer was - ... attention! ... "Timeout expired."

And then I found enlightenment! I realized that you just need to stop getting angry and instead of scolding lazy programmers to make such a service yourself and make it more convenient to existing ones:

1. Refuse registration.
Post an ad most of us falls out once a year. In this case, the problem of editing, deleting and managing ads in general can be solved through cookies. At worst, I give out a code for further access to the ads (in case of someone else’s computer). For regular customers, I will probably make the registration voluntary, but this is in the plans ...

2. Try to fit into one form.
Filled one form, sent - done!
Example: http://sepulka.ru/post

3. All validation checks, upload photos and videos to implement before submitting the form.

4. Make uploading photos convenient and unambiguous.
Those. - without reloading the form, without losing the fields loaded in case of invalid fields, etc. Plus - the possibility of cropping and photo rotation.
Example in the same place: http://sepulka.ru/post

5. Add a video.
Now it is a rarity, but even now, with meager attendance, there was a person who needed it.
The video is inserted simply by a link like http: // from youtube or rutube, an avatar is automatically generated.
Pay attention to the type of ads from the video: http://sepulka.ru/2487 , the combination of photos and videos when viewing. Conveniently?

6. For sections, such as passenger cars, apartments, pets, where you can use reference books (brand / model, district / subway, breed, etc.) provide special forms with a ready-made set of drop-down lists, checkmarks, etc. And load them dynamically, according to p.3. Moreover, when saving, the parameters will be remembered in the corresponding table (separate tables for cars, apartments, animals) for parametric search (for example, engine size from and to, distance from the metro is such). And the ad text will be formed from a template of textual parameters (for example, Volkswagen Golf III, 1992. 1.9 diesel, 3-door, heated seats ... - this is not hand typed, but selected from lists and checkboxes). This will contribute to the uniformity and quality of text search.

7. Automatic recalculation of prices to a common denominator.
The price can be entered in a currency of your choice and it will be recalculated (in rubles) for correct sorting and searching by price range. Here I have not had time to start automatic import of currency rates. I would be grateful for links to this account, all of a sudden you had to deal with this recently ... In general, there is something to think about with the price - for example, real estate: prices there are indicated both for meters and for hundreds. While I think, can this be reduced to a single figure.

8. Tag the ad
Tags are set at will by the user and plus the robot puts down for a specific heading a set of common tags. Well, for example, the announcement of the sale of a kitten ... The text may not meet the words kittens, pussy, cat, etc., but it would not be bad to find this ad for these words. That is what the robot will substitute. Now tags are not displayed, but are taken into account when searching.
9. Make a convenient search.
A simple text search in the entire text of the ad, taking into account tags and text representations of parameters (p.6). Plus a parametric search in difficult cases, for each rubric with its own set of parameters (for now for cars, apartments, dogs and cats). For example: sepulka.ru/supersearch/?filter%5Bsearch%5D=%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BA&filter_rubrica=117.0&filter%5Btab%5D=&sup.x=41&sup.y = 12
(I pass the parameters of the filters through GET is not casual - navigation back does not suffer, unlike POST and other nuances, although it is necessary to think about reducing the length of the line).

10. Convenient work with search results.
We add the necessary announcements to the notes, sort them haphazardly, print them out. You can connect to any generated filter (request) rss.

11. Comments on ads
Well, this is WebDvNoL :) And the spam-proof form of sending messages to the authors of ads on email.

This is all done. The site lives for two months, there were 2500 advertisements. What is nice, there are already regular visitors, although they probably do not understand that this is not a popular resource and the chance to search for their ads is not great. Although about a hundred people a day come from Yandex search for specific ads, so my conscience is clear - they find ads.

I would also like to combine in one place ads "Give a gift" and "Sell." I have not seen this on the above services. I know that there are many sites on the subject of “Give it up for nothing”, but limited to this and with a terrible search. (Yes, I’ll still have highlight in my search from day to day :)

The question of unloading KamAZ with money, as you understand, is not yet worth it. But I have already connected an SMS service for paying the ad to the top of the list and I have about 5 to 10 dollars a month. Well, what do you say? Where is it better to take the island? Pitfalls, danger? :)