UnAnchor.Com Launch – Your Assistance Is Requested
by Jason -- April 28, 2010
Over 2 months ago now, I revealed my intention to build UnAnchor.com — a platform for writers to create travel itineraries. I think of it as an “App Store” for travel itineraries.
After many hours holed up in our Seoul apartment, I am ready to begin launching the site and I need your help to do so.
I’d like your help in testing out the site. This will only take a couple minutes of your time and will be an enormous help to me.
Head over to http://www.UnAnchor.com and please consider the following while using the site:
- If the homepage was the first time you had ever heard of UnAnchor, does it explain the site well enough? What recommendations do you have to grab and explain the site to users?
- The “About-Us”, “Become A Writer”, “Itinerary Recommendations”, are they clear?
- Create an Itinerary (you’ll need to create an account to do so) – What could be clearer in this process? Do all of the places to input the itinerary make sense? Can you find help if needed?
If you have any other feedback on the site, please let me know. You can do so by leaving a comment below, emailing me at Jason [at] LifeAfterCubes.Com or using the Contact form.
Final note - purchasing an itinerary will not actually charge your credit card yet.
As always, thanks for your support!
Be awesome and help us share:
I will check it out! Since something like that will help for the honeymoon! btw, is sharon checking her emails? My mom is trying to contact her to let her know of her arrival into korea in a few weeks
I like the simple layout but I think the homepage needs a tagline or something to make it a bit clearer. If it were my first time I’d be intrigued but not 100% sure how things work.
I like the about us, (very clear) but a screen shot there would go a long way. I created a test itinerary and after it was done, then it clicked in my head, so again maybe a screen shot of a completed itinerary would be useful.
Very intriguing concept though, hope the feedback helps. Good luck and looking forward to seeing it evolve.
Hi Jason,
I just took a quick look at UnAnchor.com. Basically I like it (although I didn’t go through the process of setting up an account or ordering an itinerary)! A few thoughts about finding itineraries, though. Your current search/browse functionality is ok while the available itineraries are small. As the number grows, though, it’s going to be a problem. In particular, the search box is too generic - it is searching the whole site for anything. I would recommend making it more focused - for example, a search for a country should return a list of all itineraries that include that country (and only one entry for each). Right now you have one itinerary. A search for Cambodia gives 2 results and a search for Siem Reap gives 3. I suggest including a tagging system that has itinerary creators tag an itinerary for each country, city, type of site/activity, length, etc. that the itinerary includes, then allow users to search or browse based on those tags (e.g. show me all itineraries that include temples in Cambodia). You are going to want the browse itineraries pages to have some kind of organization so that people don’t just have to scroll through an endless list itineraries. You could leverage the tags for this (browse/filter by country, activity, length, etc.). Maybe also include an “inspire me” feature that will just present a random list of 10-ish itineraries.
You may want to include a ratings/comments system so users can give feedback on how much they liked a given itinerary (you could also use that feedback to generate overall ratings for contributors). Also, you may want to link this in to FB and other social media.
Probably not right away, but down the road if this is successful you may want a recommendation system (if you enjoyed this trip you might also like…”).
Hope these ideas help!
Best,
Dorrit
Hi Jason - I really like this idea. I would use a site like this if I could ever get away (time & money constraints - always!). What I think is a great value is that you call out the best ways to save money either through transportation / avoiding tour groups / areas that can be missed, etc. Great stuff!
Nice site! I like that it’s nice and clean and streamlined, and it’s a cool idea.
I guess I’m a little confused on what you’re actually buying — is it a text document? A PDF? Some kind of app? Maybe you could explain that part more on the site. I also agree with the rating/recommendation system, that’d be really useful.
Good luck!!
Thank you very much for the feedback!!
Holly — I let her know, we’ve booked her a flight to Jeju Island.
Anil - I agree, the more I’ve been showing it to people, the more I realize I need to do a better job explaining what it is. I think a tagline is a great idea. I’m glad it did click for you once you actually created an itinerary.
Dorrit - You’re awesome! The tags are a great idea. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can organize the site as it grows, and I think this is a good route to take. As an aside, the search engine, in the future, should not show duplicate results (Google needs to flush it’s cache of my pages). And the ratings/comments system is definitely coming! I’m planning on this being a significant part of the site. Good call on the social media as well, I’ve been also thinking how I can integrate FB and Twitter to help itinerary writers to share their itineraries (as well as purchasers, to tell their friends where they’re going). Thank you again for the feedback, extremely helpful!
Krista - Thanks for checking it out! I hope you can find some time to get away!
Lucy - Thank you! Great questions — this goes back to Anil’s point of me needing to do a better job explaining the site. You’re buying a PDF/web document, that will hopefully also include some maps (if the itinerary writer chooses to put them in there). The idea is for a few bucks, to save you all of the time researching what to do and how to get around your next travel destination. (Like purchasing a Lonely Planet — but hopefully better and much more specific). Thank you again for the feedback!
Hi Jason,
Great site. Looking forward to its success.
I placed an itinerary on unanchor…had a couple of missteps…but it could have been me. When I wanted to edit, it sent me to a 404 page. Not sure why. As I was typing, all the fonts were the same but at the review they were not. Other suggestions…for misspellings of UnAnchor I suggest redirects for at least two…like unAchor and Unankor. Have a map of the world so people can narrow down their requests. A livelier landing page would be helpful, more color backpacking caricatures or families riding in busses or trains having a great time. Oh, when signing in…perhaps add FORGOT YOUR EMAIL? because these days individuals have at least two.
Oh, my entry includes a one day very busy trip to Sacramento/Folsom…not sure anyone would buy that.
Talk to you this weekend?
[...] started Unanchor.com over a year ago. We’re a marketplace of self-guided tour itineraries that are [...]