Wow it’s been a while!

I just realized from Bo Bang’s comment that it has been almost a month since I last posted! I have been working hard lately on StartXchange, my traffic exchange. It’s been running since 2001 and I decided to give it a new logo and clean up the members area so new users can find their ways around easier.

StartXchange has 14,567 members as of right now, and many of them have been posting in the forum. So far there are 1,591 posts in the forum and every day a couple more members take the chance to introduce themselves in the forum.

In a survey I did fairly recently, some are already members of many other forums and find it hard enough to manage time when you can get sucked in so easily. Even more interesting is most members didn’t feel they knew enough to be of any use if they were to post in the forum.

Well folks, that just isn’t true! If only the experienced members were to post in the forum, then two things would happen: New members wouldn’t be able to participate and learn how to use StartXchange effectively, making them members who’ve been around but are still “new”. And I would only get input from the experienced members, most likely making new features more confusing or harder used for less experienced members.

Point Proven: In a thread about a possible StartXchange Banner Exchange an experienced user told me she wouldnt use the feature. However 3 newer members said they thought it was a good idea! If they didn’t post their opinion, I wouldn’t be planning how I’m going to create it!

You see Pat already uses other banner exchanges because she has been online for quite some time. So she figures she most likely won’t go around replacing all the banners that are already up. The newer members on the other hand, might not be members of other banner exchanges and think “Hey! That’s a great idea!”.

So in closing: Go update your StartXchange forum profile to include your name and photo, and then introduce yourself. Then browse the forum and give us your thoughts! Every member comes with their own background and offline talents so every member will have a different way of thinking about something. New minds bring new ideas!