The Reluctant Blogger

When I started building JobVent.com several years ago, I hadn’t done so much as a “Hello World” application in PHP. That paired with my lack of knowledge at the time concerning all things CSS led to what was declared by Techcrunch as a site “who’s layout and look screams 1996″.

Well, as much as I did enjoy the late ’90s (college was a blast), it was time to bring JobVent.com forward into the current decade. We’ve got divs, style sheets, even a bit of Ajax for good measure. Don’t worry. We didn’t go overboard. All the data is the same and the surveys haven’t changed. But the site is easier to navigate, read, and just looks better.

We kept the orange theme, despite all the comments against it. Why do people hate orange? It works for Dunkin’ Donuts.

So send any comments you may have about the new design. If you encounter any issues (as a lot of the underlying code changed as well) send them along.

A huge thanks goes to Greg at Raizlabs for help with the new design. Greg is a usability expert and his input on this project has been invaluable.
 

This is what you get when you google JobVent.com (6th link down or so)
http://www.getafreelancer.com/projects/Website-Design-Web-Promotion/quot-Clone-quot-JobVent-com.html

Not cool.

I received a pretty long email from a German freelance journalist today, asking very specific questions about JobVent. I gave her what I thought were succinct responses to each question; hopefully she goes ahead and writes the article. In German. Hey, any press is good press.

My (shortened) response to her follows:

Can you tell me, what was your motivation to do jobvent.com?

I started JobVent.com when I was very unhappy with my job. I regretted the decision I made to work there, and decided that there should be a site where people could read reviews about a company before they take a job.

When did you start running jobvent.com? How many rates and Companies are there till now?

JobVent.com started in the summer of 2004, and so far there are over 3,000 companies listed. Over 11,000 reviews have been written.

Did you ever get into some troubles if companies did not like the rating?

Companies may not like the ratings that appear on JobVent.com, but there are very few things a company can do to prevent people from voicing their opinions. We have been contacted many times by CEOs or other Executives who dispute the ratings and reviews on JobVent.com. Our only advice to them is to listen to what their employees are saying and use the feedback on JobVent.com to help improve their company.

Did you get any feedback of the users? What is their opinion so far?

Almost all of the feedback we get from users is positive: people love to vent their frustrations with their jobs. We get many emails every week thanking us for the service we’re providing.

Do you have an advice for an similar european page? Any no-gos?

Initially we wanted people to register their email before writing a review, so we could try to prevent abuse of the system. Unfortunately, when faced with registration, people are less likely to write a review; people want to remain anonymous, otherwise they feel their jobs are at risk. So my advice would be to leave the system open to anonymous postings.

This past Monday, the first print ads for JobVent.com appeared in the Boston Metro. This ad will run on Mondays for 4 weeks. Print ads are not cheap.

On Monday, when the ad appeared, there was no discernable difference in JobVent.com traffic, and I was a little dissapointed. The rest of the ads will run, but I am not expecting much. However, on Wednesday, traffic to JobVent.com was double what it normally is. It did not appear that traffic was spiking in Boston, so I have no idea if the bump in traffic is somehow related to the print ads in the Metro.

I guess we’ll see if there is the same pattern next week.

I understand that we live in an overly litigious society. I was also under the impression that to get to the position of CEO at a company, it took not only business acumen, but also a certain personal decorum; a level of niceness, if you will. Perhaps I was mistaken.

Today JobVent received the following email:

Dear Web Master,

Please delete this message immediately. I have copied my counsel on this.

http://www.jobvent.com/companyBrowse.php?CompanyID=XXXX

Patrick, please initiate defamation suit if this message is not deleted in 24 hours.

Patrick, as you have probably deduced, is the legal counsel hired by the company in question. JobVent received a follow up email from Patrick that said:

Please remove this immediately or suit will be filed against your site to enjoin the defamatory postings.

Ok, first I have a question about the note from the CEO. Where are your manners? Did no one ever teach you that if you want something you should ask nicely first? That’s all I ask. Trust me, we’re much more likely to want to remove a review that you find defamatory if you have not demanded something from us and then threatened us. Other companies whose HR departments or CEOs or even line or cubicle workers have contacted us in the past, politely pointed out a review that was questionable, and we were more than happy to remove it. But you’ve decided to threaten JobVent.com. Let me just say that the press and publicity that would result from a First Amendment and Communications Decency Act (pay close attention to Section 230) lawsuit would be far more beneficial to JobVent.com than to any company or individual that wishes to challenge the right of JobVent.com’s users to post their opinions in a public forum.

Secondly: that was a great note from your law firm. $600 well spent. For that kind of money you could have had one of these.

And 24 hours to respond to an email received on a Friday afternoon? Yes, we got the email. Buts it’s the summer. If we weren’t complete geeks at JobVent.com, constantly checking our email, we might have missed this email until after the weekend. Your demands are unreasonable.

Next time, just ask nicely.

So JobVent.com was recently profiled by TechCrunch. Not the most flattering review, but in the case of JobVent.com there’s no such thing as bad press. The TechCrunch review led to one being written by a Salon.com blogger, which was a little more forgiving.

A lot of the comments regarding JobVent.com were that the design is terrible. I’ll be the first one to admit that. I’m not a web designer. I’m a developer. But don’t get me wrong; in the development and maintenance of JobVent.com there has definitely been a design philosophy that we’ve kept to, and I think it has served us well. That philosophy has been: keep it simple.

No, JobVent does not look like your typical Web 2.0 style site. I do not use flashy icons that look like glossy 3-D buttons. JobVent is about information, and that is exactly what is presented: raw, un-edited information provided by JobVent.com visitors. I’ll want to eventually update the design to make it appealing to a broader audience, but 1) my own design skills are somewhat lacking to make this a reality 2) JobVent.com doesn’t exactly earn enough in ad revenue to support even the smallest of redesign contracts 3) I’m incredibly busy with other stuff right now such as PicMe

The design shouldn’t be an issue anyway: look at Craigslist.com. I tried to use pretty much the same design elements as Craigslist when I initially put JobVent.com online: simple text based links to accomplish everything you want on the site. And you know what? It works. There are thousands of reviews about thousands of companies on the site; if JobVent.com were designed truly poorly, the site wouldn’t have the needed to functionality to obtain all those reviews from non-technical users all over the internet.

On the competitive front, the listing by TechCrunch and Salon.com helped traffic. A lot. For about 2 days. Traffic is still a little higher than normal, but for 2 days or so we had about 3 times as much as our usual traffic. I actually thought a listing like that would have resulted in more, but Google analytics tells me otherwise.

Ok, so I haven’t mentioned it yet in this version of the blog, but I run a site called JobVent.com. Over the last two years it has gotten rather popular; current statistics show that thousands of people are finding the site every day. Its been in the media, and now copycats have started to show up. None of them (aside from the exact copy in Bulgaria) offer the same level of organization and anonymity that JobVent.com offers, but as they say, plagerism is the most sincere form of flattery.

Somehow I find it difficult to be greatful for the flattery.

JobVent.com really does’t make much money; in fact the only revenue stream is from google ad placement and limited direct ad sales. Its just enough to keep me interested enough to keep the site running, but its far from being anything like a salary. Its a hobby, which now, because of copycats who want an easy buck or two from adsense, I have to defend. Now I have to divert funds that the site generates back into keyword purchases on adwords such as “I hate my job” and things like that which will help people find JobVent. Not that it matters. JobVent has actually gotten to the point where more people are finding the site on google by typing in “jobvent”. Ahhh, name recognition.