When I started the development of the beyond EVE platform in March 2017, I had still not recovered from the election results in the USA and had just seen the YouTube video of Alexander Nix at the Concordia Summit in New York…
I was outraged, by the speaker, but much more by the audience, which apparently likes to use such manipulation tools to boost their own agenda. Oil Industries, the pharmaceutical industry, the agricultural sector - every multinational company that has opted for the preservation of its own economic model and against any alternative solutions over the last 50 years. Even though ‘The Limits of Growth’ of the Club of Rome were already known. There are plenty of great ideas out there, but they fail again and again (for decades) because of this lobby.
- But now finaly is the time and the chance to convince the universities, research institutes, NGOs and the thousands initiatives in every country to leave Facebook and Co. (I know it’s tough) Because what do these organizations want: contacts, involvement, publicity, participation and discussions in real life.For this it should not be necessary that each individual addresses the web users, but it should be enough to sort by topics, target groups and industries. Furthermore, there are still professional articles available that offer more in-depth information. The global problems are huge, and cannot be solved with #hashtags.
But first the distribution of relevant information has to be solved, this community has the key to that.
I hope you like the idea. I have some more ideas for the next expansion stages for those who are interested. Because I am looking for people to join me, the performance has to be changed. The frontend has to be adapted, the database structure has to be rebuilt. Further languages have to be added.
In the issue 01/2019 of the German Data Protection Association I wrote even more about the background of this project. The complete edition in German and the english translation of the article can be found on my LinkedIn page.
I am looking forward to your feedback and I hope in some years I am in another city and have the chance to meet other people at an event with just 5 minutes on my plattform. - I want my Time and my Data back.
Katrin
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Thanks for posting @Katrin. Some quick feedback of mine regarding the website:
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Most important: Your landing page does not clearly communicate what makes BE special. The intro text with ‘goal-oriented platform’ and ‘specially designed search function that organises, connects and enables. The unique search pattern makes the different perspectives visible’ provides no clarity. The video has some more explanation (e.g. ‘break filter bubble’), but I should not have to watch it. It is unclear what your social features are, and why I should register/sign up to the platform (this information should not just be shown after clicking ‘account’). The slogan ‘More than one network’ is also not clear… are you a conglomeration of networks? How does that work?
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Your search results have a card layout. The cards are mostly empty (title-only, sometimes organization name or logo), and only when hovering the mouse are details shown. I’d change this so details are immediately visible.
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The ‘accept cookies’ bar covers the footer where important information on who you are resides, plus where the privacy policy link (I would rename ‘Data protection’ to ‘Privacy policy’). The cookie bar message implies that reading further on your site automatically results in consent to the cookies. As privacy-minded person I would normally not click any page due to that.
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You use Google Analytics, which is the most prominent tracker there is. At the same time your site seems to be targeted more to professionals. Keep in mind that in that audience you’ll find more ad-blockers and people blocking GA (like me), which you don’t measure in analytics. You can consider using a more privacy-friendly, self-hosted analytics tool.
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In 6.2 of your privacy policy you mention ‘payment method’. From your site it is not clear what the role of paid services is. You should be transparent on your business model, mission/vision/goals. I think your site should have an /overview/about page or something where you introduce your organization (your ‘Information’ and ‘Contact’ pages are not enough here). Edit: Only after reading Terms & Conditions I see you have ‘paid profiles’ and you consider your signed up users as Customers.
I have some more ideas for the next expansion stages for those who are interested. Because I am looking for people to join me, the performance has to be changed. The frontend has to be adapted, the database structure has to be rebuilt. Further languages have to be added.
Why not add a Roadmap page to the site, and ask for help there? You ask for help as a commercial entity. Do you have job openings? Or do you want to become a more open platform? Open source/core? Open content licensing?
Thanks Arnold @aschrijver for the very fast, thorough and precise helpful answer. I will take up all topics and come back with appropriate additions.
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Good day Katrin,
I am a novice when it comes to developing apps but I think I understand the concept you are going for and really like it. From what I can tell, it appears to be more focused on profesionals and businesses like Linkedin. I really like the efficiency model you put forward and find it quite enticing. It looks like it will be a much faster way to attain better targeted information to the user.
Best,
Jason
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