The ridiculous Facebook login "social paywall" only applies to the front page and city pages. You can get around the site to some extent using "site:glio.com" + keywords on Google.
"The atmosphere itself is cool and they offer pcs for accessing the Internet, thus why it's highly visited by tourists. They offer sandwiches, coffee and alcoholic drinks. Unfortunately, you have to pay a fee to use the pc and R$10/hour to use wi-fi."
At least you know it's not a paid advert/comment just to get the site rolling.
As an aside, there really needs to be more places in Rio that offer free wi-fi and outlets. It's ridiculous how few places have either.
Also, R$10/hr (US$4.30/hr) to use wi-fi is really high, but we're talking about the posh Leblon, so...
Thanks a lot for the feedback -- we're still experimenting with the homepage.
Until a few weeks ago we were invite-only, and now we're going to test a few approaches and see what makes more sense to keep content quality high (that's why we require all users to be Facebook-authenticated) and at the same time make users happy.
I don't think that's a big deal in the US. I wonder how much penetration Facebook has in Brazil. Is it as popular as in the US? You could almost do a Bay Area focused review site which required FB/Twitter/hn/bitcoin/AWS and have enough users available to be viable, but I'm pretty sure in Russia or China you couldn't require Facebook and still be viable. I only have one Brazilian FB friend, but that seems more a limitation of my social circle than an indication of FB's Brazilian success.
Essentially, they say that Brazil is overall second in number of Facebook users and that as of March 35% of people are on the service (vs 50.76% in the US.) Unfortunately, the post doesn't explicitly say what the ranking is for the per capita percentage, which would be most interesting for this thread.
Also, they have almost doubled the number of users over a one year period (which started a little after Facebook surpassed Orkut [which has always been famous for having a huge Brazillian presence.])
From what I've seen of review sites, being moderately exclusive on review authors early on is totally fine; you just want to make sure Google/etc. can bring readers in.
The overwhelming majority of people who would leave reviews on Glio have Facebook accounts -- their penetration in Brazil is very high as jaredsohn said.
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Too bad they require a facebook account to even view their website...
The ridiculous Facebook login "social paywall" only applies to the front page and city pages. You can get around the site to some extent using "site:glio.com" + keywords on Google.
For example: http://glio.com/local/cafe-com-letras-leblon-rio-de-janeiro
The only review for it says,
"The atmosphere itself is cool and they offer pcs for accessing the Internet, thus why it's highly visited by tourists. They offer sandwiches, coffee and alcoholic drinks. Unfortunately, you have to pay a fee to use the pc and R$10/hour to use wi-fi."
At least you know it's not a paid advert/comment just to get the site rolling.
As an aside, there really needs to be more places in Rio that offer free wi-fi and outlets. It's ridiculous how few places have either.
Also, R$10/hr (US$4.30/hr) to use wi-fi is really high, but we're talking about the posh Leblon, so...
Wow they even copied the same white stars on orange squares/red squares used on Yelp. And use a red header. Seriously?
Thanks a lot for the feedback -- we're still experimenting with the homepage.
Until a few weeks ago we were invite-only, and now we're going to test a few approaches and see what makes more sense to keep content quality high (that's why we require all users to be Facebook-authenticated) and at the same time make users happy.
Thanks again.
I don't think that's a big deal in the US. I wonder how much penetration Facebook has in Brazil. Is it as popular as in the US? You could almost do a Bay Area focused review site which required FB/Twitter/hn/bitcoin/AWS and have enough users available to be viable, but I'm pretty sure in Russia or China you couldn't require Facebook and still be viable. I only have one Brazilian FB friend, but that seems more a limitation of my social circle than an indication of FB's Brazilian success.
There are a lot of interesting statistics on Brazil's Facebook usage here (http://www.quintly.com/blog/2013/03/facebook-country-statist...).
Essentially, they say that Brazil is overall second in number of Facebook users and that as of March 35% of people are on the service (vs 50.76% in the US.) Unfortunately, the post doesn't explicitly say what the ranking is for the per capita percentage, which would be most interesting for this thread.
Also, they have almost doubled the number of users over a one year period (which started a little after Facebook surpassed Orkut [which has always been famous for having a huge Brazillian presence.])
FB is pretty popular here...
But if I was planning to make a site for reviews, I would not be putting barriers just to view it...
disclaimer: I don't have a facebook account...
From what I've seen of review sites, being moderately exclusive on review authors early on is totally fine; you just want to make sure Google/etc. can bring readers in.
The overwhelming majority of people who would leave reviews on Glio have Facebook accounts -- their penetration in Brazil is very high as jaredsohn said.