Black This Out Moneybomb Beta Launch!

[dusman]

It doesn't say our Goal is to get 1 million pledges on the site anymore.

Eh, simply because 1 million pledges is an unrealistic goal at this point. Don't get me wrong, WE CAN get there.. but the groundwork isn't laid for that to happen just yet. To get a million pledges, we need a considerably larger base, a much longer time frame, and much better marketing initiatives behind it. I'm pretty sure Ron Paul has about 2-3 million supporters, but only a fraction of those people actually donate.

My thought on this is, if we focus on 1 million.. we'll get overzealous and not do the little things that get us 1 or 2 at a time, thinking that it doesn't do enough to get us there. That approach will then stifle us even getting to 50,000 pledges. It's those small little influences that get us there and where we should focus our efforts. Bear in mind in Dec. 07 we had a historical day of $6million raised, but we did it with only about 60,000 donations.

1 million translates to about 15,000 pledges every day for the next two months. That is quite a task. However, there is a lot of effort to get there!

 

[TexMac]

Hm, I had to SCROLL DOWN to find the pledge thingy. Also, don't you think the header should be "Black THIS Out" instead of "BLACK this out"

 

[Steve-in-NY]

Well done! I pledged.

 

[dusman]

Hm, I had to SCROLL DOWN to find the pledge thingy. Also, don't you think the header should be "Black THIS Out" instead of "BLACK this out"

Don't worry, we are going to do A/B testing on the pledge form to see where it works best. As for the logo, I'm there with you on that.. and have been thinking about changing it. I'll make some variations and get a consensus before going all out on marketing materials.

 

[TexMac]

OK, thanks for all your hard work.

 

[ItsTime]

Looks good, suggestion would be put the pledge box where the video is and the video where the pledge box is. Also will there be a map showing 'pins' where all the pledges are coming from? I think that will set this moneybomb over the top.


Edit: missed this

Don't worry, we are going to do A/B testing on the pledge form to see where it works best. As for the logo, I'm there with you on that.. and have been thinking about changing it. I'll make some variations and get a consensus before going all out on marketing materials.

Good idea.

 

[ItsTime]

Also need the disclaimer and privacy statements on the bottom.

 

[bluesc]

Wow. The site looks awesome. Good job!

 

[LinuxJedi]

I think that it might be a good idea to show how much everyone has pledged so far (in total), or how much each person would have to contribute to reach that goal. It might be a good idea to have a ticker for pledges, even, just so that people can get satisfaction from seeing that number go up.

 

[dusman]

I think that it might be a good idea to show how much everyone has pledged so far (in total), or how much each person would have to contribute to reach that goal. It might be a good idea to have a ticker for pledges, even, just so that people can get satisfaction from seeing that number go up.

We intend to launch that kind of functionality. We may also feature stories of media bias and allow each one to accept pledges to "protest" bad journalism. In this way, we can keep track of how much pledged money is raised from these stories and thank those authors for their bias... which raised x amount of dollars for the Ron Paul campaign.

 

[PastaRocket848]

i'm going to be sending the .csv of the existing pledges to jack once i get home tonight. you should have them in your email this evening. no need for people to re-pledge.

 

[dusman]

i'm going to be sending the .csv of the existing pledges to jack once i get home tonight. you should have them in your email this evening. no need for people to re-pledge.

Awesome. Thanks!

 

[teacherone]

the slider looks like a donation thermometer or a ticker!i thought that only 0 was pledged and that there was no way to enter a pledge amount into the field.i would definitely change this - i recommend a standard text box to enter the pledge amount which automatically updates the ticker/ thermometer.very confusing as it stands...but amazing design!

 

[dusman]

the slider looks like a donation thermometer or a ticker!i thought that only 0 was pledged and that there was no way to enter a pledge amount into the field.i would definitely change this - i recommend a standard text box to enter the pledge amount which automatically updates the ticker/ thermometer.very confusing as it stands...but amazing design!

The challenge is standardizing the input, so that we can automate the process of collecting the database info and getting an accurate pledge/total count.

We could do a standard input, but that raises some odd issues if they enter it incorrectly (validation measures would reload page with an error message/throw a popup alert.. some might enter extra 0s or miss that they pledged the wrong amount) and could lead to some drop-off or distortion in the totals. We could put in radio options (like ronpaul2012.com donations), but that is ugly and limits flexibility. A dropdown menu is probably the next best alternative, but that leaves 250 options to scroll through if going by $10 increments.

With that in mind, I am pretty convinced a slider is the best solution available. However, I definitely see what you mean that it might be confusing and I have started to put measures in place (like the "Slide It" text) to clarify the functionality.

I completely agree it could use some work and I'm open to suggestions on how to make a slider make more sense here. I put that together pretty quickly, so it has by no means been fully vetted as far as usability is concerned.

I'm most interested in the perspectives of those people, like you, who found it confusing.

Since the point of this thread is to fix all these issues, I'd love to hear some opinions on the verbiage and how it can be adjusted to not be confused with any other purpose. This is most important, because once a final consensus has been reached, this will be converted into a widget and shared across the web to allow multiple points of pledging that may span many, many web sites.

Thanks for the input.

 

[parocks]

Don't worry, we are going to do A/B testing on the pledge form to see where it works best. As for the logo, I'm there with you on that.. and have been thinking about changing it. I'll make some variations and get a consensus before going all out on marketing materials.

I prefer Black THIS out.

 

[dusman]

I prefer Black THIS out.

Yep, reworking this.

 

[PastaRocket848]

Use Rails! No seriously I'm a rails fanboy but everything you just mentioned can be done in a few lines of ror.

 

[Paul4Prez]

A dropdown menu is probably the next best alternative, but that leaves 250 options to scroll through if going by $10 increments.

Use a dropdown menu, and limit it to a few choices: 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, 2500. People are still free of course to donate more, but those are pretty standard increments. You could even word it like "I pledge to donate AT LEAST...." and then the dropdown.

The slider is cool, but it makes people feel poor and unwanted if they can only donate one or two percent of the max, even though 20 and 50 dollar donations are what most people can give, and they can really add up.

 

[parocks]

The challenge is standardizing the input, so that we can automate the process of collecting the database info and getting an accurate pledge/total count.

We could do a standard input, but that raises some odd issues if they enter it incorrectly (validation measures would reload page with an error message/throw a popup alert.. some might enter extra 0s or miss that they pledged the wrong amount) and could lead to some drop-off or distortion in the totals. We could put in radio options (like ronpaul2012.com donations), but that is ugly and limits flexibility. A dropdown menu is probably the next best alternative, but that leaves 250 options to scroll through if going by $10 increments.

With that in mind, I am pretty convinced a slider is the best solution available. However, I definitely see what you mean that it might be confusing and I have started to put measures in place (like the "Slide It" text) to clarify the functionality.

I completely agree it could use some work and I'm open to suggestions on how to make a slider make more sense here. I put that together pretty quickly, so it has by no means been fully vetted as far as usability is concerned.

I'm most interested in the perspectives of those people, like you, who found it confusing.

Since the point of this thread is to fix all these issues, I'd love to hear some opinions on the verbiage and how it can be adjusted to not be confused with any other purpose. This is most important, because once a final consensus has been reached, this will be converted into a widget and shared across the web to allow multiple points of pledging that may span many, many web sites.

Thanks for the input.

you might consider the words "pledge slider" or "amount slider" in the "make a pledge" font right below the slider on the left. slightly larger than the text below it, in the
same color as "make a pledge" You might want to use those pixels for something else that you're adding in later. That's a place where the various facebook twitter etc etc etc shares and likes and tweets seem to go. - take a look at the revolution pacs superbomb page for various code you can drop in there.

 

[Monique]

Great news. When I started with a facebook account 4 days ago, there was a website for this money bomb and 57 people were attending. Now it is up to 368 and rising. I send out around 300 invites a day. Here is the page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=224265770952480. Make sure you go over there and click attend too.

I adore the new BlackThisOUt website!!! Kudos!!!! A+++++ work. I will be sending out that link to everyone I can too. lol...In only 3 days I have
so many friends I can't keep track. I get about 50 new Ron Paul friends a day.

I will continue to work on this. I will push it more right now and see how many attendees I can get.

Oh, I can feel this. This is going to freakin' huge!!!!!!

It is sooo early and we have people already getting excited!! I know I am.

Go Ron Go!!!!!