Having problems with message search?
It seems to me that they are really shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak. They have discouraged people from coming to the site by making it more difficult than it already was. That means less people will be seeing their ads.
I like the posts coming directly to me via e-mail. With the old IVillage, I would forget to check in when I was busy with my life and lose track of what was going on. When they come directly into my e-mail I see them and I stay connected. That is really what is important. When you have a hearing loss, not feeling connected is common. I like e-mail and instant messages for just that reason, you can stay connected and not feel like you might have missed something someone said.
Dodie
----- Original Message ----
From: tina blue <tblue37@...>
To: deafnessandhearingloss@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 1, 2007 11:00:34 AM
Subject: Re: [deafnessandhearingloss] Re: Well, it's finally closing
Tina Blue <tblue37@yahoo. com> wrote:
Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles.
Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center.
From: tina blue <tblue37@...>
To: deafnessandhearingloss@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 1, 2007 11:00:34 AM
Subject: Re: [deafnessandhearingloss] Re: Well, it's finally closing
Well,
I finally checked out iVillage "Connect." It is very "busy" and rather counterintuitive for navigating (as is typical of iVillage functions). The blog posts are essentially the same as what used to be message board posts, only the set-up makes responding more complicated and thus less likely to happen. Also, I couldn't tell whether one had to pay for membership to respond to blog posts (or actually whether comments were even possible). Very confusing.
It seems to me that people who previously would have posted a message on the board are now isolated, posting their comments and questions in their own separate blogs and hoping someone finds them and responds to them. It is not a good way to build a community or a support group. It is sort of like carrying on a conversation in an empty room and hoping someone stops by at a lucky moment and thus hears what you say before your remark disappears into the ether.
For a long time after the dust-up on the old board that led to the founding of this Yahoo group, the activity on the iVillage board consisted of nothing but cl's from other boards posting congratulatory messages back and forth to each other. I think that isolating posters in blogs on "Connect" is going to do the same thing. The cl's will visit each other's blogs and comment back and forth. But the whole point of a special topics community like ours was that we weren't just people who had being cl's in common, but people who had being deaf/HoH in common (except for Dawn, of course--but she still had deafness in common with us, just not her own deafness).
It seems counterproductive to me that iVillage drives away regular posters to create a small, insulated group of people who have only their iVillage connection in common. Sure, they want people paying for premium membership, but they also derive revenue from ads, and driving away all the eyeballs like ours is counterproductive, even if we are not paying for a premium membership.
It is all very sad. The community probably never would have faded away in the first place if they had not made it so complicated and time-consuming to use the board. Of course, the time-consuming part was also probably on purpose, too, since it forced users' "eyeballs" to stay on site longer, and thus to be more likely to notice and click on the ads. At least that was probably their idea. But when people are struggling with a slow, complicated, recalcitrant site, they are less likely, not more so, to take the time to click away from a page to explore the contents of an ad.
Tina Blue <tblue37@yahoo. com> wrote:
I did post one final message on iVillage: a link to an interesting article in our local newspaper about the growth in the hearing aid market as Baby Boomers age along with their Rock 'n Roll blasted ears:I am wondering whether to invite "purplecrab" to join us here. Last time I tried to invite one of the people who hang out on iVillage, she narced on me and Cindi threatened to have me banned from the site. It seems that since the board is closing anyway, it shouldn't matter if I get banned from the site, but I just don't like the whole slap-in-the- face feeling when I try to do something nice for someone.What do you think? Should I try to invite her? Or is it better to leave well enough alone?I mentioned in my previous post that I hate having to hit the bookmark twice to get it to take me to the deaf board. The first time always takes me to an error page. That happens also when I get an email notification about a response to a message I have posted. I hit the link, and the first time always takes me to an error page so I have to hit it again.But another thing I very much like about this Yahoo board is the option of having the messages sent directly to my email account, either individually or in digest form, and also the option of responding directly from my email account. It saves so much time not having to go to the site (and trying it twice anyway, since the first attempt takes me to the error page). Of course, that is part of the point--iVillage wants us to be exposed to their ads, so letting us answer from our email accounts would never work.But iVillage got very inconvenient when it added all its bells and whistles. They figured they could force us to pay for the premium membership simply by making it such an inconvenient pain in the neck to try to navigate the message board threads. I hated having to hit on message at a time and wait for it to load, and I hated having to use preview, edit, preview, edit to post and edit comments. Their format is probably the most time-consuming, frustrating, and inconvenient I have ever encountered, and I post pretty regularly on a number of message boards.When they had a simple format, where we could see everything at once and post easily, ours was a hopping little community. But they made it too difficult to use, and many of our regular members were either never or seldom able to sign on, and the ones that could found it too time-consuming, especially when they had dial-ups. Then they blamed us for not posting enough. Sheesh!I am still waiting to hear back from Voc Rehab about whether they can help me locate some funding to help pay for my much needed new hearing aids. I doubt they will. I will have to find a way to do it myself, but unfortunately, that will be hard. Both my (adult) kids are still in need of financial help from me, so I try to maintain enough liquidity to come through for them in an emergency. Also, about 1/3 of my income is from self-employment, and I get seriously nailed on taxes because of that. (I pay 40% in taxes on every penny I earn as a self-employed freelancer. Ouch.) That means I have to save several thousand dollars out of what I earn each year just to pay my taxes in April. I don't really think I will be able to manage $3500-$4000 for hearing aids this year--unless the accountant says I can take it as a deducton enxt year, in which case it would definitely be worth it.BTW, one thing that article I just linked points out is that the mark-up on hearing aids sold by audiologists is approximately 100%.Oh, and do try the rich text editor--we can now format our messges on this board--YAY!
It is in beta, though, so it's not perfect. For example, what you probably will see as boldface font in this message was suppsoed to be italics, but the preview showed it as boldface(though maybe when I post it will go back to italics).--Tina
--- In deafnessandhearingl oss@yahoogroups. com, Doreen Pettipas <dodiepettipas@ ...> wrote:
>
> I haven't been to the I-Village page in a long time. My main reasons for not logging in were that it loads really slow on my dial-up connection. Then when it is loaded, it is difficult to move around in. I like to see all of one thread of conversation on one page. With dial-up, waiting for each individual message to load takes forever. I also had problems with my link. I would click on my link in my bookmarks and sometimes it would take me right to the group page, but sometimes it would take me to I-Village's home page and I had trouble finding the group page.
>
> I am glad it was there when I first started out. I met many great people there, but I really like the Yahoo group set up much better. I don't have any problems getting to where I need to be. The pages load quicker and I can see all the messages I want to without waiting forever.
>
> I would like to see more activity here, but I am as guilty as everyone else. I think we are just all really busy right now.
>
> Dodie
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: tina blue tblue37@...
> To: deafnessandhearingl oss@yahoogroups. com
> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 7:43:22 AM
> Subject: Re: [deafnessandhearing loss] Well, it's finally closing
>
> Oh, well--we still have our Yahoo board, so we can keep in touch.
>
> The whole iVillage thing is a bit of a pain anyway. For example, whenever I use my bookmark or click the link from response notificaton emails, I get an error page the first time and have to reclick. My Linda sister won't even go there any more because of the relentless pop-up ads on which it is hard to find an "x" to get out of. Laura, one of the board's founders, can't even get onto the iVillage board. I will continue to advertise our Yahoo board on my deaf site, so that people who want a community can still find us here.
>
> I have never liked the control-freak, exploitative aspects of iVillage, and I only returned to posting there because that is where most of our people were.
>
>
>
>
>
> Braillesign@ aol.com wrote:
> The iVillage DHH board is going "read-only" as of August 1st. Interestingly enough, they refer you to the blog thing (iConnect), which has 4 whole members...
>
> good googly moogly...
>
> Dawn
>
> Takes two to tango, and if one doesn't want to dance no sense whirling across the room."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com.
>
>
>
>
> http://www.grammart ips.homestead. com/index. html
>
>
> Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news, photos more.
>
http://www.grammart ips.homestead. com/index. html
Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles.
Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center.
Offline 
Send Email