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Heads-up fellow hosts. After some delays, we were finally verified and listed on wegolightly. Their search engine and site are still very immature.
A major issue is they do not support map search at all. Every other site supports “search as I move map around”. So, unless there is a listing in the exact town of your search, it may not show up at all. If one does a “search by state” that works - but people are not going to do that and will have no idea of this limitation.
They are currently still under 700 members and very few hosts.
Also, when you create a listing, you need to add your photos one at a time in the exact order you want them displayed. There is no way to reorder them afterwards. Unless, you delete photos and then re-add manually one at a time.
Photos do not support descriptions.
It may be successful over time, but they did not plan site functionality correctly, and need to fix a number of things for this to really work.
Please don’t shoot the messenger - just letting you folks know about the current limitations.
Right now, this will probably only work for hosts who have a listing in a major city (new york, etc). If you have a place just outside the city, it probably won’t show up at all.
If I remember correctly, you signed up before they went live on Mon/Tue - we signed up after the heads-up here and got the email about a week later. They seem to be understaffed and were not “prepared for success”. Not a great combo when they got the free publicity.
There are very few listings. In the last 2 weeks, none were added in NYC or greater Philadelphia.
Our listing does not show up in Philly, though we are 20 miles away. We asked them to fix it 2 weeks ago.
The 3 Philly stays are the same host with 100% Vacancy. No bookings at all. I did not check NYC to compare.
IMO, if your stay is not in a major city or very popular search term, it probably won’t get noticed at all - assuming anyone is actually trying to book with them.
Here is the really bad part. Their design and usability have actually gotten worse.
They added “search as I move the map” (my request)
They screwed it up - it is NOT enabled by default
When enabled, it often does not work
It resets to Off on page refresh! Are you kidding?!
Frankly, this is the type of stuff that often results when non-professionals are allowed to work on a site: “neighbor’s kid”, daughter or son who is “studying tech”, cousin, niece, nephew, etc.
I see this a lot. Also, when a startup hires the “computer science person who’s so smart” yet doesn’t understand usability, business practices, basic functionality. I have hired those independent contractors and have spent hours fixing their mistakes. Yes, they graduated with high marks from CalTech (or wherever) but they can’t plan a site to save their lives.
I got a call from them a few days ago confirming that I am a real person. I haven’t activated my account yet, but plan to when I get a moment. Definitely start-up glitches, and I’m unlikely to get any bookings…but I do like to support Air alternatives, since apparently Air is apt to shut me down randomly in the future.
Yes, high marks from wherever count for zero against good, solid industry experience. When I did my MSc in GUI design, the gulf between those who had actually worked versus those who were on the course as a follow on from their BSc’s was marked. They had no concept of how things work in the great world outside of academia.
At the start, the young whizz kids looked at us oldies as folks there just to make up the numbers. By the end of the first semester the penny dropped I think, oldies = guys with years of experience and a deep understanding of the main concepts of GUI design. I didn’t have much spare time to help anyone else out, but I know a few guys got a lot of beers in payment for their “advice”.
Generally speaking, many start ups make the same mistake. They hire the guys who’ve good academic CV’s, but are light on industry experience. This is usually a cost issue, as good help doesn’t come cheap. The irony is that if they’d gone for experience to begin with, subsequent hires wouldn’t have to spend so much time revamping the original work.
This after they’d called me 6 months prior and thought I was “too expensive”:
“I spent $2,000 with xyz because he’s a hot shot from USC. My site’s not finished and I’m out of money. Can you fix this for $500?”
Me: “We gave you an estimate 6 months ago that was accurate at the time for your business needs. That estimate needs to be revisited as your deliverables and business needs may have changed. While we won’t take on a failed developer’s code, we stand by our estimate on the costs of getting your company off the ground.”
This kills me every time. “But they’re young! They’re hip and up on social media!” Yeah, I’ve been doing social media since they were in diapers so all those years of keeping current count for nothing?
That strikes a chord with me. From 2003 I worked out of Istanbul and Turkish law firms are notoriously tight with money when it comes to marketing and IT. Over the years there’s a few I’ve quoted for who have come back a few months later and said similar. Usually they’ve got their in house IT guy to have a go, and some even made the site live! Never seen one yet that was Usable, worked across all devices or was secure.
Now, all I have to worry about is clean lavvies and floors
