Zoom Meeting With Simily Founders
Simily’s future is revealed.
After meeting with Simily’s founders last week, I have a better understanding of their goals and business strategy.
I met with Shannon O’Neill, Allegra O’Neill, and Katie Wilson. Their willingness to listen to criticism changed my opinion of them. And they weren’t defensive either, which was a good sign.
We discussed their present situation and behind-the-scenes activities with the Simily platform. I learned about their plans for improvements to make Simily a platform that will serve both readers and authors well.
As a systems analyst, I can be tough on people when I see problems. They were pleased to hear my criticism. Shannon even said she knew how crucial it is for them to hear the types of harsh feedback I had written about in my prior reviews of Simily. Allegra was taking notes as we discussed the issues so they could follow up on the bugs and my suggestions.
They clearly appreciate the feedback and seek more of it, which is why they have scheduled several Zoom meetings to talk with Simily users person to person.
I organized the rest of this article into sections to create a logical representation of what I learned from our discussions during our Zoom meeting.
Leaving WordPress for Something Better
I’ll mention this first because it’s the most crucial for the ultimate plan to achieve a well-designed platform for readers and authors. They don’t want to put too much money into development on WordPress since they plan to switch to a better software platform anyway.
I don’t blame them. I think it’s an excellent business strategy to apply the resources where they will have the most significance.
However, there are three things they realize need to be fixed while still using WordPress.
- One crucial item I brought up, and they agreed with, is to resolve the issue of our five free views getting used up writing and proofreading our own stories. It’s a WordPress issue, so it will take time to resolve. But I’m glad they have it on the current to-do list.
- Another WordPress issue they have been trying to fix is to show our followers rather than all users when we click MORE under the brief list of followers.
- I mentioned that the notification emails should not indicate “WordPress” as the sender because people might ignore those thinking it’s spam. Shannon was glad to have that feedback and mentioned that they would work on that. She might already have a solution.
Hiring a Chief Technology Officer
Many of the known problems are due to the inferior WordPress backbone. The ultimate plan is to drop the use of WordPress and move to a professional platform. However, that will take time since they first need to get to a profitable stage to cover the cost of such a system.
Nevertheless, they have already interviewed people for a CTO position to manage the business development and are already considering someone they found who has experience managing user-generated content sites.
They have plans to focus on building a backbone for reader statistics. That will help authors learn which of their stories attracted the best engagement by readers.
The Correct Details About Payments for External Views
The information on the website under “How it Works” says they pay for paid and free subscriber views, but other people were arguing that they also pay for external views. So, I asked for clarification since I may have misinterpreted that statement, and I need to correct it in my other review articles if I’m wrong.
As it turns out, Shannon thanked me for mentioning that, and she said she would need to correct the description on the site because the fact is that they do indeed include external views for payments at this time.
They plan to change that to pay based on read-time, similar to Medium’s method, and only from paid subscribers. But that will only happen when they have enough subscriber income to cover that.
So, for now, and what I find impressive, is that they will pay authors from their own resources. And I know that at least one of my followers has already received her first payout. And she didn’t wait long for it either once she reached the $10 threshold.
Monitoring Finances
Shannon also mentioned that they keep an eye on their balance and monitor the situation closely by comparing how much they are paying out compared to how much they are bringing in from the paid readership.
She says they are trending in the correct direction, and eventually, they will make payments from the funds received from paid users. However, they don’t want to penalize authors for the lack of readers while the platform is still very new.
That’s why they decided to pay for external views until they can switch to an algorithm that pays for read-time by paid subscribers.
Limiting free accounts to five views per month helps control expenditures while they are still paying for external views. Shannon said that provides a safe buffer.
Once they have enough paid subscribers, they plan to eliminate paying for external traffic and change the algorithm to pay for read-time in a similar fashion to Medium.
Why Simily Was Down Over a Day in January
I expressed my thoughts about paying for external views. I felt it could attract hackers, as it did. But Shannon said they wanted to pay for external views to attract paid subscribers.
Hackers use bots that can be programmed to automatically hit a single page thousands of times in milliseconds, adding up those 2¢ earnings. Simily is built on WordPress, which can’t handle that load on the server. That’s what crashed the system last month.
They were forced to build code into the platform to avoid this type of attack and had to keep the system offline until they installed the update.
The fix they made was code that determined when a reader was actually reading. Views had to be limited to unique visitors on a single article to avoid bots repeatedly opening the same article to hack the system.
In addition, a visitor has to remain on the page for at least five seconds. In my opinion, I would increase that to coincide with an estimated read-time based on the number of words. That’s how Medium does it. And detecting random scrolling would be helpful since a human reader doesn’t scroll smoothly down a page. That probably can’t be implemented with WordPress, but it should be considered once they use the new software platform.
Error 403 Forbidden on Links in the Groups
We discussed the Error 403 Forbidden banners that appear in the groups when a preview can’t be rendered.
That is an issue with WordPress. The links work fine, but I discovered the preview banner only works for links to alternate platforms, not other articles within Simily. I brought that to their attention and suggested that they include instructions to click the “Remove Preview” link when users see the 403 error when posting in group forums.
The links work fine, and a preview is unnecessary, so they might just remove the previews. I think that’s a better solution anyway.
Why I Still Don’t Pay to Subscribe
I had concerns about placing my credit card on a WordPress site. But they clarified that they use Stripe to collect subscription payments and PayPal to pay authors for views.
However, I still am hesitant because of the few views I’m noticing. When I wrote my first article on Medium four years ago, I made $5 in the first month. So that convinced me to put the money back into it for a subscription. And the income has continued to cover the cost of annual subscriptions ever since.
In addition, my experience writing on HubPages over the past 14 years has made me accustomed to receiving steady revenue from old articles. I learned that Google traffic is the best audience because it doesn’t need followers.
For that reason, I put most of my time and effort toward writing educational articles that attract organic traffic for publishing on various HubPages niche sites.
So, that’s just me. I’m spoiled by my prior experience. But your needs and desires could be different. If you like building a following and have the desire to keep them engaged with continuous new content, then Simily could be the home you were looking for.
Why Simily Redacts Identity on Whois
When I asked about this, Shannon explained that they pay for a security feature to hide their identity to avoid spammers sending them spam. I mentioned that I do that for my site since I’m a private author. But when I had my company before I retired, I listed my business address in my domain registration. Doing so promotes consumer trust for any company with a website.
They didn’t think about the negative effect of hiding their identity but are now rethinking that. But they would need to work out of a real office to do that rather than renting a mailbox service. They used a UPS Store address in Philadelphia but recently switched to a similar service using Parcel Place in Doylestown, PA, as a mailing address.
Writing Fiction Online
I asked Allegra what her thoughts were. She told me she is excited about Simily because she had published some fiction paperback books and now is publishing young adult fantasy stories on Simily.
She realizes publishing fiction on a platform where interested readers can follow a writer can be more satisfying than publishing books.
We discussed how testing one’s writing online before publishing a paperback is a great way to iron out the problems with the story. In addition, it is the only way to get feedback from engaged readers. And that means both positive and negative feedback. Then one can use that to improve their manuscript for a likely successful printed novel.
Summary
- With the Zoom meetings, people are bringing up concerns, and they are listening.
- They plan to bring a Chief Technology Officer on staff to manage the platform.
- They will correct the misleading wording in the “How it Works” section about payments.
- They will be rebuilding the entire platform from scratch and stop using WordPress.
- There are limitations of what can be fixed at the moment since it’s best to put resources into rebuilding a new platform.
Final Thoughts
Their future plans are encouraging. They have a tremendous vision for Simily. They want to create something of value for both readers and authors. And their intention is genuine. They wouldn’t put their own money into a startup business if they weren’t serious about it. I can tell that they have a great attitude.
They were thankful for the chance to hear the unadorned truth about issues I brought up. I give them credit for the willingness to enter into such as competitive business where so many others have failed.
Shannon left me with a most revealing statement as we said our goodbyes; she said their “Goal is matching readers with the writing that they’ll love.”
Other People Who Met or Scheduled to Meet With the Founders
This is not a complete list. I’m sure there are many more. Feel free to leave a comment about your experience. If I left you out, let us hear from you too.
Rhea Anglesey, Jeofrey Ogire, Sherry McGuinn, Andy Spears, Warren Patterson
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