Looking back — looking forward

Dear Friends of IYWTo,

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas time and a brilliant start to the new year.

2015 ended with a boom as we released, with Atif & the Launchyard team, a much improved beta.iywto.com that took on board many of the suggestions you made to make the proposition clearer and the experience smoother. I hope you like the new release.

During December, we have also opened up new channels for people to interact and contribute to IYWTo. There is now the possibility to suggest exciting cleanweb projects using the “suggest projects” feature on beta.iywto.com landing page, or, even more simply, by using the new IYWTo browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome and Safari. All the projects that people suggest are stored in the Cleanweb Directory where each project can be described in a little more detail.

We have also created a twitter handle @IYWT0 where we share the latest finds and get to know the people behind the projects.

Since the first release of beta.iywto.com, we have had nearly 1.000 users with a thin but steady flow of new users; and about 60 registered users across site, newsletter and twitter. And on a daily basis we scout around for new cleanweb projects to add to the repository that today counts about 80 projects.

The big goal for the coming year is to broaden the community and foster a dynamic participation: from simply adding the url of a new cleanweb service to the directory, to creating a full description of a new cleanweb project; from writing reviews to posting comments and questions.

Looking into 2016, over the next few weeks, we will release a rich user profile for registered users and a search capability, followed by a filter based on geolocalisation, as most people expect to access primarily projects available where they live.

We have also applied for two grants to build a complete IYWTo for the UK. This will allow us to develop a much broader and engaged community presenting, reviewing and discussing cleanweb products and services that can help all of us transition to a low-carbon, low-impact way of living.

Thank you once more for the help and support in making IYWTo come alive.

I wish you all a happy, successful and sustainable 2016!

Francesco and the IYWTo Team