Office Hours With Rob And Maria 7/9/08

Rokali: ok so I am going to close general chat
Rokali: hi everyone
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Rokali: this is Maria
Rokali: to my left
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pesmou: yes, Maria is Pesmou, hello!
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Rokali: okee, first up, a couple basic items
Rokali: we're not going to use video because with this many people in the room
Rokali: it crashes people's computers
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Rokali: next up, there's a question que
Rokali: if you have a question you'd like to ask
Rokali: please do it thusly:
Rokali: type /ask Your Question Here
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Rokali: this will add your question to the queue
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Rokali: and we'll pick from this list
pesmou: hi everyone
pesmou: tonight we're holding office hours
pesmou: at 7 pm ET
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pesmou: we realize this may not be a convenient time
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pesmou: for all Etsians worldwide
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pesmou: in the future, we'll try to vary times so
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pesmou: more people can participate
pesmou: so, that's it for housekeeping
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pesmou: i wanted to kick off by saying thanks to all of you
pesmou: for such a warm welcome
pesmou: many of you have seen the articles that
pesmou: Rob and I wrote for the Storque last week
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pesmou: if you have not, they are here: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/the-long-view-rob-maria/2150/
pesmou: i wanted to reiterate some key thoughts
pesmou: from my article
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pesmou: first, i am listening. that's what we want to do tonight
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pesmou: we're here to listen.
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pesmou: we're not going to have all the answers that you may be looking for
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pesmou: for example, i know that some of you have been asking about
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pesmou: a timeline to for what's coming up on Etsy.com or
pesmou: what's in our pipeline so to speak
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pesmou: that's not something we can offer tonight
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pesmou: however, you should know that I consider one of my
pesmou: primary responsibilites at Etsy the development
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pesmou: of a more formalized process for establishing
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pesmou: priorities based on many inputs, including listening to all of you
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pesmou: i think it's important to develop within Etsy
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pesmou: a process by which we identify, scope and prioritize
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pesmou: projects and develop more formalized "released cycles
pesmou: oops, release cycles
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pesmou: so, i have started this process within Etsy. as i mentioned in
Rokali: (she's really cracking the whip, I assue you)
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pesmou: you may have noticed that in the
pesmou: last few weeks we've released a number of smaller (and some larger)
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pesmou: projects that were in the queu. for example, fulfilling our
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pesmou: 4 month process to Vintage and Supplies sellers, fixing views, and
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pesmou: several other things that i think many of you have been asking for
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pesmou: i'm not syaing we've got it all right. we don't.
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pesmou: so, i want you to know that i am listening not only to what's
pesmou: going on in the Forums (the Forum moderators update
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pesmou: me every day,; thank you Forum moderators!)
pesmou: and i am talking regularly with our customer support staff
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pesmou: i am reading lots of customer emails and understand that some of
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pesmou: you are not fully satisfied with Etsy's customer support
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pesmou: i cannot say that i fully understand yet what all the issues may be but I do know
pesmou: that there is a hard working group of folks here at Etsy who are
pesmou: committed to customer support.
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pesmou: one last point from me before Rokali jumps back in
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pesmou: i mentione dthis in my Storque article and I want to say it again here
pesmou: Etsy has grown fairly quickly and part of my role at the company is to help
pesmou: it grown, mature an thrive for the long-term.
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pesmou: for that, i am going to need help. we're going to be looking for a few folks to help
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pesmou: ..a few folks with deep experience across disciplines
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pesmou: t...a few folks who have helped compnaies move through growth phases and have helped
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pesmou: "scale" businesses
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pesmou: to help share their experiences with the amazingly creative
pesmou: staff at Etsy.
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pesmou: so, from me: get the people and the process in step and the product will follow.
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Rokali: OK, let's head on over to the question queue
Rokali: first, a preface
Rokali: There are a number of questions in the queue that warrant a yes or no answer, and for many of these, we do not have a yes or no answer right now.
Rokali: If you feel that this means this whole meeting is fluff, we're sorry. What we're doing here is important, in the bigger picture. We're listening to what you want, and we want to create the best marketplace we can.
Rokali: Does this mean a marketplace with a dolls & miniatures top-level category? Our answer is this: we *do* want a section of the site for these items, but we are not sure if the right answer is a top-level category.
Rokali: We're re-examining the entire category structure, and as part of this project we're taking all the suggestions. We see the enormous support for dolls & miniatures, so that's certainly in our minds as we plan.
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Rokali: We hear you loud & clear
Rokali: we know you've even been in this room for a while
Rokali: before we arrived
Rokali: we really respect that
Rokali: this approach to categories applies to the other requests for new top-level categories (fine art, mosaics, there are many).
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Rokali: we're approaching this as the major proejct it is
Rokali: we're doing our homework
Rokali: and your voices are being heard
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Rokali: so, we're going to move onto other q's in the queue
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thecraftykitten asks, Is it possible to receive a transcript of this meeting?
pesmou: we're recording minutes of these office hours and
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pesmou: we'll publish them in the Storque
CombustionGlassworks asks, "Why no Vacation Mode? We Need it."
pesmou: i am aware of this and know that it is something that's been asked for
pesmou: it is on our current project list
pesmou: i cannot give you a completion date but it is there and work is starting
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cms36451 asks, how many people are staffed within Etsy?
Rokali: we keep our About page up to date, so you can always go and see who works here there
Rokali: right now it's just over 60 employees
Rokali: though it still feels like a small family
dancingcircle asks, How "large" does Etsy plan to become?
pesmou: hi dancingcircle
pesmou: first, i think you asked earlier about Etsy hiring folks over thirty
pesmou: well, i;m in the over 40 crowd
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pesmou: it's a little hard to breath up here but we're doing ok!
pesmou: seriously,
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pesmou: i think it's less about age and more about experience and attitude
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pesmou: so, as I already mentioned, Etsy will be looking for a few folks
pesmou: with deep experience is functional areas to help us do things we
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pesmou: haven't done before
pesmou: how large will we grow?
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pesmou: we don't have a specific goal for a number of staff
pesmou: i think the more important issue is:
pesmou: what are we ttrying to build and how many people does it take to do that well
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pesmou: so, without going on too impolitiely long, i will say simply that
pesmou: i think Etsy, with you help, has a huge opportunity in front of it to create
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pesmou: an amazing and fun global marketplace where people
juliebcreative asks, other than coop advertising, does etsy plan to do its own advertising or techniques to get new buyers onto the site?
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Rokali: (sorry 'bout that, Maria can finish her sentence)
pesmou: can experience the stories behind interetsing, high quality items
Rokali: Yes, we do plan on advertising
Rokali: especially to demographics that don't know much about Etsy yet
Rokali: most of the world doesn't know what Etsy is it
Rokali: which is a big opportunity
Rokali: we just want to make sure we spend our resources wisely
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Rokali: because a lot of advertising is extremely expensive
dancingcircle asks, does Etsy plan to directly "compete" with Ebay/Amazon, etc. for the handmade market?
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Rokali: the web is an open platform, for the most part
Rokali: so just by having an ecommerce site, we're cometing with them
Rokali: competing
Rokali: there are more handmade items on Etsy than eBay or Amazon, from my research
Rokali: so we're already larger than them in this respect
sherrytruitt asks, thanks. I'm most interested to know your plan to protect the integrity of the site from the daily influx of resellers.
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pesmou: this reminds me that some of you have been asking about Etsy's
pesmou: flagging system
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pesmou: i m aware of the issues and we do have a project in the pipeline
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pesmou: that will, when completed, make the flagging process more
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pesmou: seamless for both those reporting flags and
pesmou: staff receiving them.
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pesmou: that should help us at least scope the problem and begin to
pesmou: more systematically identify solutions
juliebcreative asks, Do you find it diffucult to balance what the users want and the direction in which you want etsy to go in, or are they usually parallel desires?
Rokali: this is a great question
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Rokali: what you all say has a big impact on what we do
Rokali: and what we want to do
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Rokali: the difficult part is launching everything quickly
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Rokali: the first step is our own internal prioritized list
Rokali: and we have that
Rokali: the next steps are sharing what we can with everyone
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Rokali: about what's coming
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Art2ArtColorado asks, Do you have any specific marketing or ad campaign plans for the holiday season?
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pesmou: we're working on our holiday planning now
pesmou: we don't yet have plans for an ad campign per se but
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pesmou: we are organizing our messaging, press kits and trying
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pesmou: prioritize site features that we think are particularly important around
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pesmou: holidays.
Rokali: one more point on the previous question: we understand that Etsy members gauge our work by new features. We don't have anyone requesting a better internal process for getting work done here. But that's certainly a prerequisite for the new features you want.
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CatherineMarissa asks, What is the plan for marketing to new buyers (maybe in a variety of demographics)?
Rokali: we're identifying the best way to reach people
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Rokali: there's a basic formular which runs like this:
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Rokali: Acquisition > Conversion > Retention
Rokali: acquisition is getting people here
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Rokali: conversion is getting them to buy something
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Rokali: retention is keeping them as a customer
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Rokali: a lot of you see these challenges with your own shops
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Rokali: we arei ndeed focusing on getting more and more buyers here
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Rokali: in a sense, lots of buyers is the best feature Etsy can offer
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Rokali: but of course we know you need a lot more than that
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Rokali: so right now we're doing our research
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Rokali: target demographics
GreenMamba asks, When will Etsy eliminate the need to re-list for exposure - the site is too big and membership too large to rely on such a limited and unfairly-weighted system.
pesmou: this is a very good question
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pesmou: i don't think it's about the size of the site as much as it is about the
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pesmou: user experince. my goal is to create a search function that
Rokali: (related question:)
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TasGems asks, what changes are going to be made to search?
pesmou: serves the users...allows for various forms of fiiltering and
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pesmou: narrowing search so that users can more easily and quickly
pesmou: find their way to great stuff on Etsy.
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Rokali: the personalized search would work so well on Etsy, and it's a big technical challenge we're gearing up for
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pesmou: so, i think we have to think of search as a function for users (as Google did)
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pesmou: later on, we may find that there is a way to simultaneously
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pesmou: serve sellers withthe same function
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pesmou: so that's definitely on my mind
Rokali: I'm going to do a quick poll on this topic, because there are a couple different ways to look at search: form the buyer's perspective and the seller's
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Rokali: from the buyer's perspective
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Rokali: I just want to see what I want
Rokali: from the seller's perspective, I am going to be a bit territorial
Rokali: so imagine if we had a relevancy engine
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Rokali: that knew "If I buy items A and B, I will probably want to buy item C"
Rokali: so, if I'm a buyer
Rokali: and I'm looking at Item A
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Rokali: it's helpful to me if I can see Item C
Rokali: on the same page
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Rokali: but that might mean, putting another seller's items on your item view page
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Rokali: let's do a quick yay or nay on this
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Please vote: Would you approve of related items on an item view page, if it meant items form other sellers?
Rokali: ok, interesting, I'm just putting this out there, this isn't something we're about to launch
Rokali: ok, oll over
Vote results: 43 yay, 68 nay, 39 abstain
Rokali: thanks for that
TasGems asks, are there plans in the short term to help international sellers eg ability to pay etsy fees by paypal?
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pesmou: we are looking at enabling all sellers (not just int'l sellers) to pay
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pesmou: their Etsy fees via PayPal. We don't have a full
pesmou: solution yet, but we're working on it
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sarahleeab asks, Rob, in the storque article you said that your role with Etsy will be changing. How so?
Rokali: it's been a great learning experience for me, watching Maria work here
Rokali: it's one of those things, where you start a company, and it grows so quickly
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Rokali: and with a Web company, we can't ever close shop at 5pm to clean up
Rokali: watching her work has shown me two things
Rokali: 1) what I'm personally best at
Rokali: 2) what she's better than I am at doing
Rokali: I love Etsy and I'll keep giving it my all
Rokali: but I want to do it in a way that's best for me & for Etsy
Rokali: this will certainly mean more product work, and I'd like to get bakc in the forums more
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Rokali: Maria's strengths are with the running the organization, finances, planning
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Rokali: so we'll play to her strengths, and play to mine
miriam asks, don't you need staff located in portugal?
pesmou: we have two Portugese speakers on staff!
dancingcircle asks, Will The Storque be revamped?
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pesmou: we're looking at content and commerce and how they can best work together
pesmou: we understand that Storque is currently fuflilling at least two roles: Etsy News &
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pesmou: more of a lifestyle blog featuring content that refelcts Etsy's
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pesmou: values. so, we're looking at how to best present both types of content.
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stonesoupjewelry asks, How would you describe your vision for what Etsy will become? Does the scope of the future as you see it continue to include supplies/vintage as part of the main site?
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Rokali: yes, we think Supplies & Vintage can fit in, and that they're also useful to crafters
Rokali: we udnerstand there's some work to do on HOW they fit in
Rokali: and we'll hold more focused discussions on this issue
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cms36451 asks, could you all give us some pointers as to how to better promote out shops and generate more sales?
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pesmou: there are regular shop critiques offers via the virtual labs
pesmou: just check the schedule. in addiiton, there is an
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pesmou: entire series in the Storque geared towards marketing
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pesmou: tips for your shop. Lastly the Forums are a great place to get
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pesmou: marketing tips for your shop from other Etsy sellers.
BoutiqueCandle asks, I find that my demographic - mid 40s - would be prime candidates as Etsy shoppers and yet none seem to know of it until I educate them.
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Rokali: it'd help us if you could tell us where you look, where you'd see an Etsy ad
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Rokali: that you'd follow up on
Rokali: so please email press@etsy.com with any ideas
Rokali: and we'll gladly follow up with you
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TasGems asks, how are communications going to be improved?
Rokali: we've taken a step back and looked at all the ways we communicate
Rokali: and where people look
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Rokali: and we're revamping how that works
Rokali: we know Etsy News stuff gets a bit buried in the Storque
Rokali: and we simply want to put info where as many people will see it
Rokali: so that's our goal as we revamp
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mostlyart asks, do you want to keep etsy more a "crafter" site than finer arts? In your heart, is that what you want? crafts/crafters?
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Rokali: I don't think there needs to be such a divide
Rokali: there can be room for both
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Rokali: as long as the website is nimble enough
Rokali: it's like this "alt craft" thing
Please vote: Have you heard the term Alt Craft before?
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Rokali: "Alt Craft" is this term invented by some folks to refer to Etsy
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Rokali: they see us as some new wave
Rokali: which just seems silly to me
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Vote results: 25 yay, 85 nay, 30 abstain
Rokali: anyhow, there are many different items, people, and tastes here
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Rokali: and the beauty of a website is we have unlimited shelf space, so to speak
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FlowerBedHead asks, Rob do you feel like ESTY is growing in the same direction you had originally envisioned?
Rokali: yes and no
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Rokali: I envisioned it'd all be much more straightforward
Rokali: at one time, I thought we'd never need more that 10 employees to run the whol company
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Rokali: on the other hand, the spirit of connection people is here in abundance
Rokali: sometimes my desk job duties pull me away a bit too much
Rokali: and I don't see the sunshine much
Rokali: but we're working it out
Rokali: it'll keep changing
Rokali: I want Etsy to exist for 100 years
pesmou: I i can confirm that he doesn't see much sun)
Rokali: more
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Rokali: we'll take a couple more questions form the queue
Rokali: there are still a bunch in there we didn't get to, and for those
Rokali: you can convo me directly to discuss them, or we can talk about them next time
Rokali: so, last couple
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BululuStudio asks, what's the next great (short term) change for Etsy?
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Rokali: we've said this before and I'll say it again here because I really believe it
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Rokali: there are wonderful changes going on inside Etsy, insofaras how we get work done
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Rokali: this will become visible to everyone here once these new processes gain hold
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Rokali: that's what I'm most excited about
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Rokali: other than that, there's bigger picture stuff like seller
Rokali: stats
Rokali: currency conversion
Rokali: things like that
Rokali: ok, last question, and Maria is going to take it
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WindysDesigns asks, Maria what brought you to Etsy?
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pesmou: for starters, the ide athat a company would actually do something like this
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pesmou: build an amazing interface and *talk* to its customers and suers
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pesmou: oops, users
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pesmou: and, authenticity, opportunity and the challenge of building a lasting business
pesmou: i talked about some of these things and my background in
pesmou: my introdcutory video which you can see on the Storque: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsyNews/article/introducing-maria-thomas/1660/
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pesmou: thank you all for participating and for asking great questions
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Rokali: we're going to try out video now
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Rokali: this might make your computer explode
Rokali: 1 min
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Rokali: and thanks to everyone for coming
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palomasnest: xoxoxoxo
TasGems: ty
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SnappyBibs: Maria, Efharistw kai kali tuxh! Na penoume kafes mazi mia mera. xaxa Rokali, thanks and I hope that you will be in the forum more.
MidwestieLady: Let's all clap....
dmriceart: Thanks much, Maria and Rob... for your time!
Explorations: yay
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FlowerBedHead: ty both
Explorations: ty
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Stockton: Thank you both, welcome Maria!
pesmou: sas efharistome
jilldrapermakesstuff: Thanks
prisma: Yay!
prisma: I love Etsy!
Faedrianna left the room
thecraftykitten: Thank you Maria & Rob!
matt left the room