First Month Stats

On Friday we hit our first month live. Has it really been a month already? It seems like it was just last week that I locked myself in my office and started coding HOAInTouch.com. When we hit the one week mark we provided some statistics and said we would do it again after the first month. Here we go..

We now have 28 communities in 24 zip codes! We are very pleased and excited with this progress. Some of the other key statistics are provided below.

• Number of users: 94
• Number of contacts: 124
• Number of groups: 23
• Number of news posts: 60
• Number of events: 47
• Number of documents: 85

And from Google Analytics…

• Visits: 757
• Unique Visitors: 582
• Page Views: 3,964
• Pages/Visit: 5.24
• Time of Site: 2:55

At this point these are interesting but not really useful as a measurement of growth as we only have the one week stats for comparison. However, one item that really jumps out at me is the number of documents. We only released this feature two weeks ago and we already have more documents than news posts! Based on the data and feedback we have received from users, it would appear the Document Library has been a big hit!

Moving forward, I intend to publish these same stats each month so we will be able to measure growth and usage over time. As new features are released they will be added to the statistics. Should be interesting.

Thanks for such a great first month and I am really excited for 2008! We will see you ‘round the neighborhood!

Mail Client Integration

Tonight we released several enhancements that we are really excited about. Nothing earth-shattering from a technology perspective but features that allow HOAInTouch.com to compliment your existing tools and further incorporate our services into your regular, daily routine.

First, you can now download contacts to your desktop mail client. This feature should be compatible with most modern mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Live Mail Desktop, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.

This makes the contact information you use the most even easier to get to. No longer are you forced to login to HOAInTouch.com just to find the phone number or email address for Mike down the street. Instead, simply compose your email, grab the address from your email address book and send it on its way.

Second, we also added mail client integration for calendar events. Now you can download your neighborhood events from HOAInTouch.com and save them to your local calendar. One of the greatest aspects of this integration is the reminder feature of most desktop calendars.

See an event scheduled for a few months out but worried you will forget it? Don’t be. Just click the Download Event link and set the reminder. Your email client will remind you at the specified time and you will be ready to go.

These are two examples of how we are striving to augment and enhance the existing tools you already use in an effort to enable effortless communication with your neighbors. It isn't that we don't want you to stop by and visit HOAInTouch.com - quite the contrary actually, feel free to stop by any time - but we don't think you should HAVE to come to the site. It is your information and you should be able to access and utilize it in the most efficient means possible.

We also added a feature some of the more internet savvy users will appreciate. Tonight we released integration with digg.com. To digg a news post simply click the “digg it” button at the bottom of the news post. For the uninitiated, digg.com is a social bookmarking site that allows users to share links to news stories they think are cool or important.

We also released several “fit and finish” enhancements and a few bug fixes this evening as well. I have attempted to enumerate them below.

Community News

• The news post email notification, RSS feed and comments now retain paragraph formatting. Previously it was stripped and thus looked like one paragraph.

Community Events

• Community event email notification and comments also now retain paragraph formatting.


• Fixed a bug where the start time for an event was not defaulted in correctly in some instances when editing an existing event.

Community Directory

• We now allow spaces in first and last names of users and contacts.


• Shortened the horizontal rule next to each last name initial on the directory homepage. Very wide characters, such as W, caused the horizontal rule to wrap to a new line.


• Fixed a bug where last names entered in lower case would cause the last name initial to be repeated on the directory homepage (i.e. r and R would both be display).


• Fixed a display issue on the contact page where a contact name could wrap if it was too long.

Document Library

• Resolved an issue preventing documents from being uploaded in rare cases.


• Improved the messages presented after added, editing or deleting a document.


• Improved the presentation of the document library grid. Previously long file names would cause the grid to wrap and not be aligned properly.

Quite a bit of good stuff released tonight. We are pretty excited about it and hope you are too. As always, let us know what you think!

Thanks and we will see you ‘round the neighborhood!

New Pricing Structure

When we launched HOAInTouch.com about three weeks ago our goal was to make the service as simple as possible in every aspect – including pricing. For the most part this has paid off as users have found the service to be very intuitive and easy to use and our support levels have been negligible.

With that said, we have received a surprising amount of feedback that you want more options when it comes to pricing. We heard you and tonight we rolled out a new pricing structure for the HOAInTouch.com service. Under the new pricing structure we have five subscription plans ranging from our Free plan to our Unlimited Plan. I would like to take just a few minutes and detail the specifics of each plan.

First though, let me emphasis that we still have our Free plan and I intend to keep this around indefinitely. There really isn’t a better way for users to try our service and see how effortless HOAInTouch.com makes communication with their neighbors. We did, however, reduce the number of users, contacts, groups and document storage available under this plan to allow for more flexible pricing options. If you feel your community was adversely affected by this change please contact us for a free upgrade to the Premium plan. Above everything else, we want our service to be useful to your community and to keep our customers happy.

With that out of the way, on to the new plans! At $149.99 / month the Unlimited plan is the best value. With unlimited users, contacts, groups and a whopping 2 GB of document storage there isn’t a community this plan can’t support - although we would love to see you try. :)

Our $99.99 / month Premium plan is perfect for active communities. It supports up to 100 users, 125 contacts, 10 groups and 1 GB of document storage. If you are a larger community or are active and have many committees/groups this is the plan for you!

The Standard plan runs $49.99 / month and is a very cost-effective way to get your HOA online. Standard plan communities can have up to 75 users, 90 contacts, 5 groups and 500 MB of document storage.

Our Basic plan is extremely affordable and is perfect for smaller communities or those communities that are primarily looking for a website for news and events. $29.99 / month provides a plan that includes 50 users, 60 contacts, 3 groups and 150 MB of document storage.

As always, our Free plan still includes all the same features as the other plans but without the cost! If you have a very small community or just want to try HOAInTouch.com out this is the way to go. You can be up and running in no time with up to 25 users, 25 contacts, 1 group and 50 MB of document storage.

The new subscription plans really let you target your specific needs and provide much more flexibility than before. If you aren’t sure which plan to go with, don’t worry about it! Pick any of them and you can always change your plan at anytime from the Administration section of your community. We really think you will like the changes but please let us know either way.

Thanks and we will see you ‘round the neighborhood!