I need some advice: Marketing ThriftShelf

So, ThriftShelf - the shopping comparison site for books I spent a good while building over the past month - is now happily up and running. I've even been pleasantly surprised by a few friends mentioning they've checked it out and found it useful.

Now, my background is techie, so I'm pretty comfortable building websites, especially the technical side (integration, databases, getting everything working, and so on). And I know enough about design not to make a mess, even if it's not exactly beautiful (well, except in my eyes of course!).

But, as a techie, I have to admit I know very little about marketing. Sure, I've built social networking plugins into my site to leverage the social base and drive some visits to my site. And I have an idea about getting bloggers talking about it, and crucially, building up the base of links around the web that point back to ThriftShelf.

But here's where I need your help, dear reader! I need some practical advice about who, where and how to market ThriftShelf and get the word out. I'm casting out for any marketing minded person who'd like to throw me a few words of advice. Now, to be honest, I can really pay (for now at least), but I'm always willing to network and refer work.

I can be reached either by commenting on this blog post (where your response will be public) or by using the contact page on ThriftShelf. Thanks in advace!

Melbourne Film Club

As some of you know, I started the Melbourne Film Club way back in September of last year (time flies as always). For those of you who don't know, MFC is a social club where we go and see a couple films a month, usually followed by dinner and drinks where we get to chat about the film.

As part of our plan for conquering the galaxy, I've opened a blog for the club with a monthly newsletter, film reviews and related articles:

http://melbournefilmclub.blogspot.com/

There's several things I want to achieve from the MFC blog. Firstly, I want to be able to provide the membership (just shy of 200) with a monthly newsletter, but without email spamming (and without getting lost in some unread inbox). A blog works on an opt-in basis, so it adds value to those that want it, without spamming those that won't.

I've also had a couple members ask if there was a good place to post some film reviews. Since I also intend to write a few here and there, this seems like the ideal place. This is especially true since Meetup's own forums are barren wastelands, buried and neglected since the "newmeetup" revolution of earlier this year.

So if you're a member, or you live in Melbourne and like films, then please check it out. We've got a very busy month ahead thanks to the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) screening many excellent films, the Russian "Resurrection" Festival hosted by Palace Cinemas as well as some regular films and the Can't Stop the Serenity charity screening later in the month.