It’s getting easier to be vegan in this non-vegan world – some days more than others! – but there is a new tool being launched this September that will make it easier than ever. VeganWALL is being developed as an online community specifically for vegans that will help like-minded people to connect and share information about food, clothing, events, products and more. It will be available around the globe and in multiple languages – hopefully bringing an end to vegan travelers’ woes! We had the chance to chat recently with the creator, Miro Radenovic, about the project and some of the ins and outs. But first, check out this video that gives you a preview of what’s to come:
Vegan Mainstream: In a few short sentences, can you explain to our readers what VeganWALL is?
Miro Radenovic: VeganWALL is a web project that will be released in September 2014 with the goal of creating the biggest vegan community. At VeganWALL users will share information that can help other vegans.
Vegan Mainstream: Why did you start this site – what was the idea behind it?
Miro: The idea behind VeganWALL is to give vegans a place where they are able to inform other people about something vegan they have found/discovered. Together, as a community, vegans are really strong, collaborative and proactive. Having said that, I believe that vegans are still missing the right online tool for building a real world wide community where all vegan information will flow. Answers to simple questions like “where can I eat today?”, “where can I meet other vegans?”, “is there any vegan news?” will be easily accessible on VeganWALL because they will be written and chosen by the community.
Vegan Mainstream: How do you see VeganWALL being different from other social media sites that people are currently involved in (eg. Google+ vegan pages; facebook pages; other forums etc)?
Miro: We don’t want to replicate features that are already provided by facebook or other similar social networks. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel. We want to create the right tools that can help anyone to promote the vegan philosophy. At the moment, vegan communities adapt to the tools that social media/forums provide.
Let me give you an example. If you want to know if there are any vegans or vegan events close to you, wouldn’t it be great to have a map that displays them? We want to provide these kinds of answers.
Vegan Mainstream: Vegans are a diverse bunch of people, all with different interests and with many motivations. How will you be able to meet everyone’s needs through this site?
Miro: All the content that you will see on VeganWALL will have a related subcategory or tag. This will allow users to filter information so they can get exactly what they want.
Vegan Mainstream: The Vegan Wall won’t be officially launched until September 2014, but there is a beta program available now. What is that about (what does it allow people to do) and who should think about signing up for that?
Miro: At the moment we are collecting the emails of the people who would like to participate. Once we have finished the development of our first milestone, we will send anyone who has signed up as a beta tester an invite and let them preview our work. We want to collect some feedback before going online, in order to see if we meet users expectations and to test our work before going public. Anyone who is interested in evaluating our work and wants to help us by providing feedback, can join our program. You can do that here: http://www.veganwall.com/beta.
Vegan Mainstream: What’s the coolest thing about The Vegan Wall? Tell us why we should all sign up, and won’t want to miss out!
Miro: The coolest thing about VeganWALL is that users who participate more in the community (by posting news, reviewing, etc) will earn points and badges that will unlock some super powers on VeganWALL. But for the moment, I cannot give you more information on this – the details will be a surprise!
To keep up to date on what is happening with the development of VeganWALL visit their website, on facebook or twitter.