About a year ago, we launched a website called, “Yolisto,” which aimed to be a kind of Craigslist-inspired community classified advertising website for residents of the Yucatan. The initial response was quite positive, earning us a few posts and even a shoutout on Yucatan Living. The site worked well, and people seemed happy to have the ability to buy, sell, and swap their old stuff, and then two things happened: Craiglist launched their official Yucatan site, and the scammers discovered us, effectively shutting down the site with fraudulent puppy adoption posts. The site was brought down almost immediately.

During the down time, we started to think a lot about the influence of online communities as they relate to living here in Yucatan. The original Yolisto served a need, but ended up feeling like a tiny stone thrown down a long hallway. In the nearly two years since we have been here, the online community of bloggers, discussion forum experts, and other people sharing their experiences and their lives here has grown significantly. There are tons of expat-friendly destinations scattered around the web, including the consistently amazing Yucatan Living blog, our own magazine (which you are feasting your eyes on right this minute), and the awe-inspiring Merida Insider, whose volumes upon volumes of information can’t be matched anywhere online.

But what was missing was one central place for everyone who finds themselves in the fortunate position of “living here” and “speaking English” to congregate, share ideas, tips for living here, photos, videos, and more. It seemed like the time was ripe for a true Yucatan Community website. We decided to leave the original Yolisto down, and take some time to build that very site.

After almost a solid month of making the final preparations, I am very excited to announce that we are ready to open our doors to the all new Yolisto version 2.0 software…at least a crack, that is.

The new Yolisto offers a much more complete community experience, with well-organized forums, video uploading, photo sharing and commenting, blog-like article publishing, event scheduling and planning, and the Yolisto 1.0-era Craigslist-like classified advertising, as well as searchable individual user profiles, a dedicated instant messaging client, live chat, and much, much more. We have assembled all the tools you need to meet and stay in touch with other members in the community.

Though the new Yolisto is decidedly Yucatan-centric, you don’t have to live here to use the site. If you are still in the States, in Canada, or are one of our neighbors in Cancun or elsewhere, you will find lots to like about the site. During this soft-launch period of the site, I invite all of our readers to check out the site, and, if you have the time, begin using it. This will give us time to sort out the inevitable bugs before we begin our marketing campaign, which has just one goal: Become the go-to community website for Americans and Canadians living in Yucatan.

All guests are welcomed with open arms in the Yucatan, and so it will be on Yolisto. There is no question too complex or too basic, and even if we’ve heard it a thousand times, we’ll give you the answer. Check it out, and I think you’ll find our online community to be one of the friendliest around.

Popularity: 33% [?]