Review my startup - Quote Feed (step 2)

by DanielBMarkham • 16 years ago

15 34 16 years ago

pclark3• 16 years ago

Find a designer co-founder, right now :)

I'm interested in what problem this solves compared to say, Tumblr + WikiQuote? It isn't clear what the specific value proposition to a user is.

When I think of Friend Feed I think of importing all my "stuff" into one place, is Quote Feed supposed to import quotes from all over the place into one place?

DanielBMarkham12• 16 years ago

My original idea was to have a place like HN where, instead of reading titles, I could read the quick excerpts from the latest articles and news events all over the web. I also didn't want a simple voting system (insert long discussion about mob voting here) and instead went with a tagged learning system.

Later on it occurred to me that social hooks and app-store integration might really help with growth.

dimarco• 16 years ago

Here's an idea: If people could wrap quotes in some tag like [qfeed]a good quote[/qfeed] in media outlets all over the internet, like Disqus comments for a particular blog or in reply to the quoted post on HN.

And then a spider came along and pulled the [qfeed] bit and submitted it to quote-feed.

It wouldn't work well for comment-less sites like wikipedia, but it would for "quick excerpts from the latest articles"

DanielBMarkham12• 16 years ago

It's a limited beta right now and it's only a web service.

Here's the master plan for future development. As usual, no plan survives contact with the enemy. This is just the vision and we're actively looking for a pivot point as we continue to work customer development.

----

You're in a conference. The keynote speaker says something cool. You go to tweet it to your friends -- but it's longer than 140 characters. So you key it into your iPad on my app and choose to share it with your FaceBook and MySpace Friends. Over on FB and MySpace, the longer quote appears and has a link back to my web app where the quote is stored.

You're reading a political or science article. About half-way down, the author makes a really cool point -- all the ideas seem to be coming together and this text just jumps off the page. You highlight the paragraph and enter it into my app, choosing also to share it on Twitter and FB.

You're looking for something pithy to tweet or put on your FB status. You visit my app and read the latest quotes from sources all over the world, sorted and ranked especially according to your tastes. Choosing the one you like the most, you upvote it, make a comment, and choose to automatically email it and post to your status updates.

You're looking for the best of the web today. Visiting my app, quotes from much longer articles and speeches are listed, customized to your tastes. Finding one that looks especially interesting, you click the link and go to the longer article, spending 10 or 20 minutes reading the full text.

Your friend hears something incredible at a news event. He quotes the speaker, links to the video, and notifies you by using my app. You visit his quote on my app, make some comments, and vote it up. Soon you and your friend have made several comments -- other people have also joined in. Your conversation about this quote is saved for you to return to when you like.

Finally, you're reading a book on your Kindle or other device. You find a particularly interesting passage. Quickly you copy it out, tag and save it, perhaps also choosing to share it on your status update. Later on, when you are not at your e-book reader, you can visit the web site and view your quotes -- along with the comments from your social network and other folks who share your same interest.

Why is it different from tumblr or other micro-blogging services?

1) Message length

2) Superior content preference learning system

3) Niche product

alilja3• 16 years ago

I can do all of this on Tumblr -- with the exception of finding people's quotes. Sell me on why that's the killer feature.

eagleal3• 16 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your strength (as of now) is the app (for iPad, Kindle, iPhone, etc), and the best quotes of the day (trough the learning system). Is this right? (I think I see a piece of your vision, am I the only one who sees this as a solution to one of the YC RFS?)

Also if you need a designer, I have plenty of experience in UI/UX. Funny thing, I was going to contact you to join me in one of my projects.

eagleal3• 16 years ago

I maybe need to clarify it: I'm not talking about the iPad apps request (this one also apply), but another (really) bigger one.

bmelton• 16 years ago

"Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" -- using IE7 on Windows XP.

cheald2• 16 years ago

The design turns me off pretty quickly, to be honest. The color scheme does make it difficult to visually parse and obscures design elements like the upvote arrows - a lighter background and some padding on your quote containers would help a lot.

My initial impression of the concept is that it suffers from lack of context - quotes are interesting, but usually only in the context of an existing discussion or topic. For example, in Newsweek or whatnot, their "quotes of the week" page has the quote, and then explains the context it was in. For example:

> "Pie is bad, and we are dedicated to providing a safe and pie-free environment for our children as we move towards the future." -- President Obama speaking to the National Cake Frosters Association

If you could make the design point to sources more easily, so the users feels like it's a lead-in to a piece of content, that may alleviate that issue.

It seems like the niche you could capture would be sort of an expansion what the Twitter trending topics is already - a high-level view of the things being said by interesting people, and what people think of them. I think your concept implements that, but it doesn't really present it to the user. My first impression was "well, it's Reddit, except I have to read more to find something interesting". If you can find a way to present it in such a way that the user is presented with easily-consumable, interesting, relevant information with easy access to context and reactions, it could have some interesting potential.

DanielBMarkham12• 16 years ago

Lightened the background and increased the padding on the quotes per your request.

Awesome feedback. Thanks.

So here's the million-dollar question: What is the context that the user is browsing? The people who say things? The web site that sourced the quote? The people who posted things? The topic that the quote falls under (you can see the topic -- it's the tooltip that pops up when you hover over the quote)

I'm getting a lot of "get a designer" advice, and I'll cop to being a poor designer any day of the week -- I suck. But even with a designer, you don't want the thing to look like a 747 cockpit. Simply because you can search by something doesn't mean the UI should allow it. With a desire to keep the UI as brutally simple as possible, what do you think is the context people would like to see as a higher-up heading?

cheald2• 16 years ago

By "context" I meant "What context was this quote said in?" (I amended my original comment with an example of what I meant). The context is going to be where the quote was said, who it was said to, what it was said about, etc.

I'm browsing Reddit right now, and see the following "quote" headlines:

* Tamil pulp: "each chapter usually has at least one murder or explosion or someone getting eaten by a cheetah or attacked with black magic." [Context is a review of pulp fiction of some sort - not sure what "Tamil" is but I'd guess it's a culture or subgenre]

* "The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. ... I hate it." - Tim Bray (self.linux) [The context is the iPhone's restricted platform in contrast to Linux's open platform]

* "But Piglet wasn't listening, he was so agog at the thought of seeing Chritopher Robin's blue braces again. He had only seen them once before, when he was much younger, and, being a little over-excited by them, had had to go to bed half an hour earlier than usual..." [Excerpt from a book. Intent seems to be to convey unintended innuendo. Doesn't do anything to make me want to read further.]

* "He also held the fire hose between his legs like it was a penis and pretended to pee on the flames. Right in front of my wife and daughter!" (i.imgur.com) [The subreddit and domain tell me this is going to be an amusing picture, and makes me want to click through]

In 3 of those 4 cases, the quote isn't the content itself, but a pointer to some larger piece of content. The Tim Bray quote is the whole of the content, but is presented in a context (Linux and open software advocacy) that makes sense. In all of those cases, I don't just consume the quote and say "oh, that's inspiring" and move on with my day - they spur me to learn more and who is saying it, what they're saying it about, and why they're saying it. Reddit is very much a different approach to content, so I don't expect a 1:1 mapping, but the Tim Bray quote is a pretty good example. There's a quote by an industry leader regarding a topic that I'm interested in (software freedom, platform flexibility, etc) because I've elected to follow the Linux subreddit. I'm presented with enough information to be told what the context is (Software freedom philosophy), who said it (Tim Bray), and why the quote is being presented (it is of interest to the Linux community).

You're absolutely right that information overload is terrible for design - that's very key to success. However, part of design is knowing what to emphasize and what to minimize, so you guide the user's attention through your content. Insofar as what you're presenting, I'd offer the following observations:

* Using tooltips/hovers to present critical information is really bad. It doesn't work at all on mobile platforms, and the only existing UI paradigms that use that technique are icons and XKCD's inside jokes. It is a fairly non-obvious way of conveying information.

* The quote attribution and context are grey and "faded out" - you place more visual importance on who posted the quote than who said it. This seems backwards to me.

* The "Posted X time ago" bar is the most visually striking piece of the page. You don't want people looking at that first - you want them looking at the quote.

* The quote, souce, and user are all clickable, but there are no visual cues that they are, even on rollover.

(At this point I've lost my train of thought, and will have to return to it later)

Do forgive me if I'm being over-critical. I'm trying to be an objective user, and give you an honest read of the things that go through my head as I use it.

Edit: The padding helps. Now I'd desaturate the background a bit. grin

davi• 16 years ago

Nice to see your project!

Agree w/ pclark about need for a designer.

I even have a quote in mind ("the biggest danger of people doing bad things to you is that it will make you paranoid", http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1192160 -- I thought that was pretty good) but really feel no 'win' from signing up and making an account just to give myself the ability to enter this quote. Give me a reason to summon the activation energy, or get rid of the need for it (a la Posterous). Slashdot allows anonymous cowards, maybe you should too?

DanielBMarkham12• 16 years ago

Great comment.

I think there are probably 3 levels of users: 1) People like yourself. For those guys probably just a button and a place to put a link for the source should be enough, 2) People who want to vote. For those guys some kind of sign-up is required, and 3) People who want to post their own stuff.

You are right on with the anonymous coward thing. Right now you either get nothing or have to sign-up and then you can do everything. That's too big of a hurdle for casual users like yourself (and easily fixed). I'm also finding out that simply because you vote and comment doesn't mean you have the energy to tag and source new material. So there's probably a gradual engagement model that needs to be created.

crux• 16 years ago

I suspect you might have a credibility problem as long as one of your quotes is attributed to 'Benjamin Franklin, President of the United States'.

chanux• 16 years ago

You should visit http://colorlovers.com :)

greyman• 16 years ago

As I understand it, your idea is that the user will discover some new interesting quotes and then the community can vote them up.

I like the idea, but in a general sense, quote is something shorter (usually just one sentence), and aiming at some basic "truths", like there are quotes about love, relationships, inspiration, etc. But if you mix that with quotes that require some specific knowledge, I am not sure if that will work.

For example, I tried to read some quote form your side, only discovering that it is related to U.S. politics. But I don't watch this topic closely, so after reading the paragraph, I just didn't understand what is it about. So the quotes which requires some specific knowledge (like politics of certain country, etc.), will need to have their own subdomain...if you mix it into one place, you will just get a snippets of text understood by only certain people.

DanielBMarkham12• 16 years ago

This is great feedback, but I'm not sure how to handle.

The idea, for registered users, is that you downvote the first U.S. Politics quote you see. Then the system starts sorting those lower. Over time, if you keep training the system, you'll never see a U.S. politics quote.

But for new users, how to handle? Right now for anonymous users I have a basic HN sorting algorithm.What you are saying is that this might not be enough. Should I leave it as is? Should I add some kind of heading or sorting on the page so that people can easily see the topics (topics appear as you mouse over the quote). Not sure.

alilja3• 16 years ago

So what you're REALLY providing isn't a quote-aggregation service, but rather an intelligent method of showing people content from around the internet based on how much they like a topic.

It's like Pandora but for news.

EDIT: community-powered Pandora but for news?

newobj2• 16 years ago

Immediate gut reaction: I don't get it... and it's ugly.

I wouldn't work on the design if I were you. Honest opinion, it'd be a bit like lipstick on a pig at the moment. I think the fundamental premise is flawed - I cannot imagine in any stretch of my imagination why I or any normal person would visit this page, much less withstand the friction of the service in order to interact with it.

My elevator pitch re-imagining of what you're doing: "Quotes can serve as great summaries, excerpts, or lead-ins of a larger story. They also humanize stories or events by putting a face or voice on them. Quotestory.com brings you each day's biggest news and events one quote at a time, presented in a beautiful and simple interface that lets users get a quick read on what's happening in the world."

Essentially, the site would scrape the news to pull out candidate quotes, as well as allowing user submissions. Weighting system incorporates crowed voting as well as "page rank" of scraped quotes. The quotes are pegged to a specific point in time, and the front page displays a sort a chronological arrangement of quotes, chunked into days (maybe something hierarchical to summarize entire weeks/months in the past). You get a unique view of each's days events via direct quotes rather than editorialized headline. Quotes click through to an article. If you can extract a attribution, perhaps a small image of the quotee. If you get smart enough, perhaps you can have some sort of point-counterpoint dueling quotes to show both sides of an issue.

I'm not saying this is insanely compelling either, but I can at least see a small value add in that some people may prefer to graze on news this way.

DanielBMarkham12• 16 years ago

So I'm going to add you in the "unsure" category. (grin)

Thanks for the feedback. You made my day! I love negative feedback. So much of running a startup is getting any attention at all. If they hate you, at least they're listening.

Appreciate your time, and I'll work as hard as I can on the value proposition.

newobj2• 16 years ago

Hey, I don't hate. Just trying to help! :) I deeply admire anyone trying to do their own thing.

taloft• 16 years ago

You know what? I don't get it either and it's ugly at the moment. But, I didn't get Twitter. Hell, I still don't get Twitter.

And who would've thought Facebook could ever replace MySpace? Well, ok MySpace was bad... really really bad in a neo-early 90's bad graphic designer kind of way. So maybe THAT was predictable. ;)

But I think "pg" put it best when he said (paraphrasing) that: by definition, you can't really predict any new idea. Most new good ideas initially appear really bad.

The point is that it's still too early to decide whether it's a pig, even if it needs lipstick.

tptacek2• 16 years ago

You would get a lot of value out of BlueprintCSS, right away.

Your colors do nothing to improve the site. Ditch them. Use black, white, grey, and a single accent color of your choice for text only.

What's the deal with the DOCTYPE?

pclark3• 16 years ago

that doctype is wild

DanielBMarkham12• 16 years ago

Will change the colors. Also thinking of hiring a designer to take a look at layout.

DOCTYPE is hosed. Looks like a bug in the JS.

tptacek2• 16 years ago

You're trying too hard. Stop. Go for competant and boring.

Switch to Blueprint. Get everything layed out on a grid. Things should line up with each other. This takes programming, not design talent.

Use Blueprint typography. You have no discretion in font sizes anymore. Just let it do its thing.

Stop setting background colors. On anything. They aren't your friend. If they were an ice cream flavor, they'd be pralines and dick. If you lay your site out on a grid, you won't need the background colors to distinguish elements.

Work with three colors: black, grey, and an accent color:

* Most things will be black

* Things that aren't important --- like all your timestamps --- are in grey. Look at the header on this comment. Metadata fades into the background.

* For very important things, use an accent color sparingly. Maybe it's the most important comment on the page.

* Count the number of ways in which any two pieces of text differ. Bold vs. not bold: 1 point. Grey vs. black: 1 point. Big vs. little: 1 point. Things should differ by the minimal effective number of points. That means don't set <h2> text in accent red.

Just do those things and, instead of springing for a designer, you can go to 99designs and ask for a $250 logo. That'll be money better spent.

Review my startup - Quote Feed (step 2)

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