Ask HN: Review My App - TwitBet

by erickerr • 16 years ago

12 21 16 years ago

erickerr3• 16 years ago

I built this service in about a week as a full time student. The $5k prize is guaranteed if 5,000 people fill out the 1st page of the survey.

I'd greatly appreciate any feedback on the product as a whole and if you think a Twitter-based system could do well as a generic sports betting/following platform.

Thanks!

jackowayed• 16 years ago

The bracket is well done.

So you're trying to buy exposure, what are you going to do with it? And whatever you do, you need to do it fast. I'd go ahead and assume that unless you have something else to show people during the later part of the tournament when they check how they're doing, everyone will forget about you.

erickerr3• 16 years ago

I would agree about needing to have something to show people - what do you think would encourage people to return?

andyjdavis2• 16 years ago

Do you have some sort of leader board so I can see how I am ranking Vs everyone else over time?

dannyr• 16 years ago

Maybe before the start of every round, display the percentage of picks (e.g. 51% picked Duke, etc.).

CoreDumpling• 16 years ago

Heh - is TweetForACause coming next?

loganfrederick• 16 years ago

Don't give him any more ideas. He's probably testing it as we type.

qeorge• 16 years ago

This is awesome. Great idea and really well executed. I'll fill my bracket out tomorrow.

WRT getting people to come back, I'd leverage your stats. Some ideas:

* Tweet during the tournament. e.g., "63% of our users correctly predicted Georgetown over Tenn."

* Tweet / show on the site the percentages of people who bet each way on each game, and the percentage still left in the running

* Show the user their potential chance of winning the $5k over the course of the tournament, as people are eliminated. Like watching poker on TV.

* Show a leaderboard and tweet the current leaders. Have many categories, e.g., "top picker this round", "top overall", "worst overall"

* Tweet / blog interesting stats you see in the dataset. For example, which team do people think is most underranked? Overranked? What team do people think is the absolute worst? Absolute best?

* What does your aggregate Final Four look like? Aggregate Sweet 16? Track the "score" of the aggregated bracket over the course of the tournament.

Edited to add:

ESPN does something really clever with Fantasy Sports you could mimic. During the football season they'll run ads for a "late league", for people who missed the draft deadline. If you offered a "late pool" (i.e., one that starts in the round of 32 or 16) I bet you'd be the only one.

prawn• 16 years ago

Great suggestions.

I agree that it's a quality idea. I think I'd say a bit more up front to explain how the $5k works and what's involved. I'd introduce another colour to your palette as it's a bit limited right now. With the disabled button in the bottom right, explain underneath that it will activate when "x" more picks have been made. As picks are made (and there are, say, 10 left), highlight the missing ones with yellow or red perhaps. When I was mucking around, I missed a couple.

The name is a bit scammy (everyone is skeptical of anything with "bet" in it) so you could consider something with "Challenge" instead. Or keep the nice, short URL, and bring "Challenge" into the heading.

I run www.hoops.com.au which is an Australian basketball forum and can plug your site there if you'd like. Not sure how many people there are Twitter users though. I also have a few basketball people (players, bloggers, fans) following me on Twitter if you want me to spread the word. Email is isaac & triplezero = com ` au.

Raphael• 16 years ago

The survey frame has no scroll bar showing, plus it's taller than my screen. And it seems rather scammy.

detst3• 16 years ago

I really like the idea but I have to agree that the survey does seem "scammy". If I didn't come across this on HN, I wouldn't even consider getting involved. As it is, I might do it if I remember in the next couple days.

mathewgj2• 16 years ago

Just revoked Twitbet access to my account after it autosent a Tweet for me without any [edit: enough] warning or pause for approval. Please don't do that.

pook• 16 years ago

I still get spam from colleagues who signed into Quichup years ago and gave it access to their gmail accounts.

This behaviour is absolutely Evil. Why do companies think that we want such coup d'etats in our accounts?

erickerr3• 16 years ago

Right next to the "Submit" button, it says that the tweet will be sent out. Also, the button itself says "Save and Tweet Your March Madness Bracket"

detst3• 16 years ago

I don't think you're being intentionally deceptive. It just needs to be more clear that the tweet will be sent for the user.

detst3• 16 years ago

To be fair, it does clearly say that you must send out a tweet to be eligible. I didn't go through the process so I don't know if it made it clear that it would do that for you.

mathewgj2• 16 years ago

yeah, instinctively i was expecting to be prompted to 'share my bracket' or the like.

andyjdavis2• 16 years ago

I picked all the teams then logged into twitter using the sign into twitter button. The submit your bracket button never disabled. What am I missing?

weichi• 16 years ago

1. Where will you get the $5k? Your own pocket? Are you charging people $1? But it says free ...

2. Are sure you aren't going to get into legal trouble? IANAL, and I know nothing at all about the relevant laws, but still ...

3. Contest Rules and Terms don't mention the required tweet anywhere.

JimEngland• 16 years ago

Cool idea, except the tweet sent out only includes a link to http://twitbet.com/. Instead, you should link to my personal bracket that I just filled out, so that my friends can see how badly I am at picking winners in college basketball.

Mc_Big_G• 16 years ago

Quick note: On the last page there is a typo:

If you do not complete the first page of the survey survey...

Ask HN: Review My App - TwitBet

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