Show HN: My Zappos/Twilio hackathon entry

http://www.anonysize.me

by callmeed • 15 years ago

166 47 15 years ago

jurre2• 15 years ago

Cool! Does this work outside of the US?

matznerd2• 15 years ago

theoretically it shouldy as twilio has recently expanded to UK, Canada, and are in beta for a few others... http://www.twilio.com/faq/international http://www.twilio.com/international-sms

gerbera• 15 years ago

I really like this, nice job.

emilepetrone• 15 years ago

Very sharp- great job!

skadamat• 15 years ago

This is a really neat concept and the design is gorgeous!

How effective has this been? Personally if I got an anonymous text like that I wouldn't reply haha

matznerd2• 15 years ago

why not, what's the worst that someone can do with your shoe size?

loceng• 15 years ago

Steal your shoes.

_pius• 15 years ago

Responding to spam at all lets the spammer know that they've got a "live one" on the other end of the email/phone.

EponymousCoward• 15 years ago

Answer your "What is your shoe size?" security question...

5l• 15 years ago

Personally I'd not reply because I'd be worried it would subscribe me to a premium-rate text service.

lifebeyondfife• 15 years ago

If I hadn't heard of the service before I wouldn't reply either. It's not that I think someone is going to steal my identity with a neck size measurement but an unknown questioner asking for any kind of information would raise my spam/phishing/scam spider sense.

jqueryin• 15 years ago

Great idea. It gives me that "duh" moment that I hadn't thought of it before!

While I think the visuals are beautiful, I did notice that your current call to action on the page appears to be the description itself. The actual form action has the least weight to me visually, as the button hovering above the example draws the eye.

If your intention is on conversions of the form, perhaps you might consider shifting the focus with some very small re-work.

michaelschade• 15 years ago

I agree. I actually hovered over the example at first thinking that it might be interactive since there was such a prominent CTA above it.

To the point of the description drawing the most attention, perhaps it should be swapped with the actual signup form–the description can align itself on the left and the form would be centered (which may actually provide a nice balance: description left, example right, and what you actually do right between the two).

iodave• 15 years ago

Same here. At first, I thought "Like This" was the same thing for me to like it on Facebook. You may want to phrase that somewhat differently.

Love the concept! Good luck!

acgourley• 15 years ago

neat idea, did you conceive it at the hackathon or bring it in?

callmeed4• 15 years ago

Yeah I didn't even know of the hackathon until reading Twilio's blog Wednesday. Thought of it then and built it Wed and Thurs night. The hackathon is actually sponsored by Zappos and i think it started on Monday.

creativityhurts• 15 years ago

Super simple and neat idea, awesome job!

AznHisoka2• 15 years ago

Ok, so they sent them a text.. then what? Does it pick out the gift for me as well? Does it send the gift to that person for me? Or it just gets the shoe size, ring size, or whatever?

omfg• 15 years ago

Really?

AznHisoka2• 15 years ago

Umm.. Look at the homepage Step #3) We find them great gifts.

If you're just finding the size, reword it to "You find them great gifts", NOT we.

zitterbewegung• 15 years ago

You could expand this and have it work on clothes and ring sizes.

m0nastic• 15 years ago

clothes might be neat, but I think there might be some negative reaction to getting a text message asking someone's ring size (or at least it might set an unrealistic expectation to the recipient).

jurre2• 15 years ago

What you could do is ask them for a bunch of random measurements, this is what i usually do when buying someone a gift, i just ask for shoe, clothes, ring, jeans size and like favorite color etc

callmeed4• 15 years ago

That was the initial plan (clothes) but I ran out of time. Plus the Zappos API was a little confusing on a few details.

One thing that baffles me is women's clothes sizes ... some things are small, med, large ... others are 1, 3, 5 ... and others 2, 4, 6, etc ... ugh :/

pluies• 15 years ago

And just wait until you have to internationalise it...

danso3• 15 years ago

Love the idea (and the pun). But I can't think of many of my non-tech savvy female friends (speaking from NYC) who would not be totally freaked out by this.

Those of us more familiar with data (both males and females) know that if we were to get a message like this, it most likely came from a friend or former friend since it requires knowing your phone #. But in a world of constant social media privacy scares, the average person is going to be hyper paranoid about sending off any kind of personal data to an anonymous requester.

and of course I'm not implying that females are less likely to be tech savvy. I'm implying that in my own set of female friends, there is a higher fear of stalkers than among my male friends)

callmeed4• 15 years ago

UPDATE: I tested this on a male friend yesterday who happens to be in the same area code as my twilio #. Today his wife saw the message and thought some lady was trying to seduce him or have an affair. This is funny.

Funny I actually tweaked the SMS message a few times after some female friends I tested it on got creeped out a bit.

The main feedback was to make it clear that someone close to them initiated it. (close in the social sense)

danso3• 15 years ago

Yes I don't think it's a failure on your part at all, it's just a very hard needle to thread.

The interconnectedness of technology scares people who don't work in it. My roommate freaked out when she found all her personal info was on pipl, even though she has a Twitter account and her info on various other niche sites, including public records. And no amount of logical argument could persuade her that she was not being personally targeted.

aforty• 15 years ago

Ok, this is awesome!

kwamenum86• 15 years ago

Cool. But I think most people would be able to guess who sent the text based on who is likely to be buying shoes for them.

ale55andro• 15 years ago

Love the idea, very simple and quite fresh. Though I agree with others that the service will require awareness. I doubt people will want to provide personal information without knowing the source. Still I can't help but think that an idea like this will quickly spread. Good job!

jrubinovitz• 15 years ago

Wow this is a great hackathon project. It's simple, but something that people will actually want to use after the hackathon. I do agree that the message may need some tuning up though. Maybe say "John is using anonysize.me to ask you for your size" etc. It adds some credibility even though no one has heard of you, and it leads to brand awareness, advertising, and hopefully more users (this is just based on the text message on your homepage, however).

jjacobson2• 15 years ago

This is awesome. Now if only Zappos had an affiliate program so you could make some money off of these clicks too.... Oh wait! We do!

knandyal• 15 years ago

JJacobson - I am having issues with the affiliate program of Zappos for a visual search engine we are creating. I would like to ask you about this. My email is knandyal at stylewok dot com. thanks

AndrewGCook• 15 years ago

You should figure out websites that have affiliate programs, force the requester to choose a website, and when you end the text message, include the website to add some validity. Including the well-known brand will seem like it comes from a more legitimate website than you (no offense).

For example:

"Hey Andy!Someone shopping on Zappos.com for you and wants to know your shoe size. Reply with your size (ex '9', '10.5')

Also, when you send back the sizes to the requester, you could include an affiliate link for the site they requested to help monetize.

callmeed4• 15 years ago

What if I let online retailers provision their own unique number and embed the service in their website?

notatoad• 15 years ago

the only downside i see to this is that anybody i might use this service on would immediately know it was me, because i'd be the only one nerdy enough to use it.

worded another way: the only way i see to make this service better is to make it more popular.

deepkut• 15 years ago

Zappos will love this. Great idea and I love the name. As a critique, I'd recommend rearranging the form/descp/iphone image on the launch page. I think you rather have users read what this is before the "SIGN UP" on the left!

jjacobson2• 15 years ago

Agreed! We do love it!

jpadilla_• 15 years ago

I just tried this with my gf. She was seating across to me and When she received the text message, she was confused and told me "OMG how do they know my name?". Then I explained to her what it was, she obviously told me she wouldn't have answered it. Maybe it'd be cool to find a way to validate the sender to the receiver without losing the anonymosity. Really digging this though! I always hate having to ask people their sizes, what they like, etc...

GMali• 15 years ago

Apart from the comments seen here, just a small bit of advice from me: Fix the color of your ordered list. I noticed that it's gray for "li" in general, and white for "#splash ol li", but its still gray in Chrome for Ubuntu.

darwinGod• 15 years ago

From the comments below, it seems that only the "non-nerds", "non-tech savy" guys would be naive enough to be suspicious when they get an anonymous SMS notification to divulge personal details.Maybe in a perfect world, that is true, but we are not there yet. I know that the next big viral, customer-facing app/service would probably be pushing the boundary of privacy and build new business-models around it. I find this a tad depressing.

danso3• 15 years ago

So I tried this on my friends while we were all waiting in line for a movie.

I tried it on one friend first and she glaced at it and immediately thought it was spam. Then I sent it to her BF who thought it was weird but also assumed it was spam. Both were annoyed when I told them I had sent it for giving a service their phone #. The couple is young and fairly tech savvy.

Also, the message-success screen was too wide for the iPhone and would not zoom out properly.

Perhaps this should be done by email? The big problem with the phone is that you provide them with no context at all about the site.

ludicast• 15 years ago

Wow, awesome. Do agree with the arguments about some of the freakiness, ut could so this being huge.

Show HN: My Zappos/Twilio hackathon entry

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