Ask HN: Pre-launch feedback on my site

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369923

by zacharye • 18 years ago

15 28 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Prompted in part by HN, I am in what I hope to be the final stages of launching v1 of a new site. Five sentences of background:

I am a blogger/freelance copywriter/marcom guy who is always monitoring the latest and greatest in tech. I have an immense interest in web services and a great admiration for the people/teams behind them, simply put, because they make my life easier. I do not however, have an appropriate outlet through which I can share the various services I come across and thank the teams behind them by giving them exposure. Most services I find do not fit well with the content I cover at the main blog I write for, so I needed another way. As such, I did my best to create one...

Services like Stumble Upon, Digg, etc are fantastic for people who have plenty of expendable time to devote. Even with the big-name blogs covering web apps and services, it can be hard for the average office worker to keep up with the waterfall. I wanted to try hitting the problem from a different angle - using the Woot.com principle as a basic model.

My site, worthyy, presents users with one new site to explore each day. The presentation is unique in that users experience each day's site without any outside influence from me or anyone else (beyond visible ratings). I want the developer's work to do the talking, so the homepage of worthyy is dynamic. It consists of two frames: The main frame being the actual site of the day and a secondary frame in front of it near the bottom of the screen (the 'worthyy bar'). Users can browse and experience the site of the day as if they had hit it directly. If they so desire, they can also use the worthyy bar to rate the site, bookmark the site or click through to interact with others and discuss the site on worthyy's supporting pages (wordpress).

http://worthyy.com

Thanks in advance for any feedback you guys might have. We do have a few issues left to be resolved - and when I say we I mean the developers I outsourced the project to. I know, I know - but without any coding experience or time to learn, I had no choice. For this reason of course, your feedback is invaluable. Barring catastrophe the site should be ready to launch next week. Thanks also to the few HN members who have been involved with preliminary testing and for their feedback. I already have some great additions lined up for v2 should I be lucky enough to get that far with the project.

jwilliams2• 18 years ago

First of all - I like the concept - if it develops enough community weight behind it, it could be quite an influential tool.

What's not clear to me is what that community is exactly - are you targeting a particular segment?

I like the look and feel generally. Although - I find the actual site being reviewed today a bit bland, so that might give a poorer first impression.

I personally think the bottom worthyy bar is a bit too big vertically, especially given it's only giving a few discrete bits of information and some links - I work on a laptop a lot though, so I'm a bit precious about screen realestate.

If you are going to take up that realestate - then I'd put some more information there. For example a "worm" graph of what people thing - or have a sort-of twitter feed of top comments... Hmmm... On the other hand, that might be just annoying.

It also doesn't seem to play nice with resizing - (Firefox3 on Mac).

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Thanks so much for the feedback - With regards to my target, I'm going to have to let any exposure the site might get dictate this preliminarily. Ideally, my target is people who will likely never see any coverage worthyy might get on most relevant blogs. The less web-savvy casual user who has never heard of sites like TechCrunch, Mashable, Killer Startups, etc. These are the users who would not only benefit most from a site like this, but who many of the sites worthyy covers have the most trouble reaching.

Of course reaching these users is a time-consuming (let alone expensive) process I've yet to begin to tackle. If I survive the first few months, it will become my focus.

In terms of real estate, I would be very appreciative if you could shoot me a screen shot (zach --at-- worthyy --dot-- com). I've tried to keep the sizing as short as possible but I do have future plans for the currently unused real estate so finding a compromise was difficult.

Lastly with regards to resizing, I view this as a huge issue that I unfortunately don't think I'll be able to address with v1. After analyzing my spec, the developers agreed that iFrames would provide the best solution for the homepage. I did what research I could with the resources I had and eventually agreed. The site sizes and positions the frames according to the real estate available when the page loads and as such, resizing is a disaster. Whatever you do, don't view it full screen... ;)

Hopefully I can manage to generate some interest/traffic that might warrant revisiting the current implementation but for the time being, my budget for the site is pretty small. If you or anyone else has an idea as to a possible fix, I would love to look into it.

jwilliams2• 18 years ago

No worries - They are mostly just nitpicks - I think it's a interesting concept.

I'll fire you a screenshot when I get back tonight.

The community question is an interesting one - the site would be more sticky if it's relevant to the users. e.g. HN is useful because it's relevant to me in the startup domain, and the community reinforces that. At the same time, you also need to have it a little bit diverse to keep people interested.

So yeah, it's a fine line - but as you say, this could be something that evolves rather than being designed. I'm guessing the initial selections will jumpstart it in one direction or another.

fallentimes• 18 years ago

I was a beta user of this and when Zach first launched his site I left him a voice mail saying how awesome it was.

The problem: I left my congratulations for the site featured on Worthyy instead of the Worthyy site itself. Oops.

I love Woot (there's a Woot off today btw) and I really like this site. I think it appeals to the masses much better than a delicious or stumbleupon. One site. One day.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

If I remember correctly, I think the site that day was Open Source Food. Trust, if I was Yongfook I definitely wouldn't be having the iFrame problem mentioned below... ;)

rw• 18 years ago

Cool idea. Please make it sensible for the user (me) to understand that I have to turn JS on to use the site.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Great point rw, thanks. Perhaps I can pop up a warning if JS is not detected.

mstefff• 18 years ago

Awesome idea - I love it.

I'd just recommend making the design of the discussion page/layout a little nicer.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

I will definitely be cleaning up the individual post layout pre-launch. Thanks mssteff.

Jasber• 18 years ago

Nice idea. Small bug with Safari, when I scroll, the worthyy banner scrolls up the page and I'm unable to click any of the links. I'm using Safari v3.1.2 on Leopard 10.5.5.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Thanks Jasber - I've screen-capped the bug and will get it resolved.

paraschopra• 18 years ago

Same with Chrome. The banner behaves weirdly.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Yes Chrome has been a point of difficulty for the developers since the onset of the project (as has Safari on PC). They're still working on a solution and I hope to have it ironed out before launch.

blogimus• 18 years ago

One suggestion: Prominently display the URL of the site you are showcasing. I suggest the title bar and/or your worthyy bar.

I like the idea.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Thanks blogimus - highlighting the name/URL of the current site somehow will definitely be implemented.

wesley• 18 years ago

Uh yeah, that already exists:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/ (random page)

This won't take off at all. If you still want to pursue this idea, least you could do is add a top iframe with some info on the site, comments, etc..

Edit: well, you said in your original comment that there would be a frame, but it doesn't seem to work on the current page that is displayed. (safari, mac)

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Yeah, the bug in Safari on Mac is a showstopper - my browser window was way too big during testing to notice it, but if your window is shorter than xxx pixels the bar is 100% obscured. Rest assured though, this issue will be addressed asap.

unalone2• 18 years ago

The Safari bug was announced. I like the idea, but I wish there was a method of letting users index featured sites (tagging or the like) to help people find related sites.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Thanks unalone, would you mind elaborating a bit? Do you mean it should allow the user to add his/her own tags beyond the existing tags - or that the user should be able to find related sites from the homepage as opposed to the supporting pages?

unalone2• 18 years ago

The former.

I'm a fan of certain kinds of sites. I'm a sucker for elegant interfaces and elegant bookmarklets, for two things. And I think that some sort of a way of identifying those sorts of sites would keep your layout elegant, while at the same time letting people into particular sorts of sites find good solutions.

halo• 18 years ago

Fails the critical "I visit the site and know what it does without prior explanation" test. Add a subtitle that explains what the site does: "A new site each day" or something.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Point well-taken, thanks. I tried to use the tag line that appears in the browser header as an aid so as to avoid occupying more real estate within the bar but it might be unavoidable.

brandnewlow• 18 years ago

I really like this. It's simple and fun. I agree that the front page setup needs a little tweaking. I'd actually put the bottom bar up at the top with a little explanation blurb by the logo, as if you're introducing the site, which is essentially what you're doing.

Question: is there any harm being done to the sites you frame? Have you gotten any negative feedback from publishers? Everynow and then someone frames one of my sites and it irks me to no end, hence the little js breaker i run on all my sites. Thoughts there? I mean, essentially one could argue this is merely a slick little theft of content.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Thanks! I thought about putting the bar at the top but I didn't want to obstruct logos and headers by setting the iFrame as-is, while starting the main frame at the bottom of the bar would then eat up too much real estate.

As for your question, it's an awesome one. To this point I have not received any negative feedback from developers but I've also only pushed testing traffic through the site. It's entirely possible that I will receive negative feedback as the site grows, though I obviously hope developers see worthyy as helping more than hurting.

My perspective is this: I could easily start yet another blog that covers web services and each post would be just another singular perspective on each site. Try as I might to avoid it, my opinions, impressions and perspective will inevitably come through as visitors read my take on each site. My perspective will weigh heavily on whether or not readers end up clicking through. I don't want this.

I want the developer's work to do the talking. Developers put tremendous amounts of time and thought into building these sites. I obviously don't need to tell you that. Why should I be just another guy who covers their work on my blog, inevitably misrepresents something, misses covering key functionality, etc? I want worthyy users to see and experience each site as the developer envisioned it - without preconceived impressions from my opinion or anyone else's for that matter. I then make it as easy as possible for the user to bookmark the site and should they choose to click through and discuss the site, there is always a direct link waiting for them.

That said, my intentions hardly invalidate the fact that some may potentially view worthyy as stealing their content. To that I can only assure those concerned that I will, without hesitation, remove content from my site immediately should the owner of the content request that I do so. No argument and no questions asked.

toddcw• 18 years ago

Add an RSS feed. I doubt I would visit worthyy.com everyday to see what new site is being highlighted, but I'd definitely take a look if it showed up in my feed reader.

zacharye14• 18 years ago

Thanks for the feedback toddcw. There actually are feed / email subscription options but the locations are intentionally 'out of the way' as this is not my preferred method of consumption. Beyond the homepage, you can find subscription options at the bottom of the sidebar on every page.

Ask HN: Pre-launch feedback on my site

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