Ask HN: Review my project: SitesInCommon

http://alpha.sitesincommon.com/?

by natrius • 17 years ago

40 40 17 years ago

alpha.sitesincommon.com

pedalpete• 17 years ago

I can't say that this is the site that I've been looking for, but you might be on to something.

However, you have a bit of a catch-22 with respect to the sign-up vs. experience this without signing up.

I didn't sign-up, and therefore, you can't show me anything. You also don't describe anything on your home page, so I don't know if sign-up means I'll need to download a plug-in, no plugin, do I need to tell you how it works.

A good way to demo it for people is to maybe show how many people near them visited your site? They don't need to see the person details. Maybe a 'here is what's popular near you' list, or something like that. Just to get a bit of interest going and show that you have some data.

I think a big thing you've done wrong on your site is the 'these people both read ...'. I don't care what they read if I don't read it. Therefore, if you can show me how it relates to me, that is likely a better avenue I think.

slater• 17 years ago

Just seconding this: Show people something, not a picture of 2 people and a link to someone's blog, challenging me to sign up.

chengas1232• 17 years ago

I'm not sure I'd use the site anyway, but the biggest thing I see here is that you can't do anything without signing up and there's not enough of a reason given to sign up. I'm not signing up for anything without a compelling reason to do so. At the least, I'll usually want to try some limited version without registering first. Maybe you could show the most visited sites or allow the user to run a query on a site of their choosing.

kingsley_20• 17 years ago

Phase 1: Use that CSS/ visited-link based hack, and geolocation to show people something. Tell me that there are : 20 people using Hacker News, 2 using salesforce, 5 gazillion using FARK etc

Phase 2: people sign up

Phase 3: Profit!

sgibson12• 17 years ago

I agree with getting rid of the signup requirement to test drive. I was about to write a review about it, but then was feeling too lazy. Maybe I'll get around to it later!

wvenable• 17 years ago

I didn't bother to signup. Is there anyway to let people use the site without having an (immediate) signup? Cookies to hold some configuration? For example, Stackoverflow.com lets you contribute without signing in but then gives incentives to do so.

notaddicted• 17 years ago

I like the idea.

Maybe you could:

- Display the website that is the referrer

- Use ip -> geo database to do quick matches with no signup

-- i.e. just say: "4 news.ycombinator.com readers visited today"

I am creating an account now, but maybe my suggestions could give you a more compelling frontpage.

natrius5• 17 years ago

"Display the website that is the referrer"

It's already doing that for some selected sites. It should've said Hacker News for you.

jsonscripter2• 17 years ago

As someone who cannot access any private email accounts at work, I cannot view or review your site. Perhaps it should be more open.

sfphotoarts• 17 years ago

or perhaps you shouldn't be trying this while at work. Clearly your IT dept don't want you to do things like this on their dime... Just a thought.

jsonscripter2• 17 years ago

Lunchtime.

chengas1232• 17 years ago

You should really setup an SSH tunnel to use your home server as a proxy with FoxyProxy: http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-you...

chime• 17 years ago

VERY BAD ADVICE! If the IT Dept. has disabled access to webmail, they have done so for a reason and the employee has most probably signed a paper stating they will not try to bypass or circumvent such blocks. If I find any of my employees accessing their gmail or Hotmail from work using tunnels or even web-based VPNs, despite the fact that I have blocked all webmail (thanks OpenDNS), they will be shown the door. This has nothing to do with me being a BOFH but rather because of the highly-sensitive nature of our business - pharmaceutical manufacturing.

natrius5• 17 years ago

For the people who don't want to make an account, you can start exploring from here: http://alpha.sitesincommon.com/metros/24702816

For now, getting you to sign up is kind of the idea. We need data.

amr• 17 years ago

But to get people to sign up, you need to show them data or explain the benefit of signing up. Read the rest of the comments on this page on how to make people sign up. People will not sign up just because you ask them to. Give them something.

ScottWhigham• 17 years ago

Down for me - 404 not found

erikwiffin• 17 years ago

The very first thing I did when I landed on your site was click the big blue link. That took me to Gizmodo. You've already lost me as a user, because Gizmodo is interesting, so I'm not inclined to hit the back button. Maybe what you should do instead is have it link to a page inside your site about Gizmodo. Maybe have it provide a map showing the number of people who read Gizmodo by country/state/zip or something like that.

Also, I realize that you're still trying to get some data into your database, but I would really appreciate being able to put in my zipcode to get an idea of what I can do with the site after signing up.

natrius5• 17 years ago

Good point on the link. It points to our page for the given site now.

timothychung• 17 years ago

Please let us know what to expect in the front page.

It is kind of scary not knowing what to expect but need to sign up for your service.

edw519• 17 years ago

Anyone here from Pittsburgh?

(If anyone here answers me, then I probably don't need your site. OTOH, if no one responds, then maybe you're on to something.)

batasrki• 17 years ago

No. What now?

dbul• 17 years ago

Yes. (And it is a great time to be living here.)

wglb2• 17 years ago

Well, you have three responses, three answers, that is, at least one of them wrong. Your question probably meant "If no one responds YES ..."

Chicago area here

omouse• 17 years ago

Don't make the link clickable. You want the focus to be drawn towards the slogan/question you have underneath and you want the user to sign up or login. You could also display a few more sites-in-common underneath the sign up and login buttons just to show that the thing actually works.

crowbar• 17 years ago

An interesting idea, though I have the problem of being in a rural area in Western NC. Thus, my experience with the site is going to be limited. However, the next county over is Asheville, which would have a greater chance of meeting up with people who have similar interest. I know you can search by metro area in the search, but it'd be nice to be able to add additional counties or nearby areas for the username, either automatically (If the user wants it) or manually.

This was also be of help to people who travel from one area or another a lot (I go to Knoxville several times a month, for instance.)

But so far, I like the idea and I'm interested in seeing how it grows.

rudyfink• 17 years ago

Better feedback seems to be something that is needed. After or as you input sites there should be feedback from the site. Right now I just feel like this was a way to give you data on sites that I like. I'd like to feel that there is more going on.

Tichy• 17 years ago

Why is signing up required?

qeorge• 17 years ago

I've installed the userscript and I like it, but your homepage made me think it was a different product. I thought it would scan my bookmarks or social profiles for sites I visit, and match me up to other users that way (maybe it does and I don't see it?).

Also, it would be nice to get more information before being presented with Sign Up and Login as the only options (on the homepage). Its hard to choose either without knowing how your product works and what value it will bring to me.

I do like the locations on the HN comments though. Pretty cool.

One other thing: I have Greasemonkey, and very much appreciate your offering the product as a Userscript. That said, a lot of people might not have GM, or even know what it is. Perhaps package the script into an extension and offer both options? (http://arantius.com/misc/greasemonkey/script-compiler)

Best of luck!

phugoid• 17 years ago

I don't like being lied to.

What's going on in my mind, within two seconds of the page load, is that you've used a stock image on your front page, and you've generated "These people both read Hacker News." using my HTTP referrer. So in fact these two people don't read Hacker News.

I get the cleverness of the page. But cute girls in short shorts who have nothing to do with the product have become a sort of turn-off. I feel like a trout in an over-fished lake - lures are boring.

Show me two users who actually do read Hacker News, and you've got me on the front page.

access_denied• 17 years ago

Yeah me too. But... the page did _explain_ the concept of the whole project very fast. Fast is essential. So it's a good concept, art-directionwise.

icey• 17 years ago

Before I sign up, how do you store passwords?

Can you make email optional?

natrius5• 17 years ago

Hashed, salted. The email address isn't checked, so if you really don't want to give it out, put in garbage with an '@'.

http://github.com/technoweenie/restful-authentication/tree/m...

wglb2• 17 years ago

It only is letting me add one site.

codemechanic• 17 years ago

interesting idea.

TheSOB88• 17 years ago

Awesome idea. Lame that nobody's really signed up yet, though. Here are some suggestions:

First, get a new name. It should be something short/clever. SitesInCommon is a bit cumbersome to say, probably because of the fact that it's three words. Words usually imply stops between them, making it verbally funky.

Your style is not that styley. Reminds me of the New York Times, which is probably not what you want to associate with. That's business, this is meeting people (presumably) for friendship. You, probably, were already going to fix this.

Your add script is buggy. Of four sites added, it froze my Firefox 3.0.10 twice. On XP. (I'm just telling you those in case you need to reproduce.) Then, it doesn't add them to the bottom and gets rid of the add button. Perhaps you can add an add suggested sites thing on the profile page for ease of use?

What you really need to attract the users is some kind of side use that they can use as soon as they've entered sites. Maybe you can let them rank specific pages within their sites? I've always wanted to do that. Tagging and searching for webcomic archives is also something I've wanted to do. These aren't your original goal, but I think they could help bring in users and make the site much more fun to use.

Finally, I can't figure out how to make your site work! I.e., I can't figure out where it tells me who lives around me and reads the same sites.

anigbrowl• 17 years ago

It's OK for me, but you want a fair bit of personal information. Do you need to know my age? No. Add a privacy policy.

quizbiz• 17 years ago

I want a way to find and contact everyone (those that want to be contacted) that comes to Hacker News on a regular basis in Atlanta.

That being said your site is very slow loading. Our fault?

natrius5• 17 years ago

The eventual goal is to have comment threads on the meetups, and you'd be able to choose if you wanted to receive new comments as an email. Do you think there'd be a use case beyond meetups for contacting everyone?

The site was loading slowly because our score updating scripts were bogging things down. We hadn't had a chance to test them with actual data... The site should be responsive now.

diN0bot• 17 years ago

Small comment:

"These people all read Hacker News. But they don't know that. Yet."

I parsed this as "each of these people don't know that he or she reads--as in will read--Hacker News." It sounded like an endorsement for Hacker News, rather than explaining that these people don't know that the people around them also read HN.

known• 17 years ago

Interesting idea. I subscribed.

Ask HN: Review my project: SitesInCommon

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