
Show HN: Solo - An app for sharing solitude and loneliness - wtsui
http://sharesolo.com
======
macu
I signed up to wait for the Android version.

As for myself, I spend 90% of my time (outside of work) alone, and there are a
lot of wonderful things I see and think while wandering slowly in the early
morning or evenings. It's not that I want to be alone, it's just really hard
to find the right people, even knowing they're out in the world.

I wouldn't want to spend too much time interacting with my phone, but this app
could be a nice place to check in and see that others are delighting in the
world just the same as me, wandering alone. Like a nod to strangers who share
the same concept. Nice work.

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wtsui
That's exactly what this app is about. Thanks for signing up :)

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scotthtaylor
You should check out [http://www.peeky.co](http://www.peeky.co) ;-)

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orthecreedence
I respect the author and his approach. There's a lot to be said for quieting
the noise we subject ourselves to at every turn.

However, in my personal experience, solitude is a state of being I do not wish
to share with others when I'm experiencing it. It's a place I go to get away
from the bombardment of thoughts and ideas and senseless chatter we all suffer
through (although some enjoy it more than others). It's a place for quiet
reflection and meditative concentration on self improvement and pursuit of
happiness. When I want to be alone I want to be absolutely alone because each
time I emerge a new person.

Then again, take what I say with a grain of salt; I don't even have a
smartphone for precisely the reasons above. I view the level of mindless
connectivity we all have with each other now to be somewhat insane.

All that said, if you can get more people to enjoy time by themselves, even if
it is with the crutch of a smartphone, I would consider this app the methadone
to social media's heroine. You have my blessing =].

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njloof
I can't wait until this gets monetized with iAds targeted to lonely people.

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wtsui
Don't worry, no plans to have ads on here.

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roberthahn
What a fascinating idea. I hope this (or something like it) becomes bigger
than Facebook.

Social networking sites are all predicated on the assumption that people want
to be social. And yet, we hear how people are actually becoming more solitary,
more lonely. I look at this and think "there's a disconnect here, and it's
getting worse over time."

We need anti-social networks: networks that get the lonely and solitary
people. Once those networks become established, then we might have a chance to
help people become less lonely (I'm taking it as given that we only care about
people who want to become less lonely). I don't know what that would look
like, and maybe wtsui isn't even thinking about all this, but I'm convinced
that Solo, or something like it, is the right place to start.

~~~
wtsui
Loneliness does seem to be a widespread issue.

Networks that help us connect with each other and reduce loneliness will get
better and better, but I don't think they'll be centered around loneliness in
particular.

Beyond networks, there have been a lot of good tips and interesting
discussions on HN about coping with loneliness
([https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+loneliness)).

As macu commented earlier: "It's just really hard to find the right people,
even knowing they're out in the world." I think we all have to experience some
amount of loneliness as we try to find the right connections for ourselves in
life. I hope Solo can help people find a little more peace and patience as
they continue to search.

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codezero
This is really great. I'm pretty impressed with the decent amount of initial
content. Where did you get your initial contributors? Is it entirely organic?

Regarding spam/inappropriate content, if you need any advice/guidance on how
to best identify/block naughty people, feel free to send me an email.

Separately, I see all your submissions to HN are about loneliness, and Solo
seems to have iterated through a number of names/goals, I'd love to hear how
this idea evolved to what it is today.

Solo/Solitude is fantastically better than Anon App Anonymous Instagram, but
one couldn't know that beforehand, what led you to change the name and what
lessons did you learn along the way?

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wtsui
Thanks! That's kind of you to offer, will keep that in mind.

Initial users are friends and some nice people from /r/introvert on reddit.

Lonenote was inspired by PostSecret, a project I volunteer for. Lonenote
seemed like a good idea at the time but ended up being a bad merging of two
products, a niche handwriting app and the alone sharing app I really wanted to
build, which is now Solo. I thought the novelty handwriting feature was
necessary to bring attention to the alone idea.

Anon was an attempt to follow the early anonymous app wave and a reaction to
Whisper, where people share stock images that are disconnected from real life.

Solo is the app I wanted to make even if no one but a few people would use it.
I switched to 'Solo' because I wanted the name to express both the positive
and negative sides of the alone experience.

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icesoldier
I like the concept, so I gave it a download. The first immediate comment is
that I keep trying to edge-swipe to get from a post back to the main feed, and
it's not working. Otherwise, I'll have to poke around more to get a feel for
how the community develops. Seems like an interesting experiment.

~~~
wtsui
Great UI feedback. Definitely adding it to the list!

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Sharma
You HN [submission
history]([https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=wtsui](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=wtsui))
shows lots of posts about loneliness -:). However, this is a great idea,
something which I can use a lot!

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maxk42
I mean... there's no way for this to NOT fill up with dick photos...

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fleitz
Some moments alone shouldn't be shared...

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graetzer
That's nice work. Do you have plans to add a web interface? I think at least
for viewing/commenting posts. That way posts could reach a larger audience

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wtsui
Thanks for checking it out! Will consider adding a web interface once I get a
sense of the app's usage.

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hawkharris
I respect you for creating something very useful and well designed. I hope
you'll set aside some of the immature remarks and focus on all the upvotes!

~~~
wtsui
Thanks! :)

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norswap
Isn't the beauty of solitary moments precisely that they are solitary? Much
like how a good moment spent with a single other person is precious because of
the intimacy.

Is seems like polluting the quiet and peace of these moments with a social
media gimmick.

I don't mean to say this is worthless, I'm just puzzled at the approach which
seems paradoxical to me.

~~~
clay_to_n
I don't know - there's been times when I see something cool, beautiful, weird
etc and would like to share it, but don't want to share it with people I
actually know.

Sort of like how a lot of people use Tumblr vs Instagram - but this has
(probably) less friction than Tumblr and is more about sharing a moment than
Tumblr is.

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roberthahn
I wish I knew if this is a business or a project. If it's a business, I wish I
could understand the business model.

As it stands, because it's a free app, my concern is that if I use it, then I
will probably end up being the product instead of the customer.

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wtsui
It is and always will be a non-profit project, so no need to worry.

~~~
tsieling
Totally get and respect that. Thanks for clarifying it, and especially for
choosing a not for profit way.

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bsirkia
Looks like a great app and would love to try it, one thing to note is that
searching "Solo" in the iOS app store returns a bunch of various guitar apps,
I couldn't find it without including "share moments alone".

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devolve
I'd love to see face recognition being implemented in this app to ensure that
group photos don't appear.

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orng
But what if you are "alone" in a crowd? At a concert, times square, etc. You
can be lonely even when surrounded by people, in fact; it is often then that
you feel the most alone.

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GotAnyMegadeth
Completely agree. I feel most alone at parties full of people I have nothing
in common with

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cuong
The font on your landing page looks like fixedsys and turned me off the app
completely.

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kndyry
I can't tell whether this is sarcasm, but if it is seriously meant I really
don't understand this kind of thinking. I get that a subjective feeling is
being expressed, and that a similarly subjective impression that a poor design
decision carries other implications might give one pause. But to completely
discount a (non-typographic) project based solely upon a typeface? What am I
missing?

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bkamapantula
Looks beautiful!

I signed up for the Android version. Looking forward to it.

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tehabe
What is the difference to Secret?

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wtsui
Solo is about sharing the experience of being alone. Secret is about sharing
secrets with friends.

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jasonlotito
Do you moderate out photos that don't conform? Or is it merely a photo sharing
app?

~~~
wtsui
Posts that are obviously inappropriate are moderated.

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pacofvf
set your debug flag off :S!!

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wtsui
Thx :) Working on it.

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gdewilde
hahahaha what a piece of shit.

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aabalkan
You certainly have a problem with lonelines...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=wtsui](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=wtsui)

~~~
pizza
What are you trying to achieve? How is this useful?

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wtsui
My hope is to help lonely people feel a sense of connection with others.

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pcl
FYI, I suspect that pizza was referring to aabalkan's post, not your app.

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wtsui
Somehow missed the indent. Thanks :)

