

Ask HN: Review my webapp: hapylink.com - Cornify
http://www.hapylink.com

======
sobriquet
Minor tweak: When clicking the input box, I'd like the ghost text,
'<http://'>, to be removed. Since I've already copied the URL I want to make
happy, when I paste it I produce: <http://http://urltomakehappy.com>, It'd be
nice to not have to manually remove that first <http://>

~~~
jordyhoyt
Or, highlight the first <http://>, so a paste will overwrite it.

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daveambrose
First, I'm a big fan of your flagship product. I use it on my site and told
most of the Upper East Side about the joy Cornify has brought into my life.

Second, can I get some account information - say, analytics when I create an
account with happylink?

If I'm going to be spreading happiness, I want to measure it.

~~~
shizcakes
Everyone knows that you cannot measure happiness.

~~~
novum
Economists do; they like to call it 'utility'

~~~
iuguy
This is why economists are so over-utilised yet never happy.

~~~
sachinag
It's the dismal science for a reason.

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petercooper
There's a meta keywords entry but no content. They're not that important
nowadays, but you might as well fill it in.

You could do with a bookmarklet to make generating links easier.

Perhaps you could add a feature to allow URLs to be prefixed by
<http://hapylink.com/> to then change them into the final link. For example:
<http://hapylink.com/http://www.foxnews.com/> would return a page with the
resulting Hapylink. Diggbar does it like this and makes it so easy to use.

Could you make the resulting links /slightly/ shorter (optionally, perhaps)?
I'd like to use this on Twitter but Twitter would shorten (or at least
truncate) these URLs again as they're a bit long, I think.

A logo would be cool.

~~~
Cornify
Thanks for the detailed suggestions, those are all good points. An api-type
feature, like you are suggesting, is on the way, and the other suggestions are
now on the list.

Happiness all the way!

------
apsec112
It's a nice idea, but _please_ remove the background image, it makes my eyes
bleed. Your main website at <http://www.cornify.com/> has a much better
design.

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jlees
I like it, a nice example of how you can run with an idea and get something
cool out the other end quickly using today's frameworks etc.

But where are the kittens?

~~~
mahmud
Frameworks? really? how about a list of positive words, string concatenation,
a random number generator, and a hashtable to store the URLs and their short
versions, possibly with persistence. Common Lisp hashtables are transparently
persisted with Rucksack, Prevalence, BKNR, Elephant, cl-store, etc.

So here is my take on it, 10 minutes!

<http://paste.lisp.org/display/78367>

P.S. how does one post code in HN?

~~~
jlees
I use 'frameworks' as a handwavy term to encompass 'anything that means you
don't need to spend days reinventing the wheel'. If the aforementioned Lisp
utilities mean you can do that, then so be it.

(Indent three spaces for code.)

~~~
mahmud
Sorry, didn't mean to jump at it like that. It's just URL-shorteners have been
annoying me lately. Just because they're easy to make doesn't mean you should;
there is no hack value in them, as nothing new is there to be discovered and
no new ground to break; and they have no business value, aside from being,
potentially worth BILLIONS as an integral twitter utility for the next
generation of enterprise web grids and semantic net appliances ..meh.

~~~
Cornify
It's all good. Please keep in mind that Hapylink is not a url-shortener, but a
url-happifier. Like you say, url-shortening is over crowded, so Hapylink
focuses on more of a niche audience of users with unhappy links.

------
MicahWedemeyer
Hilarious. I love it.

~~~
physcab
I completely agree. I am going to recommend this to everyone who seems sad to
me.

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jbenz
Awesome. On Cornify, if you click the button five times, every piece of text
gets a very happy modifier. I derive much pleasure from this.

Will Hapylink ever add the same functionality? Because it would probably end
war and hunger.

~~~
Cornify
Try pressing 15 times for some extra sparkle.

------
anuraggoel
Finally, a layer of indirection even joshu can feel happy about.

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ComputerGuru
Another link "shortener" service? Don't we have enough of those in all their
different shapes and colors?

No thanks.

~~~
Cornify
Most links are actually longer - but they are a lot happier and more like to
viewers smile, which is the core focus of Hapylink.

------
jollyjerry
MORE HAPPINESS NEEDED :)

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gonick_daysbury
Pretty cool but your target audience - current or former drug users - is going
to be a difficult one to monetize.

~~~
yesimahuman
Have you seen how much drug users are willing to spend on stuff!??

~~~
diN0bot
no

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keltecp11
Cornify is kinda fun... what is the point of Happylink?

~~~
diN0bot
more joyfulhappyunicorn fun!!!!!@!!!

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okeumeni
I’m always amazed by people who spend time doing this kind of application. I
wish I had that spare time.

~~~
ajkirwin
Plenty of people have enough spare time to do something fun like this. It's
called having a hobby.

