

Ask HN: Bored? Please give me some feedback on my new project -- Enstoria.com - deckardt

Last week, I launched a new project, enstoria.com, and I didn't get much feedback or tractionfrom friends or family on it (aside from the usual, great idea! I'll get right on it!).<p>Enstoria is a dead-simple way to share your favorite stories. Tried to make the UI simple. There's no set-up, no new account to create (fb or twitter login), and a pretty simple form.<p>Something just isn't clicking with it, and I'm too close to see why...
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Jun8
Very interesting idea! Storytelling is gaining popularity recently in teh app
space, e.g. see web.mit.edu/bentley/www/papers/BentleyChowdhuryPoster.pdf,
which is now available as an Android application.

I didn't quite like the orange-yellow on light yellow scheme, it makes the
text hard to read.

But more than that, I have the following comments:

* The purpose of the site is not obvious at first glance, are these nice jokes, stories to be inspired at work, heart warming family stories, etc. I think focusing on one or more areas and making that clear in the entry page would be useful.

* I read two stories: the Ouija bored one and the Olive Garden one. They were, how to put this delicately, weak, the sort of thing your somewhat shallow colleague blurts out at the cooler which makes you hurry back to your cube. You need to get _much_ better content than that, because once someone reads a few bad ones and leaves, they are not every coming back.

* Everyone _loves_ to tell stories so it shouldn't be hard to get good content. I suggest you cold call some high profile people and ask them to submit a story. A story by Godin, Huffington, O'Reilly (both) or a famous writer would be great boost.Also, talk to people on the street, e.g. go to a homeless person begging for change and tell him you'll give him $5 if he tells you a good one. I bet one in five story would be really interesting. Check your local minor celebtities, e.g. TV people, etc. Go to an assisted living house and talk to the old people. Go to the hospital and talk to people.

* Stories do not exist in vacuum, if I'm moved by a story I'd like to know more about the person who told it. You should have storyteller profiles and better pictures for perople (at least initially _not_ profile pics). Take them yourself while interviewing.

I think you got a great idea but you need better content.

~~~
deckardt
to your points: 1\. Yes. the homepage could you something more obvious. What
about something where (1) a few story abstracts are listed along, or even
possibly the first paragraph. (2) a mini-story submission

2\. Content is still king, and definitely struggling with that.

3\. I love your ideas for getting some content in there.

4\. I really like the idea about making it about the storytellers along with
the stories.

You've given me a lot to think about here. Thanks for taking the time.
Anything else, please feel free to pass your thoughts along.

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manuscreationis
I cannot stress enough how much of a turn off it is to see applications that
only use Facebook or Twitter as their source of user authentication.

I don't have a facebook account or a twitter account, and I have no plans to
get one. This makes me completely ineligible to participate in certain
websites.

I understand that I am completely the anomaly here, but just be aware that by
not providing an authentication mechanism for people without these accounts,
you're patently telling them "I don't care to have your business".

I think it's an interesting concept, but without the ability to login and use
it, I can't really give you any feedback. I would hope the purpose of using it
is to help share and discover new works from other authors and storytellers,
helping people spread their work while exposing them to new work as well. That
sort of thing would be a major plus, feature-wise, in my opinion

~~~
deckardt
The login thing was something I went back and forth with. Eventually, that
will be add. For now, I went with this method because (1) most people hate
creating new accounts (2) I won't have the manpower or tools in place to make
sure things werent spammy or for people to hide behind fictional accounts. I
wanted a little bit of accountability to the stories, and with w/twitter and
FB, it creates a filter and some accountability.

Thanks for taking the time to check it out.

~~~
manuscreationis
I really think you could have something cool here if you focus on the aspect
of sharing and discovering new content - Maybe a bit of a weird comment from
someone who avoids facebook and twitter, but I'd say a huge benefit to your
users would simply be providing ways for them to quickly get their stories
read by new people.

In other words, users should be able to opt-in stories into a public feed of
new stories, or stories by tag/type, so that others can come along and browse
by recent or tag and find new content relevant to their interests. Clearly,
things should also be able to be private, and likely should be private by
default.

If the service had that, and didn't require me to use Facebook/Twitter, I'd
consider signing up and putting up some of my own content, as one of my
biggest hurdles has always been getting what I've written in front of a wider
audience of readers, for the purpose of getting a more diverse collection of
critiques.

Hope you keep at it!

~~~
deckardt
Thanks for the extra feedback. I like focusing on the tags and interests. Some
curation done by the system (or a human) could go a long way. I already get
most of my views on the featured stories, so people definitely resonate with
being steered where to go.

I want this to be a place that people will go if they're looking for something
interesting to read, or if they have something interesting to tell. I
appreciate the feedback as it will help me get there sooner!

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sdfjkl
Clickable: <http://enstoria.com/>

