

Fridge (YC S10) on the BBC - Pared down, cut down social networking - austinchang
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9116226.stm

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mike-cardwell
It bothers me that there is no https version for frid.ge. Even when you log in
your credentials are sent unencrypted.

Compare to Facebook. On Facebook you can get a complete https experience by
visiting <https://www.facebook.com/> but even if you don't, the login still
goes over https.

I'd take frid.ge more seriously with regards to privacy and security of my
data if they simply forced all traffic over https and installed an EV SSL
cert. Non SSL shouldn't even be an option. Otherwise my friends looking at my
data are leaking my data. With an EV SSL cert and forced https, they could
even use it as a marketing gimmick. Something along the lines of, "Frid.ge. We
take the security of your personal data as seriously as your bank does"

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Locke1689
Someone should double check me on this because I actually couldn't get the
account to correctly activate but I think there's a POST CSRF vulnerability on
the "new group" button in the profile page.

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jharrison
There have been a few threads on HN about Fridge and in at least one the
question about the magical "Profit" step was asked. I'm genuinely curious how
a platform specifically targeted at people who want to maintain more
definitive boundaries in their group memberships makes money.

Maybe I'm just not savvy enough to get it. The only thing I can think of is
targeted advertising but even that seems a little sketchy given the premise
that Fridge is ultra-private. How do you capitalize on a social graph without
seeming to cross the line with privacy?

I guess the other option is to eventually charge for features in a sort of
Freemium model.

Anyone have any other ideas how you monetize such a thing?

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lrm242
That's because profit isn't part of their bet. This is a get acquired bet,
plain and simple. Surely they will spin a yarn about charging for premium
features, etc -- but that's just because they have to.

~~~
jharrison
Ah, yes. That IS a replacement for the "Profit" step.

Who would buy such a thing? Seems like an interested party might not like the
idea that the TOS is so locked down (I'm presuming that the privacy is spelled
out in a TOS, I haven't looked). Is a developed social graph really worth that
much, especially if (as is mentioned in another thread) the groups are
temporary, one-time use? I guess there's always the possibility of buying it
and dispensing with the TOS and replacing it with a more open version.

Again, I'm just very curious. Having a hard time wrapping my head around this.

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malloreon
I asked similar questions in the thread announcing the Fridge two months ago
and didn't get a reply that answered my question.

To paraphrase a fake Mark Zuckerberg, "I got people to share their personal
information with me because I assured them I believed in privacy. When I found
out how much advertisers were willing to pay for that information, I stopped
believing in privacy."

EDIT: Link to my question in the previous thread about the fridge:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1628877>

~~~
jharrison
Thanks, malloreon. It was indeed your unanswered question that prompted me to
ask again. I appreciate Austin chiming in below.

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randomtask
Good work. Just one issue I noticed is that when I searched for "the fridge"
in Google only one of your pages turned up and it was a broken link that
served a default Apache 404 page (www.frid.ge/php/login.php). There was
nothing else in the results that clearly stood out as the right page.

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proexploit
Hadn't heard of Fridge before this article and I'm going to try it out.
Everything seems to be working but it won't stop popping up the "Check your
email to verify" alert (I already clicked/pasted the link a few times). That's
going to get annoying :)

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austinchang
argh... sorry about that! we had a bug we introduced recently that we thought
fixed that... email repairman@frid.ge with you account and we can fix it?

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yeti
Is it just me or is this URL hard to navigate to? eg- for Word of Mouth

I don't use any other site with a .ge extension. I tried thefridge.com and got
to something totally different.

Searched Google for "Fridge", "The Fridge", "TheFridge" and no where on first
page did it appear (not surprising given how much money should be in
SEO/fridge sales)

Am I missing something?

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tajddin
Well done man. Well done. I've actually used fridge with my friends a few
times and we've appreciated the exclusivity that it provides as opposed to
facebook.

PS ~ blue overload == great.

~~~
austinchang
thanks! working on a faster/less janky version to be released anyday...

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sahillavingia
Congrats Austin. Love the site, though I think it suffers from blue-overload.

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malloreon
When does the social graphing across groups between interests begin?

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austinchang
at the moment we only "link" groups when there are common users in both. we
are finding that as more and more groups are formed (around interests, events,
organizations) more and more overlap occurs.

while this isn't terribly valuable right we might introduce the concept of
larger contextual groups that are open to invites that we can start suggesting
for related context

~~~
malloreon
So by initially talking up the privacy aspect in both PR and on the site, your
goal is to eventually get people to care less about privacy and be more open
on your site?

I don't mean to belabor the point endlessly across submissions, but I'm really
seeing a disconnect between the marketing and PR for your site and your goals.

~~~
austinchang
not quite. (and definitely welcome the discussion)

all Fridges will always be accessible to only those in the group. if you
aren't in the group you don't have access to it. we are already seeing users
create Fridges for larger and more "open" groups like conferences, events,
interest groups, etc... and the members are the ones that share the invite
URLs to add members.

the main point here is that members of one group do NOT have any information
or access about the others groups you are in unless you share it. the group
members of a Fridge can decide how open or closed they want their group to be.

in the future an administrator can customize group settings to enable a group
to be "listed" or "discoverable" allowing organizations or events that want to
open to be open. it would definitely be transparent to the members and
settings ONLY for that group with their other groups closed, private, and not
listed...

