

Ask HN: Review my webapp. - slavingia
http://wipeelist.com/

======
izak30
First of all, looks good.

I would suggest a few things: Let me make a list w/o signing up. (check out
how stack overflow does anonymous stuff..it's good.) Don't tell me "there's no
post-signup xxx" and then make me confirm my e-mail. (for that sake, don't
make me confirm my e-mail, use oid or something, what's my e-mail really worth
to you anyway?) "You've been activated (hopefully)" -- Unsure your software
works? Don't make me login after I activated. This is three times I have to
put my password in before I can use it. What is the exclimation icon next to
an item? Advertising your competitors? are you sure? How are items sorted?
They're not draggable, but they don't seem to be in a instantly recognizable
order either. Could I get a hover state on the bin so I can tell that I'm
going to commit to an action? Could I undo the bin?

Re: twitter. Here's the way I did it. 3 step process. first, you must follow
me. second, input your twitter name on my site. Third, I send you a dm, you
input the code to confirm, that's it, now you're tied.

That's all I have at a quick glance. Looks good, with a good api, and a simple
purpose.

~~~
pstinnett
Was going to post about the advertising competitors thing. Even if it is
sending you some cashflow still not a great idea I would think.

Also, the app interface doesn't seem to match the signup process. Seems kind
of weird.

Nice clean app though.

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eterno
There was a time when "change the world" used to mean something. Go out and
feed a few homeless,poor ppl, but please dont make the 1 millionth todo list
app and claim to "change the world".

Nice design though.

~~~
SingAlong
Well, I too thought the same way, but was reluctant to post it since I later
felt it would discourage someone from developing a better one.

Just a few weeks back I was like "heck why do people even make such apps. its
all the same thing under different skin". But in a few days I found myself in
a total task-war with a lot of things to do. Thats when I realized when these
apps are actually useful and heck, I spent a couple of hours searching for
such an app for my s60 phone.

But I do have one suggestion for these guys developing apps which are 1000-in-
one. Don't make another signup form. Consider using universal logins. OpenID,
Google Account, Yahoo Account, Windows Live Account, etc. The easiest thing to
do is to implement something like ClickPass (<http://clickpass.com>).

------
qhoxie
Two main positives:

* The interface is incredibly slick

* The API looks solid

My big question is, what sets this apart?

~~~
zzzmarcus
It definitely looks nice, but like qhoxie says, I don't see anything extremely
compelling about this vs. the dozens of other list sites out there.

No nested items, no syncing, what is the real advantage to using this over
using Remember the Milk or something else?

You don't need a ton of killer features to differentiate it, but one is a
minimum.

~~~
netcan
There are quite a few of these aren't there?

~~~
davidw
Yep. I open sourced mine after coming to the conclusion that these things are
basically a commodity and aren't going anywhere in terms of making money.

<http://stufftodo.dedasys.com/>

------
blakeperdue
Why do you ask my country? Why do you want to confirm my email? Just trust
me... Don't make me go that extra step, it just puts up another wall for me to
climb before I get to try your app.

~~~
slavingia
No country reqiured anymore :)

~~~
guruz
btw: you could use Geo IP to set a rough default for that

------
vulpes
One suggestion: bang out free iPhone app as soon as possible and get going on
a gmail widget, and you will win doves of users that do not want to pay for
RTM premium features (myself included)

~~~
SwellJoe
Android app market doesn't yet have a glut of todo list apps the way the
iPhone does. It might be worth grabbing some land in an as yet undeveloped
market, rather than being the 148th todo list on the iPhone.

------
whacked_new
I'm not in your target market, so this is just a 5 second impression. Again,
good design. One glaring gripe, the tagline: "... may be free..."

I don't understand why you put yourself on the defensive for your own product.
It does not work in your favor at all.

~~~
GBKS
I agree about not putting yourself in the defensive. Sentences like mentioned
above or "It could be the worst piece of software on the planet, and people
would still use it..." don't convince me to sign up. Tell me instead what I
can do on your site, what makes it so cool that I have to sign up right away.

------
modoc
Unless you're praying for a $$$ acquisition it doesn't NEED to be extremely
compelling vs. the other sites out there. If you just want some good user
base, and you want to make a few bucks with ads or premium features, having a
great UI (which you have) and adding new features is enough.

When I wrote 10MinuteMail.com, it was just to learn Seam. If I'd bothered
Googling around, I would have found a dozen existing sites that did the same
thing, and I wouldn't have released it. However, the market size for the
problem is apparently larger than the existing dozen sites, and I do some
pretty solid traffic/ad revenue on there. It's not a million dollar sale kind
of thing, but if I wanted to I could be leasing a very nice german sports car
on the ad revenue. It really depends on your metrics for success.

The to-do list potential user base is enormous, and having an easy to use,
pretty looking site, that has good integrations with other systems (e-mail,
rss, ical events, gcal, etc...) could do very well, even amongst many existing
competitors.

I agree with the comments that you should making signing up as easy as
possible. Especially with a free service, the barrier to entry needs to be as
low as possible.

------
zacharye
The design is awesome, most definitely. My only comment that hasn't been
covered is the tour page - I would much rather have a short video than scroll
up and down to match numbers with their descriptions. Great work.

------
jcapote
Looks incredibly slick. I'd suggest making the signup process more instant
(skip account creation altogether, or do it later).

------
vizard
Hey I noticed you can get RSS feeds. This is a huge security risk : If anyone
knows my email then can just find out the list I made :(

Not cool. Allow it to be disabled.

------
trevelyan
I don't want to have to sign up either, although I did to check out the
service. What would make this more useful for me is a simple URL that I can
use to access my list anytime, ie:

<http://www.wipeelist.com/list/MYUSERNAME>

All you need from people is that username. Just make the lists public and
writable by default and ask users for a password/email if they want to make
their lists private.

Also, I didn't see the "Add an Item" right away. Perhaps I am blind. I'd
suggest you add an onclick javascript event in the GIANT WHITESPACE that takes
up most of the screen when you login. I clicked on the blank space expecting
something to happen. It would have been nice if something did happen.

Third, it would be nice to be able to rearrange items by dragging them around.
There are jquery plugins for that (Sortables) and is it not hard to implement
them.

------
Tichy
I don't get this obsession with to do lists that is flooding the web lately.
How many people really use them in the end?

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hopeless
I refer to my comment on the last todo list app that was presented here
(err... all of 3 days ago?):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=379293>

Seriously, the drag'n'drop thing is neat but is that the _only_ thing you
could come up with to differentiate your app from the other billions of web-
based todo apps? Hell, you could have differentiated yourself just by coming
up with a business model but failed on that too. If you developed the site
purely to scratch your own itch, then congratulations it's really quite
stunning but don't pretend that it's more than just a personal project.

------
teyc
Love the design. Did you do it yourself?

1\. OpenID? 2\. How do I try without an account?

------
siong1987
It's good to put a tag line under the logo. The first thing I always will look
at is the tag line when I stumble upon a new web application.

And, remove the small gap at the top of the page. Then, your UI will be near
to be perfect.

------
bob_dole
The most beautiful useless webapp ever. seems like it does the same thing as
tadalist

------
debt
Add the ability to drag and drop items on the list. Also, the app runs a bit
slow.

------
rickharrison
I have been looking for an application like this for a while. However, as
other people have stated, getting an iPhone app out there right now is
crucial. Even if you charged a dollar or two for the app, I know I would
snatch it up right away. Remember the milk premium is just too much for me to
get the app.

If you are looking for a partner in developing these widgets , please email me
at rick AT rickharrison DOT me - I'd love to help you with these.

------
kailashbadu
As has been said before: it’s fine if it’s a personal project and your only
intention was to test your technical expertise or give your ego a shot it’s
arm; if you want to pick a couple bucks by slapping AdSense or something, it’s
still fine. However, you are in for a big disappointment if you are expecting
a dime more than that. Nice app, but not just as nice business value.

------
glenstein
Please, I don't want to have to sign up!

------
SapphireSun
I just took a look at the opening page, and it took me a few seconds to figure
out what it was. The block of text in the center should have some sort of
description of what the service is.

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lacker
There needs to be a tl;dr analog for "Takes too long to figure out what
website did; didn't use." I propose

tl;du

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ralph
Minor point: Consider the international audience and drop the "anyways"; it's
slack.

------
romanski
How to delete an account?

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scott_s
Todo lists are becoming the web application version of Hello World.

------
slavingia
First thanks for the comments. I'm going to implement all of these changes
shortly.

I've turned off e-mail verification as many people have asked. I've also
turned off Countries (seems a bit pointless and shouldn't have had it in the
first place).

A "sort by" UI element is in the works. It's almost ready but I need do add
remembering the preference in the app (or you'll have to change it every time
you refresh the page).

Twitter is not fully completed, hence why it wasn't talked about. I'm creating
a dedicated page for Twitter so no one gets confused with using it :)

A hover state for the bin should be done today as well.

FINALLY, iPhone and Gmail apps are in the works.

------
slavingia
The design is done by me. If you're interested just email me (sahil at
slavingia dot com). I do not mean to spam my services, but many people have
asked. :)

