
Show HN: Ping.gy – An app to connect with people within 1km from you - vasanthv
https://ping.gy
======
Cu3PO42
Unfortunately I wasn't really able to test this out as there are no users in
my area, but I was wondering how you are tackling / plan to tackle the
following problem:

Suppose two people are almost but not quite 1km away from each other and are
having a conversation on there. To a third person who has one of these people
in range, but not the other, the messages might seem quite confusing and/or
they might feel addressed even though they are not.

A possible solution might be to define fixed cells of roughly 1km in diameter
instead of using immediate neighbourhoods centered around every participant.
Or you could dynamically create rooms and you are added to the closest one to
you (up to some maximum size)? The latter might also help with getting any
users at all in less densely populated areas.

~~~
hyder_m29
An ideal solution would be to define cells based on clusters of people and
connect anomalous persons to the nearest cluster. This should not only provide
an optimum groups sizes based on an area's population, but also allow remote
users to interact.

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mwest
Reminds me of Jodel and the now-defunct Yik Yak.

Yik Yak took the "cells" or "herds" approach. Some history here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yik_Yak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yik_Yak)

I'm not sure how you're going to avoid the same issues that Yik Yak faced.

"Ambient social networking" isn't new, but it's never taken off. Some reading:

[https://www.quora.com/Why-have-almost-all-location-based-
mes...](https://www.quora.com/Why-have-almost-all-location-based-messaging-
apps-failed)

[https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/23/location-vs-
communication/](https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/23/location-vs-communication/)

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augustocallejas
I'm currently at Disney World where there are thousands of folks within 1 km
of me, but when I visit this page on iOS, I don't see any place to message on
the main page. It just shows the logo and the explainer text.

It would be nice to at least leave a message in my area, so future users can
see it.

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Freak_NL
I don't see any feedback on _what_ my current location is. I know my home ISP
assigns me an IP address that location services place a 100km away from me —
users have no way of verifying if their location was picked up correctly.

~~~
vasanthv
Thanks for this suggestion, will consider adding this. BTW, We don't use
location from ISP, we get location form GPS. So it will be more accurate than
getting from ISP.

~~~
Freak_NL
I don't think my laptop provides you with coordinates based on GPS.

~~~
icebraining
Indirectly, it can: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-
Fi_positioning_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_positioning_system)

(At least Chrome and Firefox can use this system; I'm no sure about the other
browsers)

------
jokoon
Already got the idea and published it.

Frankly the 1km radius is not a good idea, it will flood messages in crowded
area, and display none in others.

~~~
vasanthv
Yes agreed. But is a good distance to cover a small neighbourhood or campus.

~~~
codingdave
Yes, and that can bring a sense of community to a place that doesn't already
have one. But I'm unsure how many neighborhoods or campuses would both not
already have some ways of communicating... yet still want to create one.
Physical proximity removes communications barriers, so you are solving a
problem that may not exist.

~~~
vasanthv
Yes but unless they both are in same room. Imagine a soccer match or any tech
event. These are some use cases I thought of while building this.

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cpplinuxdude
no users around me and I'm fairly central in London. Why not connect with the
n closest users instead?

~~~
vasanthv
We just launched this today. Though it is a bad idea to roll out globally for
this idea. I did want to spread the word and then target area wise. Not sure
if it is gonna work.

~~~
seszett
I think you best bet would be to use either real world population density, or
connected users density to scale the communication distance, so that people
don't have to stay alone, and at the same time you still have a meaningfully
limited range.

I don't think anyone will just stay connected alone in the hope that someone
else may connect later.

------
foxhop
Cool, I built this last year during a hackathon. It wasn't a chat but a forum.
I've built chats before but it didn't seem as useful.

My idea was to provide a way to augment reality, add context to your location,
see what other people that were there before said, sort of like a virtual
message in a bottle.

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fergonco
Bug report: hitting ENTER n times sends the message n times. Until the message
box is cleared.

~~~
vasanthv
Thanks will fix it shortly.

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seszett
For some reason, I only get a red message saying "Invalid location co-
ordinates." when I try to post something (not that I expect anyone else to be
within 1 km of me anyway).

On Firefox on desktop, clicked "yes" when asked to share my location.

~~~
vasanthv
That is weird. May I know where are you located?

~~~
seszett
Apparently Firefox locates me at 50.6138111,3.0423598999999997 (which is
actually 3 km away from where I am, but that's not your fault) but your API
responds with {"message":"Invalid location co-ordinates."}.

Maybe it's a problem with the decimals in 3.0423598999999997?

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icebraining
Another Yik Yak? Get ready for the fallout.

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theveloped
Looks amazing great work on finishing a great looking project! I made a
similar application for iOS (www.zonemessenger.com) a while back with the same
intent of getting people in contact within a 1km radius (have since updated
the radius to match local demand).

And although I still think it could be a very valuable type of platform it is
extremely hard to build the right community with enough critical mass. Best of
luck! And if you ever want exchange experiences I'd be happy to help.

------
Uplink
Timestamps.

How do I know when the other messages I'm seeing were posted? Maybe those
people have long gone and I have no idea I'm talking into thin air.

------
quangio
I am building a similar mobile app at
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=zero.sleep.com...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=zero.sleep.comchat)

I haven't launched it yet though. My goal is not a YikYak clone but an
issue/karma tracker for real-world interaction.

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agentd00nut
If your curious to see what a more popular area looks like you can just hit
[https://ping.gy/api/ping?location=40.7128,-74.0060&skip=0](https://ping.gy/api/ping?location=40.7128,-74.0060&skip=0)

Posting into that is just as easy.

Made this a bit more fun since no one was around for me.

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SomeT
Because I live in the middle of nowhere and no one uses technology much here I
decided to use a VPN as to which your site then gives me the following error:
[https://gyazo.com/3d54b08e90205e92e7744a086d92a703](https://gyazo.com/3d54b08e90205e92e7744a086d92a703)

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Asturaz
Almost like Maritime VHF radio. The HAM radio guys are doing more crazy stuff
so I don't count them.

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staticelf
It should show where it thinks I am.

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076ae80a-3c97-4
Your parsing isn't too great. Try posting this: <img src=x onerror=alert(123)
/>

~~~
vasanthv
Thanks for reporting. Fixed it.

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ncouture
I would like to see this kind of service work to allow meeting fellow local
hackers.

If interested please contact me (nicolas@kisscalls.com); I would like to
donate to you the domain name "hackers.express".

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herbst
It's just a pulsing smiley and a short description for me.

~~~
dingo_bat
Same here. It didn't ask me for any location permission either, so I don't
know how it would know where I am.

~~~
yoz-y
It did ask me for location (on Safari).

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raihansaputra
Can I suggest to have timestamps on the chatlog? A bit disorienting to not
know when the last conversation happened.

~~~
vasanthv
Thanks.. Have added it.

~~~
raihansaputra
Thanks for the change!

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Double_a_92
So like Jodel, Whisper, ...?

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_bxg1
I was disappointed to find it isn't a mesh network app

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eric24234
How do you measure the distance ? postgis ?

~~~
vasanthv
Using MongoDb geonear

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vubui
But why? why would you need this?

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developius
This is so cool. Simple, quick, effective. Good job, will be interested to see
how it progresses.

