

Show HN: Social Drop - robinduckett
http://www.socialdrop.net/

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Udo
I would love to see the actual implementation, otherwise you're asking people
for feedback on sentence fragments and a sign-up page. How far along are you?

~~~
robinduckett
The system is being built with node.js, Amazon EC2 and S3, I've got accounts
management in place, and file uploading and obviously chat. I'm still working
on integrating everything. It is very early days indeed but if the
overwhelming response here is negative then my views will be to just bin it
and work on something better.

~~~
Udo
I believe most of the time, for any given idea, you'll get a number of
negative reactions very fast - especially if there is no actual demo to see
yet. If we take your landing page as an elevator pitch, the feedback you get
will mostly consist of obvious concerns, such as:

Won't that devolve into piratebay with a chatroom? How will you pay for the
huge bandwidth and storage required? Will people want to chat ad-hoc with
strangers while they're downloading? Do people want others to know what
they're downloading? How can you make this legal AND interesting?

But those concerns are largely shots in the dark. We don't know what you got
planned. So I guess the question is more: Do you believe in the idea? Do you
believe you can make this work? If so, you shouldn't give the reins to
naysayers, show what you can do; go ahead and try it out, by all means! But if
the concerns above are similar to your own doubts, move away from the keyboard
and develop another idea.

~~~
robinduckett
> Won't that devolve into piratebay with a chatroom?

Possibly, but this is why reporting and copyright infringment DCMA procedures
ala youtube will be key.

> How will you pay for the huge bandwidth and storage required?

Self funded to start, everyone will get a limited amount of space to start off
with. I don't want to go the premium account route to start off with so
nonintrusive advertising will be used to help cover costs. I'm more interested
in creating a community based on easy filesharing rather than making millions
of dollars (pounds in my case).

> Do people want others to know what they're downloading?

If it's all legal then sure, why not? I'm trying to make it easy to create
natural communites based on the type of file uploaded (Categorisation and
tagging of files once uploaded will be important here)

I believe in the idea. I've been thinking about it for a long time and I'm
certainly up for any ideas.

My own doubts are on the lines of "No one will want to use it". I'm not a huge
idea man, and I'm not sure how to go about leading people to the project. If I
can build this and only say, one group of artists ever use it, I will keep it
running for the reason that at least someone is using it. It may not make me
any money but if it makes people's lives easier in any way then I'm interested
in making it happen.

~~~
Udo
> _My own doubts are on the lines of "No one will want to use it"_

Statistically, this is always a good bet, as it is with every other idea. That
makes being a negative person so rewarding ;-)

> _I'm not sure how to go about leading people to the project._

Featuring on HN is a start. Seriously, if you believe this thing can work,
finish your prototype and get it online. Personally, I believe in stripping
the idea down to the simplest implementation that could possibly work. Build
it quick and dirty, see how it goes. If you don't know any of the "movers and
shakers", prepare for a lengthy take-off period. Distinguishing between a long
runway and utter failure can be the hardest part. But other than that, go. Do
it, now.

------
robinduckett
Please let me know any feedback, I realise there is not much to go on as yet
but I'm hoping to generate as much interest as I can :)

~~~
michael_dorfman
OK, I'll be that guy.

I don't get it. What's the use case? Can you give me an example of a typical
user, and what they'd be doing?

~~~
robinduckett
Upload a file, the download page is a chat room, where people who are
downloading the file can chat, in the simplest terms.

Other people can then be selected to upload more files which can be shared
with other users in the chat.

~~~
eggbrain
Very interesting concept, almost reminds me of a community -- sharing files
and talking about them between users.

I think the biggest trouble you will run into is that unless a file is very
popular, you may not have any people at all in most chatrooms, which would
make it seem like the community was pretty empty. You also have to think about
how people download files -- are they coming to your site to download files,
or are they coming for the community? On forums, people will chat with other
users, and then share files. But when people are looking to upload/download
files, I don't know how often they are looking for a community.

~~~
robinduckett
> Very interesting concept, almost reminds me of a community -- sharing files
> and talking about them between users.

Exactly what I'm going for.

> I think the biggest trouble you will run into is that unless a file is very
> popular, you may not have any people at all in most chatrooms, which would
> make it seem like the community was pretty empty.

I think the way to solve this issue would to have notifications for anyone who
has downloaded the file that there's been activity in the room. The system
I've will save all activity forever, so it's not going to be an IRC type
situation where all logs are lost unless a third party saves it.

> You also have to think about how people download files -- are they coming to
> your site to download files, or are they coming for the community? On
> forums, people will chat with other users, and then share files. But when
> people are looking to upload/download files, I don't know how often they are
> looking for a community.

I admit, when I'm downloading a file, I get annoyed by the "please wait 30
seconds to look at our advertising and whilst we pop up crap in the
background", and I never want it to become the kind of situation here.

I'm thinking of people who are uploading a group of files, say a collection of
pixel art, and want feedback on what they've done. I realise this can be
easily achieved by a forum but I think this idea is novel enough to not
replace the forum, but become an alternate method of communicating in-situ
with the subject matter.

