

Photos Too Racy for Facebook? Put Them in the Fridge (YC S10) - austinchang
http://mashable.com/2010/08/24/the-fridge/

======
daychilde
I've signed up and created a couple of groups. Here's my thoughts and feedback
after exploring what I could find:

1\. Need a favicon. In the expectation that I'll use the service, I added it
to my bookmarks bar - where it shows up as the default icon. d'oh!

2\. Notification on new posts is great! I'd also like the option to subscribe
to new comments as well. Two levels: 1) an option to automatically subscribe
to comments for each new post, and 2) an option on each post to subscribe to
that post. I would use the former; but most would probably like the latter to
subscribe to the occasional interesting post. Also, 3) if both above options
were implemented, an option to unsubscribe from new commenta made to a post
(that would over-ride the global subscription comments - so I could opt-out of
a post I had no interest in)

3\. UI when uploading a pic could use some work. I'm not sure what you can
detect, but I assume you can know how many files you're getting - at a bare
minimum, "Uploading $num of $total..." would be a help.

4\. Youtube videos are only embedded when the URL is the entirety of the post.
Took me a few tries to figure that out... Perhaps a button like "Add a Youtube
video" that, when clicked, becomes a text box to paste the URL into with a
"Post" button on that...

5\. Similarly - it looks to me like pictures upload as a separate post - so
instead of clicking in the post field, then clicking 'add pictures' - maybe
that should be separated out like the Youtube button idea above - an "add
pictures" button (or separate function somewhere easy to find, but separate
from a text post). Well, could even have tabbed submission - chosing text or
pics or youtube...

6\. Profile pics need a little work: looks like it makes the largest square it
can from the picture, starting at top-left, and cuts off the rest of the
picture. All thumbnails seem to do this, which is a little odd. Might be
better to at least center the square in the cropped dimension... On the
profile pic: Being able to drag the image to set what part of the image was
displayed for the profile pic would be awesome, and UI-light, I'd think.

7\. Per a suggestion below, I set up an "HN" group - for anyone interested:
<http://www.frid.ge/?ginvitation=3kharhhlv8owo4wgk0wwo4kcc> \- I note that the
email address to send is at "hn@" - which is great. To test, I set up another
group also called "HN", and its email is "hn1@" - which means this is
extraordinarily easy for spammers to guess... certainly to send to a@, b@, c@
etc... Also, when I changed the name of the group and created another "HN" -
it got the "hn1@" email - meaning if the name is changed and someone has the
old addy in their address book and someone else uses the name.......... I
don't see how this can end well, even if I like the email feature itself.

I like the cleanliness of the interface. I like the ease of switching between
the groups I created.

I hope this takes off - it seems useful and good.

~~~
austinchang
This is a great post and great suggestions!

1\. doh. get one up asap (little launch things we overlooked thanks!)

2\. we are working on a bit more custom notification settings. right now they
default to post ON but you can always turn them off for specific group. you
get notifications if someone comments on your post as well as if you have
commented on something and there is follow up. the idea of subscribing to a
post is great. on the list!

3\. yes, we have a new photo upload interface coming out soon. know that it is
not ideal!

4\. youtube (and vimeo) native URLs are supported if you don't add any text.
if you do it is just the video (like FB actually) however we do let use the
embed code to post videos inline and add comments before or after. works for
any video service as well as any flash embed.

5\. see 3. but yes. coming soon!

6\. absolutely. we are working on the whole photo experience one step at a
time.

7\. well for the dedicated email addresses for each group you have to be a
Member of each group in order to post to that group. we check the sender email
with the group members so people who aren't members but just try to spam all
the groups won't be able to.

Thanks! We are working on rolling out a much easier to use and "polished"
design that keeps the simplicity but fixes alot of these UI issues.

As you continue to use it would love any feedback, comments, or concerns.
cheers!

------
pqs
The fridge is no more than a private mailing list influenced by social
networks.

It's funny, google is trying to create a new social network (buzz, orkut,
wave, ...) and they have Google Groups that are real communities (spam appart)
that only need some care.

~~~
Kadin
I think the use cases of Buzz and something like Fridge are very dissimilar.
Buzz allows you to subscribe to _individuals_ ; although when you post it's
one->many, fundamentally what it's promoting is a lot of one-one connections.
Although Buzz makes it a lot easier to have a group conversation than, say,
Twitter (which frankly sucks in a lot of ways, but was first), it's not really
a group tool.

I agree about Google Groups getting ignored; it would be nice if the eventual
Google Competitor to Fridge was built on an upgrade of Groups. Perhaps one
that split off the Usenet part of Google Groups completely; mixing in
proprietary Google Groups and Usenet via Google wasn't ever a good idea.

~~~
austinchang
i agree completely and group platforms is one market we are trying to address
in that Fridge groups are super easy to create, invite friends, and
share/socialize.

one thing we are rolling out soon is gmail and google group contact import.

~~~
pqs
In my point of view, it should be possible to use a Fridge as a mailing list,
I mean, at least, I should be able to answer comments by e-mail. It is already
possible to do this on Facebook. This would help to introduce The Fridge to
middle aged people who are proficient in email but don't want to "waste time"
in learning new technologies. I'm thinking in small businesses.

------
ohyes
Picture too racy to be seen by millions on the internet?

Don't post it to the internet. Websites get hacked, confidences are violated.
(In fact, if you _actually_ care, you shouldn't take the picture in the first
place, as PCs can be hacked as well).

~~~
Jkeg
In truth I think a service like this is more about not having your family and
colleagues being able to easily snoop in on your private life, not about
giving you iron clad privacy. Or any level of social separation that you want
which Facebook doesn't allow easily. Within that assumption, the fact that for
example, photos of you can be posted outside that circle of trust, is just a
necessary risk if you want to stay connected with your friends when most
probably use social networking like facebook/etc.

~~~
jacquesm
Your family is part of your private life more or less by definition, and stuff
once posted to any website tends to get reposted elsewhere.

If you don't want it made public, don't put it on the web is pretty good
strategy.

edit: I have no idea what happened there but this comment appeared a whole
bunch of times!

~~~
mechanical_fish
_Your family is part of your private life more or less by definition_

Your family is part of _one_ of your private lives. Having others can be
healthy. Depending on your relationship with your family, _very_ healthy.

And, yes, you still have to make sure that your stuff posted online passes the
_New York Times_ test: If it turns up as front page news you have to be able
to survive. That said: The advantage of a social network with loudly stated
privacy norms is that (a) people will be told not to share outside the list,
(b) you can control which friends are on the list and hopefully keep the
untrustworthy ones out; (c) when people cut-and-paste anyway, despite your
precautions, they can be properly ostracized, which (one might hope) will
teach them some manners.

~~~
jacquesm
I only have the one :)

That's complicated enough for me...

------
sprout
Backups? I'm less concerned about my Facebook pictures leaking out than I am
that I don't have easy access to the metadata they're storing about me, and
can't browse it locally. (In some simple open format.)

~~~
alexchung
<http://zesty.ca/facebook/>

you can see what's public from the graph api that the world is seeing

------
akshayubhat
wouldn't it be easier to email the pics to the friends directly?

Posterous works because people actually intend to publish their thoughts, and
they are uncomfortable with using an web interface. But in case of picture I
dont think people would be comfortable with idea of sending it to a third
party website, why not just add multiple emails addresses to your 'to' field.
also threaded conversations make it easier to have all comments / replies in a
single place.

Also facebook album with proper privacy settings is much better option.

~~~
techiferous
> wouldn't it be easier to email the pics to the friends directly?

I think you're underestimating the value of organizing the information into
one place. And I'm sure there are/will be other features than just picture
sharing.

> I dont think people would be comfortable with idea of sending it to a third
> party website...facebook album with proper privacy settings is much better
> option

This strikes me as a tad contradictory. People wouldn't trust a third party
with these pictures but facebook is somehow okay.

~~~
akshayubhat
facebook provides a better way of organizing them via tags. and regarding
trusting facebook, people are motivated to learn facebook privacy settings,
since they are using it everyday.

Finally a person savvy enough to use such website/ email based service, must
already be proficient with Facebook settings.

~~~
brownleej
This site could work well for someone who is not that technically proficient,
but had a tech-savvy friend who created a group. A layperson could easily
handle visiting the site to look at other people's photos, and e-mailing
pictures to the site when they want to share them.

Also, you leave out the possibility that Facebook might alter the privacy
settings without warning, which could catch even a savvy user by surprise.

~~~
austinchang
We are also building out features to make it much easier to upload single
photos, albums, videos, as well as tag users, invite friends from FB into the
group, etc... baby steps.

------
nickgeiger
This has great potential if I understand it correctly. One of the things
facebook doesn't seem to address for me is the need to have groups of friends.
I've always wanted facebook to implement the idea of "circles" (i.e. high
school friends, college friends, current friends, co-workers, etc) so I could
post stuff specific to that circle of friends rather than blasting all of my
FB friends, which may include all of those groups.

Maybe this feature is on the horizon in facebook, or maybe something like this
new service will address it, or both. FB seems to be pretty good at quickly
copying features that other services provide that are popular and align well
with the whole social graph (e.g. twitter, foursquare).

I played with thefridge a bit just to try it out and it seems very alpha: it
basically didn't work for me at all. It seems many features require email
verification and although I followed the email link, I exited out of the
password prompt and wasn't able to do much.

~~~
jacquesm
The dutch website hyves was conceived around the 'circles' idea. It's quite
old compared to facebook, looks a bit like myspace.

------
jrockway
Good way to capitalize on Facebook's privacy snafus. But the problem is,
what's to stop someone in your trusted group from leaking the pictures?

What we really need is a photo-sharing service that delivers the photos on
that self-destructing paper they use in Inspector Gadget.

~~~
techiferous
> what's to stop someone in your trusted group from leaking the pictures?

The problem of keeping secrets and whom to trust is not a new problem. It's a
social problem, not a technical problem. The technology just makes the fallout
of a broken confidence worse, that's all.

------
csmeder
Is there an HN group how do I find it or join it?

~~~
austinchang
please create one and share the URL!

~~~
daychilde
Here we go: <http://www.frid.ge/?ginvitation=3kharhhlv8owo4wgk0wwo4kcc>

------
zenocon
It would be nice to add the ability to install open social apps. I'd like to
add my own custom Gmap application. Will fridge have any integration
capability with open social standards
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSocial> ?

~~~
austinchang
Yes. we are currently developing our API that will support customization of
groups as well as the ability to take your Fridge groups with you with an
iphone app being one of the first uses.

To what standard we integrate with we aren't sure yet. We know it won't be FB
connect...!

------
Robin_Message
This is genius. It provides one of the killer apps of Google Wave -- planning
a trip with friends and sharing the photos afterwards -- but without all the
extra cruft Wave added (new logins, no email integration, threading, branching
and histories).

------
Locke1689
With respect to the name -- I'm really not sure why I hate it so much but I do
have a really visceral disgust. If I think of why I'll post again.

~~~
austinchang
Really? Post it on the Fridge. Put it on the Fridge. Like the fridge at home
growing up where you mom would put gold stars on your homework, shopping list,
pictures of weddings, messages? There is a fridge in every house, dorm, frat,
apartment and it is usually the one place where stuff is posted and shared for
everyone but specifically for that group.

------
joubert
A friend who once visited me took pictures from in my apartment (I live on a
high floor in downtown Manhattan, nice view) which he then posted on his
blog!!!

I asked him to kill it (would you like if I posted pics of your bedroom for
the world to see?)

------
brc
Hah! bong from an N64 controller? Kids these days...

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u48998
People don't like to accept but email and email lists are still the
fundamental ways people collaborate on important and personal matters. Even
though Yahoo and Google groups are not being talked about much, it wouldn't
hurt if someone innovate on top of those same old method of communication.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if data (email) is pushed to the user or user is
pushed to the date (website). What matters is the quality and integrity of the
content and communication platform. If people feel comfortable using your
service, if your service is easy enough for them to use, you win.

~~~
austinchang
agreed and that is what we are trying to build. something that is a super
simple execution of a core notion and build out from there. email is great for
direct communication but social conversation naturally branches and add in
lots of folks it gets unmanageable to track.

soon we are going to integrate tighter into email so people can have the
convenience of replying via email if they want but also to be able to go to
the site for a richer experience.

