

Show HN: Thotly - An Anonymized Layer On Your Local Reality - kposehn
http://thotly.com

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hugh3
Interesting idea. So it's like an anonymous tweet-stream associated with a
particular geographical location?

Comments:

a) It took me some time to understand what it was. I certainly didn't get it
from the first paragraph, I had to scroll down. "Anonymized local layer on
your reality"? Nobody is gonna understand what you mean by that. Really work
on simplifying the product description so my mother could understand it.

b) It'd help if you provided some examples for things that you think people
might use it for. All I see is some partially-obscured examples like "bread
hot" and I'm curious as to what the hell ends with "bread hot" and is an
appropriate thing to say.

c) You seem to be perfectly aware that trolling, griefing, pranking and
general being-a-dick are likely to be a problem. It seems like it would be
easy for bad content to drive out good. This seems like another good reason to
provide more examples of what good content might look like.

~~~
jtheory
My first thoughts echoed some of these -- what are people thinking that I'd
actually want to read?

Most thoughts that people (myself included) have are better off left in their
heads... I worry this would be something like the experience of sitting at a
restaurant near one of those people who speaks every thought that comes into
their heads.

Now make it anonymous... I think there'd be a few large categories of thots,
based on the motivations that would drive people to stop walking and type in
the text of a thot... attempts to shock, attempts to be profound/fascinating,
and simple brain dumps.

The actually interesting content would unfortunately be pretty rare, I'd
guess, but I'm admittedly curious to know how it goes.

It could help to have some kind of crowd-sourced moderating approach,
possibilities of flagging/banning the shockers/spammers, and/or ways to
highlight users with frequently-liked thots. But still, filtering down the
comments of the masses by the masses still gives you the quality of YouTube
comment content.

Possibly better approach -- some way to let users self-categorize, and
prioritize thots in the right category? It'd be interesting to crunch numbers
out of the thots based on number of spelling errors, vocabulary range, like
profiles, icon/mood/emoticon associated by the thot-thinker, etc., and let
different users get differently-prioritized streams.

*edit: make slightly less curmudgeonly-sounding

~~~
kposehn
Thanks for the feedback. I think we've accounted for this with the stream and
how likes/dislikes work. By taking into account how people react, we want to
make what resonates more visible. Kind of like HN (but I had never touched HN
when I came up with this). As for flags, the threshold for nuking a Thot with
a flag varies - it is a bit of our secret sauce as to how we optimize.

For self-categorization, that is coming in version 1.2 or 1.3. We know that as
more people use it, content needs to get personalized. Definitely heading down
that path quickly.

Quality content and the people who make it need to shine :)

~~~
jtheory
The thing that facebook has taught me with a vengeance is that the definition
of "quality content" is extremely subjective and personal. With my close
friends, we often have a lot of overlap. But once I'm out of that small circle
(into the larger & more intellectually diverse group of "everyone who has ever
friended me for whatever reason"), there are tons of things people post that
get lots of likes from their own circles of friends that I find
trivial/boring/irrelevant, misguided/false, or even ideologically repugnant.

I'm not sure what kinds of content people are going to be posting as thots --
I'm curious about that (hopefully you'll post some data, like the okcupid data
analyses at some point?), but I suspect that's going to be tricky to navigate.

Something like HN with a technical focus is safer ground -- but if people are
making political "jokes" etc. in their thots (or thotting humor that treads
the line of offensive), you could have a decent percentage of content that
resonates greatly with some folks and really irritates others.

------
diggum
I have been working on almost this same project for a year, while I taught
myself the proper way to code a project like this. Were it not for my slow
grasp of MVC and Javascript's self model, I'd have not started over 20 times
and been first! =) Looks great and I'll be excited to try it out.

~~~
kposehn
Hey, best of luck! Ping me @kzorz if you want and maybe we can work together
somehow instead of competing :)

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vailripper
Are you going to be doing some intense marketing in small geographic areas?
This is the type of app that depends on high participation in a small area - I
have a hard time seeing how it will succeed without focusing on a small area
first.

~~~
kposehn
Yes, we're starting on HN here just to get word out, but next up is hitting
several cities in order. The stream makes it possible to enjoy without having
anyone else nearby though, and you can keep participating in a thread you are
in even after you've left an area.

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bomatson
Looks great. Citing a specific use case (whether in a particular area or event
like a concert) would really help your intended audience understand how the
app can be valuable.

Awesome concept

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simon_weber
I like the look of the navigation banner, but for me it's really confusing to
see more than one of them at once. "Features", for example, shows three copies
down the page.

~~~
kposehn
Thanks for the feedback! It's to allow better single page navigation right
now, but we may change that soon.

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tlack
Looks fantastic! I've had similar ideas over the years but never executed
them. How geographically specific is each Thot?

~~~
kposehn
Thanks!

Right now it is about 2km, but that will change as density increases.

------
kposehn
We got written up in TheNextWeb! Thanks to Drew there for the article :)

[http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/10/26/thotly-asks-us-to-
answ...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/10/26/thotly-asks-us-to-answer-what-
are-you-thinking-anonymously/)

------
angryasian
sounds like reddit / subreddits or maybe more like blockchalk

[http://blog.blockchalk.com/post/323747254/blockchalk-
arrives...](http://blog.blockchalk.com/post/323747254/blockchalk-arrives-in-
the-app-store)

~~~
kposehn
Haven't seen block chalk before - looks like no longer in the App Store.
Thanks for telling us :)

~~~
angryasian
they've pivoted because the idea didn't work, its now <http://blockboard.org/>

~~~
kposehn
Looking at what they have now, they have a pretty different value proposition.
I wish them the best with the pivot :)

~~~
angryasian
just wondering what you think the difference in value proposition is ?

~~~
kposehn
Well, BlockBoard looks more like a message board of commerce or friendly
happenings. They want you to be identified as a person, which means you won't
necessarily want to connect with everyone nearby.

For example, you don't really want to post in something like that that you
think the Raiders are a terrible football team...at the raiders game...with
your name on what you post along with a photo. You can get decked for it :P

What they appeal to more is those tightly knit communities of neighbors
talking with each other and doing things, much different then we are.

Thotly is about ideas and what means something to you. Right now, what is
happening or what you think. Soon, photos then sounds, music, questions,
answers, whatever. We want to give people a way to say what they think and to
be rewarded for that expression.

Think more like an idea forum than a bulletin board of stuff. BlockBoard has
something good I think, but we aimed for something really different.

In the end though, it comes down to how people want to use it - that is our
number one focus.

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pork
Wow, looks a lot like <http://noyouu.com>

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jQueryIsAwesome
You should use some nice examples in the front page, i can think of:

In the Movie Theater: "Mortal Kombat is a really cool movie! no plot though"

In a restaurant: "The spaguettis in this restaurant are just out of this
world!"

You get the idea. And please integrate with twitter somehow (maybe a twitter
client that also shows the "Thots") and also republish to twitter if the user
wants to.

Edit: typo.

~~~
kposehn
Thanks for the feedback!

Twitter is coming in just a day or two - but integration is tailored to
letting you tweet what you found while keeping you unlinked from your Thotly
device ID.

