
We have a real-time API and we're not afraid to use it. Are you? - wulczer
http://ducksboard.com/hackathon/
======
joelhaasnoot
Contest is a great idea, but doing a contest for a closed beta product is not
exactly my piece of pie. Too many hurdles to jump to see if this is going to
be what I want to use in the first place. No word on pricing on your launch
page either, except for "buying widgets"

~~~
dmarinoc
Ooops... I think we have a wrong message in our site: it's not in our plans to
sell widgets (or put limitations on the # of them you can use). Probably the
word "marketplace" isn't appropriate. Calling it "directory" suits better our
intentions.

Also, it's not really a contest. For us is to have fun, play with cutting-edge
technology, make interesting things and just hack.

I see your point about pricing, but we can only say at this stage that we are
validating the final one and it will be affordable. Hope this helps to explain
our view.

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asmosoinio
Do you have a story for the name? The first thing I thought of was "duck duck
go is going real-time?".

~~~
wulczer
This photo of two of the founders when they were 12 years and 60 pounds
younger should explain it <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18461275/Ducksboard-
founders.jpg>

Go, Anaheim Ducks!

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joshu
Anyone have any thoughts on how to do the display side of this in VERY low
power? Are there cheap android tablets or whatever that might be suitable?

I want to do something like this but don't need to consume tons of watts...

~~~
wulczer
We have plans to make an interface that's less bling-heavy and more power-
friendly, but it won't hit production anytime soon.

Another way is to simply write your own visualisation. If you're interested in
getting early-alpha-unstable-omg access to the read APIs (HTTP and
WebSockets), shoot us an email to hello@ducksboard.com

~~~
joshu
I meant on the hardware side. A PC + display takes up, what, 40 watts minimum?

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rwolf
After poking around little bit, it appears you need to poll for updates. To
clarify, when you say "real-time" you mean "changes are reflected quickly" and
not "changes are pushed to clients"?

~~~
wulczer
Nope, we push changes to clients.

The exact workflow is: the initial data is pulled over HTTP, the code connects
to our server over WebSockets and after that _no more requests_ are made. The
real-time updates are pushed over the WebSocket connection.

~~~
rwolf
Thanks for clarifying. I'm not sure how I missed that when reviewing the
example code.

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8ig8
So Ducksboard is free? Are there any details about future plans to charge for
services? I hate signing up for services when there is no indication about the
future.

~~~
dmarinoc
It's free during the beta... and someday we'll start charging. There's nothing
more I can say you now except:

\- We are validating the pricing, and it will cost like any other SaaS
(different plans segmented on features and affordable [monthly fee like 1-2
hours of typical salary outside SiliconValley :D]

\- If you are in the Hackathon, we will forget to send you any invoice during
some months ;)

~~~
Sukotto
Instead of not sending an invoice I think it might be smarter to send one and
have a line item "Early adopter bonus -$xx". That way once the bonus runs out,
it won't be quite as surprising for the user.

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aw3c2
After clicking through several pages to find out what on earth ducksboard is
it turned out to be NOT a physical screen device. Meh.

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thorin_2
None of the widgets worked for me in the demo. After researching WebSockets I
figured it out: WS aren't supported by IE (or so it appears, using IE9 with
all default settings). see them when using my Chrome browser. Seems like IE
users are still a pretty big market though, so not sure how this will succeed
without support for IE.

~~~
aitorciki
Hm, we fallback to a Flash implementation of the WebSocket protocol when using
a non-compatible browser, IE9 included.

Could it be that you don't have a Flash-enabled IE?

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pivotal
Neat idea, although I think you need to make it a bit clearer what the product
is on that page. I had to click a few times to get the executive summary. That
being said, I'm a bit grumpy I didn't try to develop a similar idea I had a
while ago.

~~~
citricsquid
The idea isn't a new one, there are other companies doing this (geckoboard is
the most popular one that I can recall) -- ducksboard are just doing it
differently.

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ultrasaurus
I just applied for an API key, but there's a deadline of the 4th or the 7th?
I'm not optimistic this particular project will percolate to the top of the
stack that quickly.

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abarrera
Great work guys!! Looking forward to see more integration and new widgets! As
I said before would love to have more info on the graphing widgets ;)

------
nickbarnwell
Excited to test it out with Podio. Will save me writing my own dashboard
interface and make customers pretty happy in the process

------
Swizec
I think I want to have some fun with this. No idea whatsoever what I want to
build, but it might be totally awesome.

------
wulczer
If you have any questions, I'll be here all day ;)

~~~
qeorge
Really want to try it out, but I've been waiting for an invite since 6/1/2011.
:)

Anything you can do? george@illuminatikarate.com

~~~
wulczer
Ooops!

Sure, you'll have yours today. You had a bit of rotten luck, as precisely on
that day we turned down the flow of invites.

Sorry to keep you waiting ;)

~~~
qeorge
No worries, thanks a lot!

