

Ask HN: Rate this Start Up - SourceCow - floozyspeak
http://www.sourcecow.com

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patio11
_SourceCow answers the biggest question we've all asked ourselves- why is that
person following me?_

I sort of doubt this is, in fact, the biggest question for most people. Or
even most people among those on Twitter, who are a small fraction of the total
population. Or even those users of Twitter who have fallen within its reality
distortion field and think that their follower count means anything, since the
reality distortion field suggests that the count is important rather than the
individual followers.

Your startup requires that X perform an operation which is expensive in terms
of time, effort, and perceived risk (installing a plugin and then commenting)
_without receiving value_ so that Y can receive value. That is a virtually
perfect recipe for not gaining traction.

Very nice design, though.

~~~
floozyspeak
Obviously there's some marketing speeel in there but I do think in general
folks wanna know why they're being followed.

I mean lets just go over to search here...

<http://search.twitter.com/search?q=why+do+people+follow+me>

There's some ammo right there to back up a concept like this. Will it save
lives and make oodles, maybe not but could it fill in some blanks sure!

There's little value in lists and far more effort.

~~~
mahmud
"Why do people follow" to me does not indicate the presence of a real market
for a software product, but a medical product to deal with paranoid
narcissistic delusions of grandeur.

Twitter, the next Pfizer acquisition?

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tptacek
I'm confused. What does this program do that necessitates a browser plugin?

~~~
floozyspeak
sourcecow is really orientated more toward the person starting out on twitter
vs the person with an established 500 followers/friends. the plugin detects a
"follow" event on twitter and window appears the moment you follow someone, at
that time you're asked 3 questions, why, how you found them, what you hope to
gain by following them.

without a plugin or a way to hit the person at the moment they decided to
follow someone you'd have to care to come to the site and tell why afterwards
etc. the plugin just facilitates the "get'm now while its hot in yer head"

