

Show HN: Beautiful Real-Time Polling On Twitter With Analytics - BenSchaechter
http://gopollgo.com/what-do-you-think-of-gopollgo

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spooneybarger
the 'someone just joined this page. boom!' is so annoying and distracting. if
that were to stay, i wouldn't ever use the site.

what it says to me is, 'we are more interested in eye candy then real
features'.

why?

because you are constantly trying to distract me from the actual content.

the 'take another poll' button constantly gets covered by the noise.

the techie side feels the need to tell you that i had to get my cursor in just
the right place ( using latest google chrome ) to even make the next poll
button work, that is when an annoying 'someone just voted' message would let
me. i tried. took me 2 minutes to manage to click it.

~~~
BenSchaechter
Great feedback. We just launched this today and honestly didn't expect it to
be #1 on HackerNews. We're going to start grouping the messages together and
less often so they aren't as distracting like:

"Bensign, Bob, Joe & 17 others just joined the page".

Our team will be rolling out fixes very soon.

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jrockway
I'm really tired of subjective words like "beautiful" in the title. What makes
this particularly beautiful? It's a fake wood-grain background with a few
buttons and randomly-indented gravitars.

Let's try and stay away from ad copy for showing off our projects on HN. "I
made this" is enough reason to click the link.

~~~
bmelton
In this particular case, while I happen to be biased and agree that it's
beautiful, I think that it's added as a differentiator between something else.

If I'm looking for a lightweight Javascript framework for mobile platforms,
then I really hope to see descriptors like 'small' and 'fast' in their
descriptions.

In this case, I'd suggest that aesthetics are a feature, and certainly
appropriate for the post.

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strmpnk
I have to say I didn't enjoy it. The pops on the side are pointless and
annoying and the ad placement on the side just helps show how poor the flow of
the page is setup. The next arrow on the side feels like it was just tacked on
like a sticker on some random stall. Comments themselves have some weird
padding between the headshot and the text etc... Maybe some people like it but
it's not how I would have done it.

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norova
Please don't force me to choose a political view. Just the fact that this
field is not optional made me decide not to use the site at all.

~~~
BenSchaechter
I was surprised that so many people were thrown off by this. We want to do
more cool visualizations in the future with this sort of data.

We'll make a decline to disclose at one point. Sorry about that.

~~~
norova
It's not the fact that I care that people know which political party I choose
to affiliate myself with, it's the fact that there is no apparent way to _not_
choose. I'm not a Republican or a Democrat, don't force me to choose. A
"decline" or "other" choice would solve this nicely.

~~~
BenSchaechter
Fair enough. I apologize -- we didn't think about this enough and will change
it this weekend. Thanks for the feedback.

~~~
jdp23
i'd suggest both an "other" and "decline to state" choice. or go crazy and
include Libertarian, Tea Party, Green, and Working Families Party as well!

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noahlt
What does this have to do with Twitter?

~~~
BenSchaechter
Our goal was to make something where you can ask quick questions on Twitter
and get quantitative responses back instead of sifting through @replies.

We want to have accounts with lots of followers start using our polls to
quickly and easily get feedback from their followers and then be able to
segment the votes accordingly.

Think of if CNN could ask a question about a current topic and instantly get
feedback. Much better than thousands of @replies.

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mnutt
When I choose a poll option I immediately get taken to a page with just an ad
on it. Perhaps one of your advertiser's use of document.write is to blame?

~~~
BenSchaechter
Hm, this is a problem. We'll take a look at it. Thanks for the heads up.

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ecto
How's your node server holding up? How much memory does this kind of traffic
consume in a real-world scenario?

~~~
BenSchaechter
Node is holding up just fine. About 600KB of memory. It is a beast. It is our
first go with it and it was great!

~~~
aashay
Is this using Socket.IO by any chance?

~~~
BenSchaechter
Yup, we're using Socket.IO.

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sinned
Realtime is so IN right now.

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mrpollo
do i really need to choose my political view?

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steipete
only us map? come on!

~~~
BenSchaechter
We'll be adding support internationally soon.

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drivebyacct2
I prefer the cleanliness and simplicity of Google's Spreadsheet functionality
that enables polling, as well as the free real-time results, graphing options,
API, etc.

