
Show HN: my new project, an anti-snub dating site - bjonathan
http://www.secretpoke.com
======
chegra
Ok, let me see. Back in 2005 a friend sent me one of these crush anonymously.
I didn't want to guess on the site who it was, but I wanted to know who it
was. They had this feature where you enter your email if you forgot your
password. So, I thought to myself, not many of my friends would know about
this site and whoever it is was probably the only person of my friends to be
on it. So, I enter the list of female friends to recover their passwords[Just
finished my undergrad, had loads of free time]. If they weren't on it the site
came back with an error message. In the end, I came across one person who it
was successful for.

Point being be careful with your error messages they might give away your
users anonymity.

~~~
mahmud
Please DON'T do that. Don't type people's email addresses into whatever forms
you come across online.

~~~
sbov
As much as you protest this people will still do this.

Coincidentally, this is why I have a separate email address for any site that
anyone may look down upon. Figuring out what sort of services you sign up for
online is usually as trivial as trying to sign up a new account with your
email address.

This is also why if my site enforces 1 user per email address, I make sure I
do that check only if all other information is valid. In comparison, most
sites let you enter a bunch of invalid information but a valid email address
and will happily let you know that person already has an account. If you have
to enter fully valid information, theres some risk you will sign the user up
and let them know someone is using their email address for things.

------
hanskuder
I hate to burst the collective bubble of shy people everywhere, but the
problem of "I like him/her; there must be a way to find out if he/she likes me
back!" will NOT be solved by a cool new tool or piece of technology. It will
be solved by actually gaining a bit of confidence and actually asking the
person in question out on a date.

This site is a cool idea. I'm sure you'll get plenty of users and some
legitimate mutual crushes. But a comprehensive solution to the shy-person-A-
likes-shy-person-B chicken-and-egg conundrum this is not. Shy person A or B
would be much better served by learning to take a chance and just go for it.

~~~
Xurinos
What you said is true; however, there is a huge market of people who will
grasp at any opportunity that will allow them to stay within their comfort
zones. Sometimes just the small chance that something could happen is
sufficient.

For example, somebody forwarded me that stupid "Bill Gates will give you money
if you forward this email" message, and they commented, "This probably is not
real, but just in case it is, I am forwarding this. I am really strapped for
cash and will take any chance." This desperation, be it for money, for
companionship, or for any other strong desire, is ripe ground for snake oil.
And the snake oil is that much stronger if it works -sometimes-... like hoping
you win the Power Ball to solve your debt problems and seeing that there are
average people like you who are winning it.

~~~
prpon
_This desperation, be it for money, for companionship, or for any other strong
desire, is ripe ground for snake oil. And the snake oil is that much stronger
if it works -sometimes-... like hoping you win the Power Ball to solve your
debt problems and seeing that there are average people like you who are
winning it._

One of the best quotes I've seen in a while.

------
bjonathan
Hi fellow HNers,

I wanted to show you our new project: SecretPoke.com .

As big shy people ourselves and with Valentine's day coming up, we wanted an
easy, anonymous and fun way to reach out to our crushes :)

We would love your feedback as much on the concept than on the execution
(name, copy, design,...). We built it in less than 10 days and we are ready to
modify the website quickly to take your feedback into account!

I also hope that SecretPoke will come handy to some of you ;)

As a thank you for your feedback, and for all what HN taught me during the
past year, here is a code to have 3 more crushes for free: thankyouhn . You
can enter it on the homepage when you are logged in.

Thank again, we are eager to hear what you think !

<http://www.SecretPoke.com>

~~~
dkarl
Before using it I would want to be reassured on two points:

1\. I wouldn't feel very optimistic using such a site because I assume the
emails you send will seem like spam and will be deleted by the recipients
without much thought.

2\. Using this site makes one vulnerable to cruel trolling. Imagine three or
four people getting together, "secret poking" people they know, and sharing
the results for shits and giggles. If I really need this site, am I brave
enough to expose myself to that?

Personally, I couldn't use this service, because I'm beyond the age where it's
acceptable to need it. I do feel like part of the target audience, though
(especially ten-years-ago me) and am happy to be being served.

~~~
TheSOB88
You seem to have a general mistrust of others. I've found life is a little
better if you don't assume everyone's out to get you from the get-go.

~~~
dkarl
I've seen people do equivalent things plenty of times. A group of people at my
dorm (guys and girls) conned some poor kid on IRC, got him to reveal
embarrassing sexual things about himself, and passed around screen shots. In
high school, a girl would go to a guy and say that some other girl wanted her
to tell him that she liked him, just so people could be entertained by the
consequences. People lose their taste for that as they grow up, but for every
kind of growing up there are people who never do. They just become more
sophisticated. I've had people reveal private things about other people to me
that made my blood run cold at the cruelty required to spread such
information, and only for a trivial social advantage.

Adults who act that way are apparently rare and not well-liked, but odds are
you know a few. You teach a child to be wary when approached by a stranger
offering unsolicited favors, but not to be afraid of approaching strangers
when they need help. The same principle applies when you are contacted
anonymously over the internet and asked to reveal intimate emotional secrets.

I agree that becoming withdrawn and inhibited is not the best defense (the
best defense is simply being someone other people will stick up for) but the
site is targeted at people who cope with social fears by being extremely risk-
averse. If you have to be comfortable with the risk of exposure and ridicule
in order to use the site, then what's the point, except to be a fun flirty
thing for cool people for fifteen minutes? The target users need some
assurance that the site delivers on its promise of a less-risky way of
revealing their feelings about somebody. Perhaps you're right that they
_shouldn't_ , but they do, and that's what matters.

------
vessenes
I like this idea a lot, but you absolutely need to kill the logins and just
use facebook connect. It solves so many problems with the service, and will
help it go viral, AND will let people just point and click on their friend
list.

Nice viral app, though! I hope it goes well. I bet you more than double if you
use facebook for connection and messaging.

~~~
Splines
If I were serious about sending something through this, I'd be worried that
using FB connect would leak information. Besides, why would I want my friends
to know that I'm not confident enough to approach someone I had a crush on? ;)

~~~
vessenes
This worry could be pretty easily assuaged with good copy.

"We never, ever tell anyone who crushed on them without seeing if there's a
match"

and

"See what will be posted to your crush's walls:"

~~~
bjonathan
As far as I know an app cant post or send an anonymous notification to a
friend of the user.. So basically that kill the whole concept. Initially we
wanted to do a facebook but ToS seemed pretty harsh on the subject...

------
draz
An idea for you: give users the option to send flowers (or anything else, for
that matter). When the email is sent to the crush, it might say: "your secret
crush would like to send you flowers. please fill in your address" or
something. The initiator's credit card it charged if the crush fills in the
address. You make money off the flower shop affiliate referral.

~~~
sorbus
That would look, to me, extremely spammy. An email from a service I've never
heard of offering to send me flowers if I give it my address? Yeah.

~~~
kaerast
I agree. To me the email looks spammy enough already - adding in a request for
information right in the email would make it sound even worse.

------
johnrob
The tone of the site is a little too business-ish. I can't pinpoint how, but
(colors aside) it has the form of a business product like basecamp.

Take a good look at <http://www.hotornot.com/> . I don't have the design chops
to explain why, but that site comes across as less serious. If you can find
more fun consumer sites that have been successful you should be able to
identify some common design techniques.

~~~
dkarl
I think it's the background-on-a-background. I see a rectangular white area
behind the content and a light grey background surrounding the white area. The
whole thing should be white so the pieces of the page seem like they are
naturally grouped together instead of trapped and constricted together inside
the little white rectangle.

------
dangero
There was a website that did this around 2002 and it was funny because I'm
pretty sure their technique for getting new users was to send false positive
spam messages, "Someone has a crush on you. Come to find out who." Really
nobody did, but you inevitably went to the site and entered the email of every
person that you had a crush on in the off chance it was real. Then, BAM email
database expanded rapidly. This idea is super viral.

------
nollidge
In "I agree with the Terms of Service", there should be an obvious link style
for "the Terms of Service". At first I was thinking " _what_ terms of
service?"

~~~
Joakal
You're unlikely to read it anyway. The ToS uses the most lightest grey text
and it's in français.

------
sankara
In case you didn't know, orkut had this feature for quite sometime. I'm not
sure if it's still active though.

~~~
slig
Not exactly the same feature. It would only notify both users if they mutually
assigned each other as crushs.

They removed this and other features completely in the new redesign from last
year.

~~~
BoppreH
What's the difference?

~~~
slig
The OP's app sends a message telling the user that someone has a crush on
him/her. Orkut would only send a message if both users marked themselves as
crushs.

------
alienreborn
Nice design and video but the problem with these services is that anonymous
mail notifications are generally disregarded as spam by many people.

------
michaelcgorman
What happens if I have more than one email address and my crush enters a
different one than I did?

~~~
bjonathan
We wanted to simplify the website as much as possible so we limited to one
account = one email . But other users requested that feature so we gonna add
it in the coming days.

Thank you for your feedback :)

------
sequoia
I've had this same (ok similar) idea, kudos to yall for making it happen!

I'm curious how you phrase your email. I've seen many "CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT
WHO HAS A CRUSH ON YOU" style ads; how are you making sure you're not seen as
one?

Re: sending flowers/gifts anonymously: I suppose some people might like it but
"Please fill out your address for your secret admirer," I think that for a lot
of people this might seem more like "SecretStalk."

------
mustardhamsters
I was all down for this, about to find someone to submit to, when I decided
I'd take a look at what the crush is going to receive. The wording in the
first sentence put me off. I would change "Someone has a crush on you, but is
afraid to take the first step..." to "Someone has a crush on you and is
wondering if you felt the same way..." or something like that.

The wording there prevented me from using the service.

~~~
mustardhamsters
More importantly perhaps, if the crush doesn't know the specific email address
I used to submit, how can it find me? It might be good to allow users to
connect multiple email addresses to their account to allow for more matches.

------
swombat
Worth pointing out it's just been covered in TechCrunch EU as well:

[http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/02/04/not-sure-if-she-likes-
yo...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/02/04/not-sure-if-she-likes-you-just-
send-her-a-secretpoke/)

Sounds similar to FitFinder and the like... Web 3.0: The flirting network...

~~~
bjonathan
Yeah we are so happy for that :) even if the feedback has been light (from
users i'm talking)

Did you try the website ? Have any feedback to share with us :) ?

We are looking for ways to improve the website so thank all for your comments
!

------
FiddlerClamp
Those custom crush messages are just begging for trouble: Hint - "I shagged
one of your parents."

------
joshfraser
I think you'll find you have the wrong demographic here on HN. You need a
bunch of 14 year old girls to get this one to go viral. Of course, you've got
a great viral loop if you can actually get it going.

------
jtsnow
Looks like a re-hash of eCRUSH, launched on Valentine's Day, 1999.

------
jellicle
Hasn't this scam already been done?

Years ago there were a flurry of sites like this. They'd send spam to
sadfsdfsadfhrtrth@yahoo.com (fake address that I'd only ever used once at some
shady ecommerce site) telling me that someone had a crush on me, and all I
needed to do was provide my credit card number to find out who.

Ho-ho-ho.

------
dprice1
I don't have much to say about the functionality, but I did notice that while
the site is in English, the default view for the "Terms of Service" is in
French, and there seems to be no way to display them in English.

Unless I can understand the ToS, there's no way I'd use such a site.

------
Herald_MJ
Looks like someone's been taking some of Gabriel Weinberg's advice...
([http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/02/if-i-were-
starti...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/02/if-i-were-starting-out-
i-would-clone-threewordsme.html))

------
mooneater
Im sorry but its hard to get past the name.

"Poke" is just too sexual. It might appeal to some people, but I can imagine a
lot of women having negative associations with being "secretly poked". I do,
and Im a guy.

~~~
mitcheme
I assume it's a reference to Facebook's "poke". If so it gives a frequent FB
user a pretty good idea of how the site works at a basic level.

I didn't even consider the "dirty" meaning until you brought it up and I
hardly use FB.

------
jfritsch
It redirects to de.secretpoke.com and then I get an error message. Hope you
get it up again shortly.

We're sorry, but something went wrong. We've been notified about this issue
and we'll take a look at it shortly.

~~~
bjonathan
thank you we seem to have an issue with the german version of the website

it should work in english: <http://de.secretpoke.com/set-locale/en>

We are gonna fix that ASAP thank you !

~~~
bjonathan
Ok it's automatically redirecting to the english version now. Thank you !

------
ritarius
re: 'what they receive': 'they are afraid to take the next step' doesn't feel
right. of course they are afraid (that's why they're using the site) but it
doesn't put them in a good light, right from the beginning. alternatives: a)
make it seem like only really cool, confident people use this site b) make fun
of it, 'this is a site for super shy people who are actually really cool on
the inside but have social anxiety...but you should still give them a chance!'

------
BoppreH
What happens when the person who received the poke indicates three guesses? Do
the two people left out receive emails too?

If so, I think this could quickly spiral into a pyramid scheme.

------
bjoernw
This is a great way to find out if your girlfriend/boyfriend has a crush on a
specific person. Sign up as that person, send this to your significant other,
win/fail.

------
perlgeek
Right now I either get infinite redirection loops for the front page, or
internal server errors. Seems somebody hasn't expected so much traffic...

------
ciupicri
I'm using firefox-3.6.13-1.fc14.x86_64, yet the site asks me for a modern
HTML5-compliant browser. Firefox 3 can play Theora videos.

------
sidwyn
Very interesting. Problem is, my friends know that I'm a tech geek and I'll
probably be the one using this website to inform them.

------
marquis
May I use this to flirt with my boyfriend?

~~~
bjonathan
Yeah sure! Lot of our users are sending 1 crush, and we are guessing that it's
at their loved one .

~~~
pdaddyo
I was just typing in my girlfriend's email (unbeknownst to her) when I
realised this could be a test: will she mention it to me this evening?
Intriguing!

~~~
marquis
I would hope that my boyfriend would continue the ploy! Though, more than
likely he'll send me an email saying someone is flirting with him and, is it
me. Not very romantic but he'll get the picture at least that I'm thinking
about him.

------
grandalf
This is very similar to <http://www.messageunicorn.com>

------
chamza
I would never use it, but that video is the cutest thing I've ever seen. Good
idea nonetheless.

------
AgentConundrum
I really hate writing this, so if this comes off as needlessly harsh I
sincerely apologize, but I see a lot wrong with this site.

The first problem is that it's nothing new. I remember sites like this when I
was in high school, and I graduated in 2003. Maybe you've built a better
mousetrap, and maybe the world is just ready for this sort of thing now, but
I'd bet there's a reason there isn't already a dominant site in this area
given how long the idea has been around.

I remember from the high school version of this that it was horribly abused.
It's a great attack vector for certain types of bullies and misguided
prankster friends, and it _will_ be used as such.

I should also point out that people can have multiple email addresses, and not
all of your friends and acquaintances will know you by multiple addresses.
What if I send the message from the wrong address, and my crush only knows me
by something else? If she does like me, she'll have to send her own "first
message" to my other address. If I suddenly receive another "someone's
crushin' on you" message, wouldn't I first assume that it's someone else,
since if it was my crush was mutual, I would have got a confirmation, not a
request, right?

So let's assume that the crush is mutual. The only way the crushee to find out
who I am is to put herself out there as well. It's sort of a large jump to ask
someone, especially a shy someone, to make. Also, what if the crushee knows
you by a couple email addresses? Which should she send a request/confirmation
to? She could send it to both, but then she's using at least two out of her
three freebies. If she likes two people, and knows both of them by two emails,
then one of those two people can't receive a confirmation on both accounts
unless the crushee decides to shell out two Euros (Around $2.70 in
American/Canadian currencies). I sincerely doubt someone would do that.

One major problem is what I'll call "balls." Do women really want a guy who's
too fucking timid to just come right out and say they like them? No.

I'll give you an example:

My hotmail address (used for likely-to-spam signups and as an MSN moniker) was
created solely to send a "crush" email to a girl I liked in high school. This
was back when hotmail had a directory you could use to email people you didn't
have a proper address for.

So, I sent her a message saying basically, "hey, we've got a couple classes
together and I noticed you, etc. etc." When I got a response back, is was just
"You've piqued my interest. Spill, who are you?" with instructions to just man
up and approach her in class. Women tend to like confident men, and men who
hide behind internet filters tend not to be the confident type.

Finally, I just want to note that there's also a question of legality here. I
can't cite a source off the top of my head, but I know there is legislation in
Canada and possibly in the States that classifies "Tell-a-Friend" type email
functionality as spam. These emails are therefore subject to fines. I don't
know if they enforce it for things like this, but it's definitely something to
consider.

~~~
mitcheme
'One major problem is what I'll call "balls." Do women really want a guy who's
too fucking timid to just come right out and say they like them? No.'

I've had lots of crushes on shy guys. Problem is, I'm shy too, so I don't say
anything -- and end up with the not-shy guys I crush on, because they ask
first. Most of my female friends have had crushes on shy guys too, but the
same thing usually happens. In younger crowds (I'm guessing the main
demographic for these sites) girls who ask out guys can be rejected pretty
harshly so its usually not worth the bother even if you aren't shy. In HS, one
of my friends had her crush throw food at her from a car window after she
wrote him an anonymous (but fairly obvious) note admitting she liked him. This
even though they had hung out lots and she considered him at least a friend.
It was more than a little discouraging for all of us, especially since his aim
was so bad we ALL got covered in it. Ugh.

~~~
AgentConundrum
Fair enough. I suppose that portion of my argument was a bit short-sighted.
Consider it retracted.

------
epo
Typo in first sign-up input box, should be "Your" name.

~~~
bjonathan
Wow thank you! I dont know how we didnt saw that earlier :) It's fixed on
local but there is too much people to deploy in production right now (ruby on
rails power ) . We gonna update the website as soon as think are quieter (so I
hope never ^^)

------
stefanobernardi
This webpage has a redirect loop

~~~
oewolf
Same here: Error 310 (net::ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS): Demasiados
redireccionamientos.

~~~
bjonathan
I'm sorry I just saw your comments. Is it still happening?

------
zackattack
man some big money was made off this in 2003

~~~
Perceval
2005? Man, I fell for this back in high school, sometime between 1996–2000. It
was a site functionally identical to this one. I got an email about someone
who had a crush on me, asked for either the email or the AIM screenname (I
forget which) of people you had a crush on.

I dutifully entered some girls at my high school and shortly thereafter I got
a match: Julie. This was exciting, until she emailed me saying something along
the lines of, "lol i was just trying to see who liked me."

Soured the whole experience for me.

I wonder if the SecretPoke designers have considered non-good-faith use cases?
Is there any way to distinguish between good faith use, and manipulative,
embarrassing, or purposeful outing use cases?

~~~
bjonathan
Hi Perceval,

Sorry for Julie ;)

Seabee is right, the limit of 3 free crushes help to limitate that side
effect.

We cant prevent 100% non-good-faith crushes but you could still have answered
to Julie that you entered her email because it was obvious that she was in
love in you ;)

SecretPoke only reveal identity if it's mutual so if somebody was joking you,
you can always answer that it was the same for you. (I know that it's a little
childish but it's "effective")

If you have any ideas to prevent Julies of the world to use SecretPoke to
break our little hearts please share with me, we would love to implement some
to see what is happening :)

Thank for your feedback

------
mkramlich
great idea. i could see this becoming very popular. i recommend fixing the
message mismatch between crush and poke. it's possible to have a
romantic/sexual interest in someone without it being a crush. frankly crushes
are kinda creepy and definately most commonly associated with
juvenile/immature states of mind. by downgrading the verbage to interest or
attraction, something like that, and totally removing all usage of the word
crush, I think you'd get more users, a wider age range, and have a less
confusing site message. This is a minor criticism though. The core idea sounds
extremely promising with a large market, and is useful for non-techies/non-
elites, which is awesome.

