

Ask HN: Please Review My Webapp - boundlessdreamz
http://www.celebsutra.com/

======
moe
I'm not sure if this is a bug but the tabs (All, Movie/TV etc.) are all empty
for me.

The design looks appealing at a glance (nice colors) but I have absolutely no
idea what the service does and why I should register.

From the blurb on the right I can guess that you're somehow tracking
celebrities. But I still don't know what advantage that gives me over just
following them myself?

Oh, just noticed, when I select a country on the right then tweets start
showing up. Well, again, I like the design, but wonder why I should sign up
instead of just following those celebs myself? And what would signing up give
me over what I already see right now?

~~~
boundlessdreamz
The service tracks celebrity tweets.

Signing up allows you to pick the celebrities instead of seeing everyone.

I have outlined the target audience here he target audience is broad.Someone
interested in tweets by celebs but does not want to either

* create a twitter account and add celebs one by one

* or feel like reading the celeb tweets only sometimes and does not want to pollute the twitter stream with non-stop celeb tweets.

~~~
petesalty
The ability to pick your celebrities once you register was not obvious and
something that I thought the site needed. I'd make sure this was front and
center as an incentive to register.

Having said that, why make people register to select their celebrities? If
there's not a good reason then drop an id as a cookie and track their choices
that way. I was not going to register, but had I been able to select the
celebs right from the get go I probably would have done that then returned.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
I had thought about that but since the target audience is non-tech people,
they might get very pissed/confused when their selections are no longer
applicable when they return to the site because the cookie got deleted.

~~~
petesalty
Actually I've done this with a number of sites before and that scenario rarely
happens. Non technical people almost never delete their cookies (at least from
what I've seen).

The way I've tackled it before is let them do X first (select their celebs
lets say) without registering. Drop the cookie and create a user record linked
to it. Then tell them that if they register they can access their list from
any computer (work and home are big sellers). It's pretty effective for
getting registrations and you shouldn't encounter as many problems as you
think you will. If you're encountering a lot of trouble getting users to
register, give it a try for a couple of weeks and see if you get more
adoption.

Alternatively you could let them pick their celebs first, then make them
register. It's kind of annoying for the user but let's them see what's
available (and get a little invested) before registration.

Anyway, just my 2c.

------
alttab
After reading the discussion (all 14 comments that exist right now), it seems
that people have given you plenty to think about.

It looks like you wanted to make a web app that was simple, interesting, and
attainable. For that, I give you an A+. Using the Twitter API is good practice
because its extremely popular.

That said - the added value of something like this is probably minuscule in
comparison to the effort it took to make it - especially nice and polished
like it is.

In any case, I bet you have a list of things you learned, plus a working demo
on the web of your capabilities. Kudos!

------
boundlessdreamz
This a side project I was working on for fun. If the site takes off I plan to
aggregate the highest commented/liked tweets and celebrities. Beyond that I
don't have any plans.

Design is by a friend of mine: <http://sandosh.info/v2/pages/home/>

Thanks in advance for spending your time on reviewing the site. :)

~~~
ujjwalg
I am not sure who is your target market. It doesn't mentions anywhere what is
the purpose of creating a login, either.

However, I have a suggestion which might make it appeal to a broader audience.
When a user creates a login, you can provide a list of celebrities of each
category. The user can pick the ones he/she wants to read the tweets from for
each category. Maybe adding an option of receiving daily email/rss feed be
useful. Also, being able to add all the checked celebrities into the twitter
account be also useful.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
The functionality you just outlined exists already. If you create an account,
you can pick the celebrities.

The target audience is broad.Someone interested in tweets by celebs but does
not want to either

* create a twitter account and add celebs one by one

* or feel like reading the celeb tweets only sometimes and does not want to pollute the twitter stream with non-stop celeb tweets.

------
fjabre
Well it's not something I would use but it is a pretty cool idea.

I can see something like this really being popular, especially in LA and
amongst the perezhilton.com crowd.. In fact you should try to get him to blog
about your site. =)

Best of luck..

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Thanks. That crowd is part of the target audience.

------
NEPatriot
Simple concept. Good execution.

I would think about adding in a blurb at the top summing up what you do. Then
follow that up with a sentence about why somebody should sign up - the
benefits of being able to pick and choose celebs.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Thanks. It seems "Why register" is the common question. I was thinking of
adding a blurb to point out the benefits.

------
reynolds
You might want to look into this: I just "liked" the same entry 10 times.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Actually it is intentional :). There were two reasons

1\. If someone was that interested in liking an entry, there is no harm done
as of now, as there is no ranking as of yet.

2\. Evil idea: If someone likes an entry multiple times, it gives an
impression of more users :). Reddit apparently started out like this. The
founders had multiple accounts and posted stories under various accounts to
show activity.

------
MicahWedemeyer
Login w/ twitter account maybe, instead of a full-fledged signup?

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Yeah. But my target audience also include people who don't want to sign up for
twitter but may want to read celebrity tweets.

I'm still not sure if having a full fledged signup is good. But this is why I
did it.

~~~
_Lemon_
Why would people who don't want to register for Twitter register for your
website?

(a genuine question you need to ask yourself)

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Because in twitter, you have to find and follow the celebrities yourself.

