
Ashton Kutcher launches A+: discover the best products through friends - _pius
https://aplus.com/#/
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zbruhnke
Sorry to say this but if Ashton Kutcher's name wasn't on this it would have
not even made it to the front page of HN much less been worthy of people
commenting on it.

I think he's made some great investments and I'd love to chat with him about
the startup I'm working on, but I think its fair to say I won't soon be a user
of this product

~~~
zende
> Sorry to say this but if Ashton Kutcher's name wasn't on this it would have
> not even made it to the front page of HN much less been worthy of people
> commenting on it

That's possible, but you could argue something similar about repeat
entrepreneurs. Ashton is an incredible marketer, which is a HUGE part of a
consumer product like this.

~~~
zbruhnke
Totally agree, some level of hype is necessary no matter how much bullshit
hype really is.

But nearly all lasting companies have one thing in common, a great product.

Right now this site is a long way from that ... but then again they always say
you should eventually be embarrassed of the first version of your product.

I think it's fair to say he will be.

~~~
zende
> they always say you should eventually be embarrassed of the first version of
> your product.

Definitely! If you're not embarrassed of your first version, then you waited
too long to launch.

You should try listing a product. The flow is actually pretty good, especially
given the product indexing, tagging, and categorization that has to happen
behind the scene.

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pvnick
What is this? Social meets ecommerce meets meteor? This whole site is like you
took a buzzword pipe bomb and set it off in a geocities data center. A+? What
is he trying to do, get listed first in the internet phone book? I guarantee
you his pitch involves a lot of lofty talk about consumer and social big data.
There's a whole lot of synergy going on here!

That being said I obviously wish him the best of luck.

~~~
selmnoo
As another commenter pointed out, if a celebrity wasn't behind this it
wouldn't be getting much attention.

What a sad direction things are going. _Celebrities_ want in on this piece of
pie now... suddenly michaelochurch's forebodings about 'VC-istan' all seem
very relevant.

~~~
graeme
Ashton Kutcher's been an angle investor in startups for as long as Hacker News
has existed. Both began in 2007.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Kutcher#Investments](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Kutcher#Investments)

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sbrother
Halfway down the first page I see the "EVGA SUPERNOVA NEX1500 CLASSIFIED POWER
SUPPLY". I find it hard to believe this is that relevant to the target
audience of this site, and it's too much of a coincidence that I just bought a
bunch of computer parts from newegg and Amazon.

~~~
chaz
I see it, too, and I haven't bought computer parts like that in years, so I
doubt it's retargeting. If you are concerned about that kind of retargeting,
then it's probably newegg and Amazon you should stop using.

~~~
sbrother
I'm not concerned, actually I find that sort of retargeting preferable to less
relevant ads. I was just intrigued because a 1500W power supply is a pretty
niche gadget that I was surprised to see here.

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newobj
Hard to not highlight items as I scroll down the page on my laptop. Almost
nowhere to park my cursor to avoid this. Seems like not the most thought-
through UX, at least off-mobile.

~~~
MBCook
On my Safari window, it shows ~3.5 products per row, requiring me to scroll to
the right to see the rightmost one.

Having to scroll left and right is usually a design smell for me.

~~~
bane
In chrome I get 4 items at 100% zoom. It's an ugly site, but it works fine. If
I change the zoom level if seems to handle it just fine without left-right
scrolling.

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klochner
This is about a year late to the "pinterest clone for shopping" party.

Referly pivoted into something similar before shutting down, and I think Fancy
is the major player in the space.

Could be successful, but not terribly innovative.

~~~
zende
Ashton is also an investor in Fancy and understands the space well.

I would compare A+ more to Wanelo, which has massive growth. There's a lot of
space for other players in the area.

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matthewbadeau
For those interested in signing up, a Facebook account is required. (Which
makes sense since it's based on recommendations from friends.)

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X4
Oh weird..

The first time a friend force-signed me up on facebook I only got ads for
High-Frequency Trading and High-End Dedicated Servers.

On A+ I'm getting ads for a Ferrari's, BMW's, a Martin JetPack, Ducati's a
$2.5m Pagani Zonda Revolucion and similar stuff, like 24k Gold iPhone Cases …

Hah, either something is really wrong with my browsing habits, or these sites
suck at targeting my habits. For those who wonder, the last time I searched
for Cars must be 6 or 7 years ago and I don't search for jewelery or jetpacks.
I also never search for sports, pop, music or anything popular, really. Dear
Ashton, I wish I was rich enough to buy that car, but I feel a little pressed
when a site expects me to be rich.

The system probably mistakes me for an investor or a vc like Kutcher himself.

Ok, off to work, let's get rich or die trying.

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SmileyKeith
Discover the best (Nikon) products from your friends (and people I advertise
with)

~~~
jreed91
Thought the exact same thing. But kudos to Nikon and Ashton that I
automatically associate both of them.

~~~
SmileyKeith
Very good point. That campaign has apparently done well for them.

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mvkel
Everyone thinks their tattoo artist is the best.

Consumers don't care what their _friends_ recommend, they want to know what
_most people_ recommend. Amazon reviews have a ton of value in aggregate. The
more reviews, the more value. My friend's subjective recommendation of a Canon
DSLR because he's already invested $2K in lenses? Not so much.

Also, how is this not exactly [http://svpply.com](http://svpply.com), a much
better execution of an item discovery site that sold to eBay over a year ago.

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tiffani
It looks an awful lot like Svpply and The Fancy. And he's an investor in The
Fancy. I guess this time the curation is through friends instead of the site
itself.

~~~
zende
You should check out adding a product. The flow is actually different from
both Svpply and Fancy.

~~~
tiffani
But, seriously, what else is different? If I'm looking at it as if it's a
Fancy or Svpply clone, I'm not going to go as far as signing up to add
anything.

One way I see these kinds of sites is as wishlists and thus, it makes sense to
have just one site I use--unless there's something compellingly different.

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jgalt212
Say you want you want about Kutcher, but he went from a camera salesman to the
highest paid actor on TV in two years. That's nothing short of miraculous.

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bprater
I. Don't. Get. It.

You only get one good chance to make an impression. And although I see a lot
of products blowing up my webpage, I have zero context about how anything
works or why I should care.

Guys, if you are building something you want the world to admire -- take the
approach of idiot-proof video games: walk me through the process of getting
"my context" up-to-speed with "your context". It'll make all the difference.

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jqm
"Your browser is out of date" -no, actually it isn't... it's Firefox 17 on
Linux. but, just for the fun of it, click on the Firefox icon. -"Hooray, your
browser is up to date!" (with no updating because... the browser was already
up to date). click back and refresh -"Your browser is out of date..." ok
then...

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lazyjones
I'm not impressed, being greeted by a 90's style "your browser is out of date"
(= "we're too stupid to detect browser features") message because I'm using
Waterfox.

But hey, it's endorsed and funded by a celebrity, so it will work.

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mrpoptart
If you're looking for this, chances are what you're actually looking for is
thewirecutter.com. They actually give you a recommendation about which is the
best, then tell you why in detail.

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krapp
It's a really nice domain.

All the yellow is making my eyes bleed and the fonts look weird and aliased in
my browser though.

I'm sure it'll still make Ashton Kutcher another million dollars though.

------
breakupapp
Who made it?

~~~
mason240
Ashton coded it himself from the set of 2.5 Men.

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buckyball
yeah right. No legal info, not even a hint who is responsible for this. But
wait, there's even more, you need a facebook account to attend the party. Oh
boy, this thing is gonna storm everyone's heart for sure. Like Bitcoin will be
the next all purpose currency. </sarcasm>

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ye
Why would I care about my friends' opinions only? I want hundreds of reviews,
not a couple (or zero most of the time).

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notdrunkatall
I'm skeptical that I share a significant interest in specific products with
even my closest friends.

