
Show HN: Product Hunt – Hacker News for Products - rrhoover
http://www.producthunt.co/#
======
avalaunch
Congratulations on getting this out there. My favorite hacker news posts are
always Show HN so this is really cool. I love seeing what other people are
working on and having a single place to find new tools could prove really
useful.

That being said, in my opinion, product discovery doesn't seem well suited to
the hacker news format. A new product's relevance lasts a lot longer than the
average new news article does. I'd love to see tags added to each product and
a way to browse by tags. Boring and probably done, I suppose, but I think it'd
be more useful.

~~~
rrhoover
Thanks! Hacker News and "Show HN" is responsible for some of the market
validation and product design of Product Hunt.

While we want to keep the product simple and useful, we do see value in adding
more context and "searchability" with tagging. It's definitely on our radar.

~~~
dageshi
The ability for people with certain domain knowledge or active interests to
subscribe to tags, or customise their front page based on tags would be pretty
nice.

Example, I'm interested in travel related ideas/products, but I've really no
great interest in much of the stuff on the front page at the moment. But if
something travel related does hit the site I don't want to miss it.

This might also allow for higher quality of comments, less eyeballs but more
interested eyeballs so to speak.

------
kmfrk
I think the big interface problem with the website is that it makes the user
work extremely hard to figure out what the hell each product is about.

I don't think there's any point in emphasizing the product names, when they
don't serve to explain the product.

A really simple improvement would be to display the name and description
similarly to HN:

    
    
        <description> (<title/domain>)
    

E.g.

    
    
       Realtime code sharing for developers (CodeShare.io)
    

I mean this in the most helpful way possible: the interface is really, really
bad at serving one of its basic, fundamental functions.

~~~
stillmotion
The interface literally does what you just listed but backwards.

~~~
aaronem
It emphasizes the product name, rather than the description, which I'd argue
draws the reader's eye to the wrong place; that emphasis would be better
placed on what something _is_ , which information the reader will find useful
in deciding whether she cares what something is _called_.

~~~
nilkn
It's not exactly "extremely hard" to find the description, though.

~~~
aaronem
Why let bad design make it harder than it has to be?

~~~
nilkn
Obviously we should strive for better design, but greatly exaggerating is not
a useful method of critique. The original post makes it sound like this
information is almost impossible to find, when it is actually the second most
prominent information on the page.

~~~
vitd
I don't think it's exaggerated at all. I looked at the page for like 30
seconds, thinking to myself, "What is this? I thought it was supposed to be
like Hacker News, but for products. It appears to just be a bunch of people
posting half-sentences that make no sense."

Seriously, the first post is "Go Dish HotelTonight for restaurants (SF)" WTF
does that even mean? It's just a string of words that make no sense at all.
It's literally incomprehensible to a typical reader.

~~~
nilkn
The original post makes it sound like those half-sentences don't even exist.
That's a pretty great exaggeration.

------
rrhoover
We launched publicly about two months ago after Nathan Bashaw (@nbashaw) and I
built it over Thanksgiving break. The backstory was published on FastCo:
[http://www.fastcolabs.com/3023152/open-company/the-wisdom-
of...](http://www.fastcolabs.com/3023152/open-company/the-wisdom-of-
the-20-minute-startup)

Happy to answer any questions and would love feedback from the HN community!

~~~
callmeed
I have a user account but when/how can I post something?

~~~
rrhoover
We're currently limiting contributor growth as have a few changes we need to
make to the product to scale. If you're interested, please add your info here
and we'll send you an email once you're added! :) [http://bit.ly/ph-
contributor](http://bit.ly/ph-contributor)

------
gozmike
Huge congrats to Ryan & team for getting this out there. It's a great,
focussed source of news on product launches that might not provide incredible
traffic (yet) but that provides valuable, constructive feedback from smart
people.

I really hope it retains this quality as it (inevitably) grows. We launched
SupportKit for Zendesk
([http://supportkit.radialpoint.com](http://supportkit.radialpoint.com)) on
ProductHunt yesterday and the response was great.

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drum
Had one of my apps featured on PH and was amazed at the quality of feedback.
Ryan himself wrote a detailed review and a designer from Pinterest pointed out
a UI flaw I'd never even thought about.

Post here:
[http://www.producthunt.co/posts/442](http://www.producthunt.co/posts/442)

~~~
suyash
Can you share the link please?

~~~
drum
[http://www.producthunt.co/posts/442](http://www.producthunt.co/posts/442)

------
colbyh
PH has been a pretty great resource for me. There aren't enough hours in the
day to keep up with every company that launches. Quality > quantity any day of
the week.

------
lowglow
Nice. We just launched something like this on
[http://beta.techendo.co/](http://beta.techendo.co/)

Any feedback on how we can make the experience better, just let me know. :)

~~~
welder
Once navigating to a sub-domain there is no link back to main. That's really
frustrating so a small link at top or bottom back to techendo.co would improve
my experience greatly.

~~~
lowglow
Thank you so much. Will do that now!

------
byosko
Product Hunt is addictive and fun, but also useful. I've found a few cool
things that I've used right away, and more that I've bookmarked for later.

------
gabsong
The way that Product Hunt has been helping me to discover new products is by
the collective curation, by people that provide a lot of insight and are users
themselves, just as it would on HackerNews. Above all, it allows me to get
involved with the community (founders, PMs, designers, avid users). I used to
go to the App Store for my discovery, but now I do it faster and easier on PH.
That's why I really like it. Kudos!

------
justin
Congrats on launching. Suggestions:

* Some of the images are broken, you should fix those * You should add all the product images from every site. Not having multiple angles is annoying * You should consider making the thumbnails rotate when I move my mouse across the image on the search pages * Would be nice if there was a larger selection of furniture

~~~
nbashaw
Furniture? Are you talking about
[http://www.producthunt.co/](http://www.producthunt.co/) or some other site?
Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

~~~
kkwok
Guessing that's in response to this thread instead?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7144369](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7144369)

------
EGF
I have been enjoying PH for awhile - congrats on the launch and getting the
word out.

I would say that sometimes it is a little overwhelming to get through every
service, and I look forward to a time where you are classifying/organizing the
products that come through. Knowing there is a searchable repository of
products would be a great resource.

------
ajhit406
When @nbashaw first launched this, I told him they should limit submissions to
10 products a day because they'd run out of new products after a few weeks.

It's been amazing just to see how many new products are out there-- more than
any (productive) person could really check out on a daily basis.

Excited to see where @producthunt goes in the future.

------
namenotrequired
I like Product Hunt, I've been visiting it several times a week since its
launch.

Question for Ryan, how are the contributors chosen?

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gblanston
Here's a few things I couldn't easily figure out on your site: What is a best
new product? How is this different than a linked list on a blog? How would I
find the best X app? e.g. Best new iOS note app? Is this site for me or for
someone else? Am I a product person?

------
tim333
Shame you can't open the comments in a new tab - I usually use Hacker News
that way. I realize javascript things popping up in odd strips down the side
of the page are trendy but not very nice to use if you want to actually read
stuff. Otherwise nice.

~~~
nbashaw
Good point! I'm to blame for that :) but I'll fix it!

------
yakshaving
Congratulations Ryan, I feel lucky to be an early part of this (user #3 baby!)
when you just sat down to think about doing it. It's come along a long way
already, I can't imagine where this is going to end up in a year.

------
desireco42
I really enjoyed this site, at first my reaction was 'meh' but as I was
starting to go through services and recognized some, I am seeing great
potential. Startups as a rule need all possible ways to get the word out.

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speakme
How do you intend to balance the need for high quality with the desire of
users to get involved in the community? Are you worried if someone can't
post/comment for months after joining, they may lose interest?

~~~
rrhoover
Great question! Honestly, that's one of my least favorite parts of Product
Hunt. I hate turning away people that want to contribute but to keep the
contributions of high quality and not overwhelming, we need to curb our
contributor growth.

We will be making product changes to grow the community, opening it to more
people.

------
blakerobbins
Congrats to @nbashaw and @rrhoover, absolutely insane that you built this over
Thanksgiving Break! It's been amazing to watch it grow in this short amount
time. I always expect big things from the two of you.

------
suyash
Tell HN: It is a great website but hella addictive, so be-aware specially
those who complain about HN sucking all their time, now you have 2 addictive
websites to deal it. I personally would stay away from it.

~~~
kalier
Why would you stay away from ProductHunt? It adds value??

~~~
suyash
I can get everything I need on HN. Ultimately the best products will make the
front page here, no need to look around.

~~~
avalaunch
If you aren't at least occasionally looking beyond the front page how can you
be certain the best products are making the front page?

------
laxk
Dear Product Hunt, please fix "switch to weekly emails or unsubscribe"
feature. I was trying to switch to weekly emails 3 times and unsubscribe as
well. It doesn't work at all.

------
mjwhansen
I found out about you guys last week when you linked to -my- project,
Geocodio, from -your- site (came up in my Google Analytics). Since then I've
been checking it daily. Nice work!

------
gregorkas
My scrolling experience was really laggy... as if images were constantly
loading in the background slowing the page. But it's a nice site otherwise.

------
jtzou
My favorite aspect of PH is that it cuts out the fat of TC/HN/Pando and sheds
light on the products we, the people, deem worthy of praise.

------
volaski
Exactly what i wanted! I actually deliberately scan for Show HN posts because
even the half-baked ones are often very inspirational. Congrats!

------
hopkinschris
I use PH daily as well. I posted a side project of mine up there and received
a bunch of positive feedback and insightful questions :)

~~~
rrhoover
Thanks! Which product was it? Want to link to the discussion thread?

~~~
hopkinschris
Splashbox

[http://www.producthunt.co/posts/868](http://www.producthunt.co/posts/868)

------
lovskogen
I like PH. It could be more editorial in describing each product. Also, are
you working on an improved mobile design?

~~~
rrhoover
I can't share much yet but we have something better coming than just a better
mobile web design. /end tease :)

~~~
lovskogen
Tease? I was just wondering if you'll improve the mobile experience - because
now I have to scroll through a big header, newsletter signup, tweet button,
the voters avatars and related links before actually viewing the comment
thread.

------
joewalnes
HN and PN are the two sites I now visit daily to keep up with the world. Great
job rrhoover (and pg, of course!)

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
What's PN?

~~~
rrhoover
I think he meant PH (aka Product Hunt) :)

------
kvnwng
Did you use Arc for this?

Edit: nvm. Thank you for introducing me to Telesc.pe. This is exactly what
I've been looking for!

~~~
dshanahan
Love Telesc.pe. Used it at [http://lighthouse.io](http://lighthouse.io) as a
first test app, been great.

------
kalier
These new product discovery sites are awesome, been spending a lot of time
lately on ProductHunt and Headlinr!

------
nathancahill
Congrats @nbashaw! Glad to see it on here. Looks great, keep killing it.

~~~
nbashaw
Thanks!

------
benjlang
Bookmarked a few weeks ago. Visit every day, love the site.

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charlieok
Something I can put in my feed reader (rss or atom)?

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inCync
Just learning about you- congrats on the launch!

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udfalkso
I think you're on to something here.

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pearjuice
Can you add sorting by characters?

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liveink
before producthunt existed how did you share links about cool new products
@rrhoover?

~~~
rrhoover
I shared much less before Product Hunt but most of these discussion happened
IRL. Products are watercooler topic and particularly interesting conversation
starter for many techy, early adopters.

Online, I did and still share cool products on Twitter and occasionally
Facebook. I've also written about several early products.

~~~
liveink
what about a special msgme group?

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ddv
This is awesome, congrats!

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findjashua
very cool! I'd prefer comments to be threaded though.

Congrats!

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rsearles
Love this site.

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hownottowrite
RSS feed?

~~~
recurser
+1. looks great, but I'd love to have a feed to follow. I tend to forget about
this kind of thing if I don't subscribe.

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notastartup
how do I submit a product I found?

