

Ask HN: Do you put a smiley photo of yourself on your app's About page? - boggles

I'm wondering what to put on the About page of my app. I'm debating whether to put up a friendly looking smiling photo of myself. As much as I'm a private person, I feel that my app requires that I indentify myself personally with it. Any tips for how to do this?
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edw519
In case you want to maintain your privacy, do what I did...

    
    
               \/\/\/\/
             /         \
            /           \
           /             \
       /\_/     0    0    \_/\
      |                       |
       \/ \      |_|      / \/
           \             /
            \  \-----/  /
             \         /
              \_______/
                |   |

~~~
tptacek
Get a haircut!

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mattdennewitz
that unkept youngster might be onto something!

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unalone
This is why you teach yourself to have a distinct writing style. It gives you
the personality and the privacy.

When I launched a site in February with a friend, we got a lot of email
feedback complimenting us directly for our About page, which had snippets like
"Rory is pretty much certainly a douche" strewn about it. We also asked for
feedback haiku, and received so much we couldn't post all of it online. All
that without a single personal tidbit about either of us.

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Travis
There is some research to show that a "real world feel" is a critical
component of a website (from the "What makes a website credible" study from a
few years back. Having a picture of you will go some ways towards doing that.
I put my pic on my website.

If you do this, please make sure to put a good pic up -- no self-taken camera
phone bluriness, please. Remember, you want to personalize the experience but
still seem professional.

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herrherr
Looking at the analytics of all the websites I have build (50+) the most
visited page is always the "team" or "about" page. So there seems to be a
desire for getting to know the people behind the company name. Yet this
doesn't prove that it is a good idea ... just saying :-)

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JangoSteve
It's hard to give a definite answer without knowing who your target market is
or who you are. If you are a B2C, connecting personally is good, everyone
loves the underdog startup. If you are a B2B, it may be difficult to land
large contracts with that sort of persona.

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hopeless
Nope, it's everything except my face. Cameras are great for hiding behind ;-)

<http://www.shutterscouts.com/about.html>

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Just a fwiw. Your idea sounds like a good one but your features page is a bit
lacking. You give images of other things but no images of your app, I couldn't
even see if it's browser based or downloadable, nor what platform I need to
run it off.

Your homepage mentions SMS, your features page doesn't.

I'm thinking it's something along the lines of a map based system where
locations for future shoots are tagged, probably with some sample images as
reminders + details of the conditions I'm looking for. Then there must be a
calendar view showing any likely conditions matches and giving me a list of
possible shoots? Plenty there for some more visuals. You've avoided overuse of
text but the imagery (whilst lush) doesn't aid my understanding of your
offering and isn't helping to lead me to sign up. Is it free?

Oh, apologies I tried "sign up" - you should label the website as a preview or
state "sign up by email" if that's what you want folk to do. A great start,
best.

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tptacek
If you are one person, no. Don't promote the fact that you're a one-person
shop.

If you're multiple people, plenty of startups (Kayak and Meebo come to mind)
put pictures up.

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fjabre
There are some people who won't like it. I guess it depends on the type of
marketing you're doing.. but I'd have a hard time buying an iPhone is I saw
Jobs' face on the back.

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joeythibault
Nothing wrong with adding personality to your site. I don't think it will
detract or add anything to it, unless you're either a supermodel or the fly.

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kyro
We opted for very stern and serious photos.

<http://looklookbuy.com/about>

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sync
Funny, but I hope you're working on the quality of your search results. This
is horrible:
[http://looklookbuy.com/search?query=canon+powershot+g10&...](http://looklookbuy.com/search?query=canon+powershot+g10&category=electronics&location=02144)

