
Show HN: 60 Minutes Chat – Anonymously chat in self-destructing chatrooms nearby - wellboy
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hour.chat
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nodata
Is it anonymous?

Permissions:

Identity Uses one or more of: accounts on the device, profile data

Contacts/Calendar Uses one or more of: calendar, contact information

Location Uses the device's location

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wellboy
Ok, it seems that the update hasn't gone through yet, where it only asks for
location now. Should be through soon.

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jonlucc
It works for me, only requesting location.

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TheCraiggers
While perhaps an interesting mechanic in larger cities, the core feature of
this product will ensure minimal adoption in rural towns like mine. User will
install, see there are no active chats, create one, never get a response, and
uninstall.

Perhaps add the ability to expand your area?

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jiggy2011
It might make sense to define the area based on population density rather than
just geography.

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wellboy
That's an excellent idea, I was thinking about how to fix this problem. I
think starting with a radius of 5 miles and increasing it until users can see
the chatrooms from the closest 100 people would solve all that.

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jiggy2011
Yes, but you probably want some cut off. It might be better to see a shorter
list of people who are reasonably close rather than 100 people who might not
even be in the same country.

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wellboy
Hmm, I see your point, but isn't it better to have content on the app with
people a bit farther away instead of "no content of people close-by."

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jiggy2011
It depends really on what the purpose of your app is. I would normalise your
data somehow against a population map, so distance in sparsely populated areas
is weighted differently to dense urban areas.

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RankingMember
I'm ambivalent on the name, though I do like that the name says what it does
without any silly made-up gibbrish name.

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ForHackernews
Reminds me of "60 Minutes" the long-running television news program. If I
didn't know better, I would assume this was an app for discussing recent 60
Minutes stories.

Maybe I'm just old, though.

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RankingMember
Maybe that's the hidden motivator in my brain. Now I can't not think of 60
minutes (the program) when I see this name.

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chaghalibaghali
I've been using this for around 10 minutes now and it seems fairly buggy, the
main ones I've hit are:

* Messages appear in the wrong conversation, then move back to the correct one on close/open. * I get notified about new chats that then don't appear in the list

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wellboy
Thanks, working on it! Didn't expect that to directly take to be honest.

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intellegacy
Interested in collabing with you on this. I had the same idea and vision.

any way to contact you

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wellboy
Sure, iOS and possibly also Android developer would be helpful! Shoot me an
email, it's in my bio.

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wellboy
Some stats two hours after submission if someone is interested:

\- 92 new users

\- 88 chatrooms were opened

\- 14 users from London, 10 Amsterdam, 8 Berlin, 8 New York, 8 Chicago, 6
Toronto. It seems like because it's so early, mostly Europe has seen it so
far.

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ThomPete
SF is just waking up so that is probably why you don't see more.

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cpncrunch
Hasn't this 'chat to people near you' been done to death already? I was
thinking of doing an app like this a few years ago, but discovered that there
were many similar apps.

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wellboy
In fact, there was Popcorn Messaging, which is anonymous chat within 1 mi
radius. I loved the idea and checked the app quite often. However, the chats
on there were almost never relevant to me, because there was no curation at
all and this way, there was almost no way to communicate with people on there
or to get an answer on anything.

So, I thought what if you add topics to the app, so that if I have a specific
question, everyone in the area would get alerted by it and I could have my
answer within just a few minutes. Giving the chatrooms a self-destruct timer
would make them even more ephemeral. This way, the user knows that content on
60 Minutes is relevant and current at all times.

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depingus
App v1.0.1 keeps asking me turn on the GPS to start a chat. My GPS is on and
Google Maps doesn't have an issue with it. Nexus S running 4.4.4

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ambiguator
I would use this. I could see it really catching on.

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hypron
No iOS version in case anybody is curious.

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tomjen3
That seems stupid. This is an app that needs all the network effect it can
get.

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jonathansizz
What's stupid about starting with the biggest platform?

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qzcx
I downloaded it on my Galaxy S3 and it kept crashing. Cool idea, but there are
definitely some bugs in it.

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antonio0
Stop cloning Yo's UI

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nodata
It's from the same company.

Edit: oh no it isn't! (thanks!)

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boling11
The app you see under "more from developer" isn't the original Yo.

