

HN: Review my little Twitter app - petesalty
http://glunote.com

======
petesalty
My desk is covered with little sticky notes, with just about everything
written on them - things I'm interested in(books, websites, music, etc.),
restaurants, lyrics to songs, people phone numbers/email addresses, etc.
Anyway, this just isn't a good system, since I never seem to have these notes
when I actually need them (i.e. when I'm not at my desk). Even if I don't
tweet a lot I have Twitter open all the time since I like to keep up to date
with what some people are doing/talking about. I also have Twitter on my
phone, so a few months a go I thought it's be a good idea to create a system
where I could create notes, just little ones, and access them from anywhere.
Hence glunote.

The premise is pretty simple, just follow a user "glu" on Twitter then to take
notes send a direct message to glu. The system then stores the note
permanently, i.e, "d glu dicount socks 1-800-555-SOCK". You can then search
notes by sending a direct message to glu with a ? as the first character. For
example "d glu ? discount socks" would return all your notes that matched
"discount socks" as direct messages (actually at the moment it returns the
best match and a link to all other matches).

It was originally just for me but I've opened it up to anyone. I'd love to get
some feedback on what people think, where there might be improvements, what's
missing, that kind of thing. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

~~~
bbq
I've been toying with an idea like this (quickly and easily take notes from
anywhere) and using twitter didn't even come to mind. I like your
implementation and I see myself using it.

One feature I would love is a reminder system of some sort. I'm an extremely
forgetful person and I could tweet notes all day long but would never remember
to check time-sensitive ones. Could you add some functionality to retweet me
reminders for time-sensitive notes? e.g. I could tweet "d glu meeting
@6:30pm", "d glu do so and so @tomorrow @12:00pm" or something similar that
could be parsed easily and wouldn't misfire.

~~~
petesalty
Actually I've been thinking about something like this but didn't want to
implement it if no one wanted it - now that I know someone would think it's
useful I'll do it. One question though - how would you prefer to get notified?
Would retweeting work (might be sensitive info), direct messaging, or maybe
email (although you'd have to provide an email address).

~~~
bbq
I guess direct messaging would be best; Like you mentioned, privacy is a
concern and making it a RT wouldn't afford any advantages that I can see. I
can get notifications from twitter via a client app or SMS too so I don't
think email would be a huge advantage either.

~~~
learnalist
Whilst small, direct messaging will not be an issue. But...

"250 total direct messages per day, on any and all devices"

<http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/15364>

Im not sure if they will make an exception for you. I too wanted to us dm as a
means of communicating, but having a limit of 250 in a day would just be
crippling.

Perhaps an argument in your d glu would be to allow for "trigger word or
phrase" then an open message would not be as bad.

Another option would be you send a tweet with a link. The page has a password
which displays the message for the user.

~~~
petesalty
Initially I wasn't concerned about this because it was only me and I thought
about not opening it up because of this limit, but I also thought that it'd be
solvable, somehow. We could make a case for an exception, but that doesn't
guarantee one. Your idea of a tweet with a link is a great one and would go a
long way towards solving this. Thanks.

~~~
learnalist
The link could also give you the ability to bring your userbase back to your
site.

Clearly on the mobile or something, not as important. But bringing them back
via the web page. Allows you more options in terms of what to display.

I know you haven't mentioned nor asked. But a potential tier pricing scheme.

1) How many reminders per week / month

2) Maybe allow non paying users the ability to pick 15min blocks, yet allow
paying users the freedom to create any.

~~~
petesalty
I havn't been thinking about charging but these are not bad ideas.

------
jmorin007
While I like the app and what you're trying to do, just a heads up that you're
going to come across as super shady by automatically following the @glu
Twitter account when you have users login with their Twitter credentials. The
problem is that you're not making it clear up front that by logging in, you're
going to be adding a follower to their Twitter account, which will be
interpreted as a violation of their privacy, and will almost certainly cause a
backlash at some point.

I understand that in order for your app to work, the user has to be following
the @glu account, but automatically opt-ing someone in is not the right way to
do it. You need to update the content and design to make it painfully clear to
anyone logging into your site that they are also consenting to following the
@glu account.

~~~
petesalty
You're right, I'll change the language to reflect this. Thanks for the
feedback.

------
stevejohnson
I like the app's simplistic nature, but I think your explicit use case is not
really correct. I can't see myself using this to take class notes at all. The
sticky note format just does not work for that. However, it seems like it
would work great for leaving yourself reminders. More of a "note to self" than
capturing in-depth information.

The visual style is good conceptually, but needs polish. You need more than
yellow rectangles for each note, the cork board background needs some kind of
border, and your X buttons need to be more stylish.

Edit: I see that you really did intend it for the use I just described, but
the language on the site makes it sound like it's for taking notes in class,
meetings, etc. I think that a more descriptive phrase is "write notes" rather
than "take notes."

~~~
petesalty
Thanks Steve, great feedback. Wish my design skills were a little better :)

~~~
hellotoby
I'm a designer/front-end developer and have some free time at the moment. Get
in touch if you'd like some help with the visuals. My details are in my
profile.

~~~
petesalty
Thanks, I'll drop you a line about this tomorrow.

------
unohoo
Wasnt this posted a while back ?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848889>

~~~
petesalty
Yes, but I felt I did a really poor job of describing what I wanted to achieve
so I thought I'd give it another go.

------
kirpekar
Wow, I liked it. Very cool.

~~~
petesalty
Thanks, that's always nice to hear :)

