

Ask HN: Pre-launch feedback on my site - zacharye

Prompted in part by HN, I am in what I hope to be the final stages of launching v1 of a new site. Five sentences of background:<p>I am a blogger/freelance copywriter/marcom guy who is always monitoring the latest and greatest in tech. I have an immense interest in web services and a great admiration for the people/teams behind them, simply put, because they make my life easier. I do not however, have an appropriate outlet through which I can share the various services I come across and thank the teams behind them by giving them exposure. Most services I find do not fit well with the content I cover at the main blog I write for, so I needed another way. As such, I did my best to create one...<p>Services like Stumble Upon, Digg, etc are fantastic for people who have plenty of expendable time to devote. Even with the big-name blogs covering web apps and services, it can be hard for the average office worker to keep up with the waterfall. I wanted to try hitting the problem from a different angle - using the Woot.com principle as a basic model.<p>My site, worthyy, presents users with one new site to explore each day. The presentation is unique in that users experience each day's site without any outside influence from me or anyone else (beyond visible ratings). I want the developer's work to do the talking, so the homepage of worthyy is dynamic. It consists of two frames: The main frame being the actual site of the day and a secondary frame in front of it near the bottom of the screen (the 'worthyy bar'). Users can browse and experience the site of the day as if they had hit it directly. If they so desire, they can also use the worthyy bar to rate the site, bookmark the site or click through to interact with others and discuss the site on worthyy's supporting pages (wordpress).<p>http://worthyy.com<p>Thanks in advance for any feedback you guys might have. We do have a few issues left to be resolved - and when I say we I mean the developers I outsourced the project to. I know, I know - but without any coding experience or time to learn, I had no choice. For this reason of course, your feedback is invaluable. Barring catastrophe the site should be ready to launch next week. Thanks also to the few HN members who have been involved with preliminary testing and for their feedback. I already have some great additions lined up for v2 should I be lucky enough to get that far with the project.
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jwilliams
First of all - I like the concept - if it develops enough community weight
behind it, it could be quite an influential tool.

What's not clear to me is what that community is exactly - are you targeting a
particular segment?

I like the look and feel generally. Although - I find the actual site being
reviewed today a bit bland, so that might give a poorer first impression.

I personally think the bottom worthyy bar is a bit too big vertically,
especially given it's only giving a few discrete bits of information and some
links - I work on a laptop a lot though, so I'm a bit precious about screen
realestate.

If you are going to take up that realestate - then I'd put some more
information there. For example a "worm" graph of what people thing - or have a
sort-of twitter feed of top comments... Hmmm... On the other hand, that might
be just annoying.

It also doesn't seem to play nice with resizing - (Firefox3 on Mac).

~~~
zacharye
Thanks so much for the feedback - With regards to my target, I'm going to have
to let any exposure the site might get dictate this preliminarily. Ideally, my
target is people who will likely never see any coverage worthyy might get on
most relevant blogs. The less web-savvy casual user who has never heard of
sites like TechCrunch, Mashable, Killer Startups, etc. These are the users who
would not only benefit most from a site like this, but who many of the sites
worthyy covers have the most trouble reaching.

Of course reaching these users is a time-consuming (let alone expensive)
process I've yet to begin to tackle. If I survive the first few months, it
will become my focus.

In terms of real estate, I would be very appreciative if you could shoot me a
screen shot (zach --at-- worthyy --dot-- com). I've tried to keep the sizing
as short as possible but I do have future plans for the currently unused real
estate so finding a compromise was difficult.

Lastly with regards to resizing, I view this as a huge issue that I
unfortunately don't think I'll be able to address with v1. After analyzing my
spec, the developers agreed that iFrames would provide the best solution for
the homepage. I did what research I could with the resources I had and
eventually agreed. The site sizes and positions the frames according to the
real estate available when the page loads and as such, resizing is a disaster.
Whatever you do, don't view it full screen... ;)

Hopefully I can manage to generate some interest/traffic that might warrant
revisiting the current implementation but for the time being, my budget for
the site is pretty small. If you or anyone else has an idea as to a possible
fix, I would love to look into it.

~~~
jwilliams
No worries - They are mostly just nitpicks - I think it's a interesting
concept.

I'll fire you a screenshot when I get back tonight.

The community question is an interesting one - the site would be more sticky
if it's relevant to the users. e.g. HN is useful because it's relevant to me
in the startup domain, and the community reinforces that. At the same time,
you also need to have it a little bit diverse to keep people interested.

So yeah, it's a fine line - but as you say, this could be something that
evolves rather than being designed. I'm guessing the initial selections will
jumpstart it in one direction or another.

~~~
zacharye
That's my hope, for sure. Ultimately, I'd love enough interest to be able to
fan out a bit. By that, I mean keep the "less is more" one site, one day theme
but break it down into less broad categories. ie hacking.worthyy.com,
art.worthyy.com, social.worthyy.com, etc

Thanks again for taking the time to shoot me a screen shot - much appreciated.

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halo
Fails the critical "I visit the site and know what it does without prior
explanation" test. Add a subtitle that explains what the site does: "A new
site each day" or something.

~~~
zacharye
Point well-taken, thanks. I tried to use the tag line that appears in the
browser header as an aid so as to avoid occupying more real estate within the
bar but it might be unavoidable.

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Jasber
Nice idea. Small bug with Safari, when I scroll, the worthyy banner scrolls up
the page and I'm unable to click any of the links. I'm using Safari v3.1.2 on
Leopard 10.5.5.

~~~
paraschopra
Same with Chrome. The banner behaves weirdly.

~~~
zacharye
Yes Chrome has been a point of difficulty for the developers since the onset
of the project (as has Safari on PC). They're still working on a solution and
I hope to have it ironed out before launch.

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brandnewlow
I really like this. It's simple and fun. I agree that the front page setup
needs a little tweaking. I'd actually put the bottom bar up at the top with a
little explanation blurb by the logo, as if you're introducing the site, which
is essentially what you're doing.

Question: is there any harm being done to the sites you frame? Have you gotten
any negative feedback from publishers? Everynow and then someone frames one of
my sites and it irks me to no end, hence the little js breaker i run on all my
sites. Thoughts there? I mean, essentially one could argue this is merely a
slick little theft of content.

~~~
zacharye
Thanks! I thought about putting the bar at the top but I didn't want to
obstruct logos and headers by setting the iFrame as-is, while starting the
main frame at the bottom of the bar would then eat up too much real estate.

As for your question, it's an awesome one. To this point I have not received
any negative feedback from developers but I've also only pushed testing
traffic through the site. It's entirely possible that I will receive negative
feedback as the site grows, though I obviously hope developers see worthyy as
helping more than hurting.

My perspective is this: I could easily start yet another blog that covers web
services and each post would be just another singular perspective on each
site. Try as I might to avoid it, my opinions, impressions and perspective
will inevitably come through as visitors read my take on each site. My
perspective will weigh heavily on whether or not readers end up clicking
through. I don't want this.

I want the developer's work to do the talking. Developers put tremendous
amounts of time and thought into building these sites. I obviously don't need
to tell you that. Why should I be just another guy who covers their work on my
blog, inevitably misrepresents something, misses covering key functionality,
etc? I want worthyy users to see and experience each site as the developer
envisioned it - without preconceived impressions from my opinion or anyone
else's for that matter. I then make it as easy as possible for the user to
bookmark the site and should they choose to click through and discuss the
site, there is always a direct link waiting for them.

That said, my intentions hardly invalidate the fact that some may potentially
view worthyy as stealing their content. To that I can only assure those
concerned that I will, without hesitation, remove content from my site
immediately should the owner of the content request that I do so. No argument
and no questions asked.

------
fallentimes
I was a beta user of this and when Zach first launched his site I left him a
voice mail saying how awesome it was.

The problem: I left my congratulations for the site _featured_ on Worthyy
instead of the Worthyy site itself. Oops.

I love Woot (there's a Woot off today btw) and I really like this site. I
think it appeals to the masses much better than a delicious or stumbleupon.
One site. One day.

~~~
zacharye
If I remember correctly, I think the site that day was Open Source Food.
Trust, if I was Yongfook I definitely wouldn't be having the iFrame problem
mentioned below... ;)

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blogimus
One suggestion: Prominently display the URL of the site you are showcasing. I
suggest the title bar and/or your worthyy bar.

I like the idea.

~~~
zacharye
Thanks blogimus - highlighting the name/URL of the current site somehow will
definitely be implemented.

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rw
Cool idea. Please make it sensible for the user (me) to understand that I have
to turn JS on to use the site.

~~~
zacharye
Great point rw, thanks. Perhaps I can pop up a warning if JS is not detected.

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unalone
The Safari bug was announced. I like the idea, but I wish there was a method
of letting users index featured sites (tagging or the like) to help people
find related sites.

~~~
zacharye
Thanks unalone, would you mind elaborating a bit? Do you mean it should allow
the user to add his/her own tags beyond the existing tags - or that the user
should be able to find related sites from the homepage as opposed to the
supporting pages?

~~~
unalone
The former.

I'm a fan of certain kinds of sites. I'm a sucker for elegant interfaces and
elegant bookmarklets, for two things. And I think that some sort of a way of
identifying _those_ sorts of sites would keep your layout elegant, while at
the same time letting people into particular sorts of sites find good
solutions.

~~~
zacharye
Awesome point. I'm afraid addressing the issue will fall outside the scope of
v1 but I've already added it to my list of functionality to examine for the
next build. Thanks!

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mstefff
Awesome idea - I love it.

I'd just recommend making the design of the discussion page/layout a little
nicer.

~~~
zacharye
I will definitely be cleaning up the individual post layout pre-launch. Thanks
mssteff.

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toddcw
Add an RSS feed. I doubt I would visit worthyy.com everyday to see what new
site is being highlighted, but I'd definitely take a look if it showed up in
my feed reader.

~~~
zacharye
Thanks for the feedback toddcw. There actually are feed / email subscription
options but the locations are intentionally 'out of the way' as this is not my
preferred method of consumption. Beyond the homepage, you can find
subscription options at the bottom of the sidebar on every page.

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wesley
Uh yeah, that already exists:

<http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/> (random page)

This won't take off at all. If you still want to pursue this idea, least you
could do is add a top iframe with some info on the site, comments, etc..

Edit: well, you said in your original comment that there would be a frame, but
it doesn't seem to work on the current page that is displayed. (safari, mac)

~~~
zacharye
Yeah, the bug in Safari on Mac is a showstopper - my browser window was way
too big during testing to notice it, but if your window is shorter than xxx
pixels the bar is 100% obscured. Rest assured though, this issue will be
addressed asap.

