
Show HN: It's hard to make friends offline, so we built a solution - njoglekar
http://www.letsbeamigos.com/
======
adambard
Whenever I see a button that says "sign in with Facebook," I just close the
tab immediately. Am I the only one who does this? What's wrong with just
having me fill out a survey of my interests if that's what you want?

Facebook is the only account that I keep to myself and people who know me. My
Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Github and all the other stuff I can't remember, all
exist to connect me to people I've never met. I'd way rather use one of those
than Facebook.

~~~
njoglekar
Hey guys, we actually have a survey after the fb login for that reason (I have
few interests on my FB profile). And we WONT write on your wall under any
circumstances.

Lastly, for now wanted to dodge anonymous signups. Won't be much fun to set
you up with people that are not real. Hope you give it a shot.

~~~
john_b
> _And we WONT write on your wall under any circumstances._

Being able to trust strangers is nice, but not needing to is even better.

~~~
Karunamon
If I recall correctly, apps must explicitly ask permission (above and beyond
the login) and authorizaton which just gives access to your "basic
information".

Oftentimes you can deny the post ability. You can't tell until you arrive at
the screen, but if you don't click okay, nobody's posting anything on your
wall.

~~~
DougWebb
Yeah, until Facebook quietly changes how that works and gives all sorts of new
permissions to apps you've already authorized with.

That's the real problem here: Facebook has a history of wanting to expose as
much personal information as possible, including exposing information that was
previously not exposed without warning. I don't necessarily distrust the OP's
business today, nor do I necessarily disagree with the permission settings I
can set today. What I don't trust is Facebook's future changes to those
permission settings, nor what the OP's business is going to do when/if it has
more access to my information than it used to have.

~~~
dolphenstein
You can remove the app. Its not permissions for life.

~~~
daave
That does nothing to prevent the app from retaining the information they
obtained using the Facebook API during the time they were authorized (yes it's
against the TOS to do so, but it's completely unenforceable).

~~~
mccolin
But the information they would retain would be the same information they'd
have if you'd signed up with email and manually entered information.

~~~
DougWebb
That's not true at all. If I enter information manually, then the site has
exactly the information I've chosen to give it, no more and no less, until I
decide to provide more. That is most likely not the same information I've
shared through Facebook. But if the site gathers information from my Facebook
account, then it gets whatever Facebook chooses to give it; the choice is not
under my control.

If Facebook had a history of strong privacy protection and strict opt-in
policy to information sharing, this wouldn't be so bad. But since Facebook has
the completely opposite history, including Zuck coming right out and saying
that he would prefer all Facebook user info to be shared, I'm not going to
trust Facebook to keep whatever I want private private.

------
kyro
Welcome to HN, where showing your work gets you a "fuck off", "scumbag", and
"scum of the earth", all without an iota of positive feedback or constructive
criticism!

What a brilliant community, indeed!

~~~
shortstuffsushi
This is exactly what I was feeling. Hey, you have a cool idea, and you don't
necessarily want to create an additional login account (which would add yet
another security risk to each user)? Don't use facebook, because clearly NO
ONE uses that </sarcasm>.

Really though, I think that the target market for ... social people... who
want to have social gatherings... would likely be people on Facebook.

Just because HN in large hates Facebook for XYZ reasons, not all of which are
unjustified, I really don't think it's fair to shout at the developers for
choosing to use it.

------
gfodor
FWIW in my own app, on iPhone, Facebook connect with _native_ dialog has a
near-100% login rate. (The non-native dialog is much worse unfortunately.)

So, fuck the haters, Facebook connect is a very low-impact way to get users to
sign up to your service, particularly if you assume in the long run that it
will be deeply integrated with phones as it is on iOS. Yes, a few nerds will
opt-out, but most of them will be pulled in eventually if your service turns
out to be useful and trustworthy.

------
iterationx
I think its hard to make friends, because people only feel fulfilled when they
are working. This is demonstrated by the fact all these billionaires are still
working and they are not content to just be leisurely.

Therefore, the premise that you like baseball and I like baseball, so we
should just hang out, will feel kind of pointless. That's why I don't think
anyone has really nailed this market.

I think a better take on this would be, you want to publish a comic book, and
I want to publish a comic book, so we should work on our projects and hang
out. Or you want to run a 5K and I want to run a 5K so lets meetup and
practice this together.

~~~
njoglekar
You nailed it, this is where we are headed. Love to chat more about how you
think we can get there.

~~~
iterationx
I think something like, "I am going to be working on my comic from 7-9 at this
coffee shop, broadcast this "ad" to people like comics that have the following
characteristics [male | female | doesn't matter], politics [ x,y,doesn't
matter]"

You sometimes could have an open ended invite, and sometimes you would have to
have both parties agree to meeting before hand, like in the case of restaurant
reservations.

~~~
njoglekar
I think that open ended invitations leave too much room for cancellation / a
poor experience. But, perhaps other people might feel this is not an issue.
Any feedback?

~~~
iterationx
Depends on the activity. For example, I'm working on my novel at the
coffeeshop. That is a good open ended activity. If no one shows up while I
work on my novel, well that's fine, because I still got some work done.

But running around the lake is not an open ended activity, because I don't
want to wait around for people to show up.

Also add a button, "Leaving for the activity now", or "I'm here at X" would be
helpful.

------
gfodor
Do yourself a favor and ignore the comments here screaming for alternative
login options. Look at the data and see what the conversion rate is for
people, and only change it if the conversion rate is below what you consider
acceptable. (Filtering out "Referer: news.ycombinator.org" of course.)

Most people here complaining about Facebook Connect are basically ignorant as
to what it actually allows you to do, and are also in the minority of people
who have not populated their Facebook profile with interests.

------
dm2
1st: the Facebook only login is a HUGE turnoff for many people.

2nd: Videos need HTML5 support.

If the Facebook issue is that you are wanting real people, then maybe you
could create a "confidence" score for people to identify their
trustworthiness, or maybe some kind of ratings system. Confirming a phone
number or school email would also be a good alternative to the facebook
requirement.

~~~
davidw
> Facebook only login is a HUGE turnoff for many people.

... on hacker news. And in the rest of the populace? Not so sure.

~~~
callahad
I should really keep these links handy, but real-world user testing generally
shows a pretty strong aversion to Facebook Connect. Here's at least one paper
that studied informed consent with Facebook auth:
<http://www.guanotronic.com/~serge/papers/chi13a.pdf>

~~~
davidw
Interesting, but the 3 web sites they used are all news web sites. I don't
mind using FB connect, but for a site like that, that I read without logging
in? No way.

I think more research is needed.

------
CJefferson
I really you might be interested in 'Minimal Viable Product', but really, I
think this is below Viable.

Why ask for my Facebook if you are then going to ask where I love, and my
interests, afterwards?

Do you realise how limiting it seems to ask if I live in:

    
    
        Palo Alto, CA
        San Franciso, CA
        Somewhere else

~~~
vec
Yeah, feels like it's targeting the people who need this service least. Bay
area is geek central, or so it's reputation suggests. I just moved to
Albuquerque, which is beautiful and scenic and has no existing nerd scene. A
tool like this would be incredible for finding or building one, though.

I don't mean to be the "but what about _my_ edge case" guy, but it really does
seem like your target audience is going to be denser when you get into cities
that don't have thoroughly saturated tech scenes already.

p.s. If there are any HN types in the ABQ/Santa Fe area, please reply and we
can grab lunch sometime.

~~~
greghinch
> Yeah, feels like it's targeting the people who need this service least. Bay
> area is geek central, or so it's reputation suggests

Just because there are lots of similarly-minded people in the same area as you
doesn't mean it's easy to make friends with them. A lot of people relocated to
the bay area every month, a service like this would be great for them.

Certainly falls under the category of "solving problems of SV 20 somethings"
though :P

------
mongol
This is nothing against you, but I don't trust websites that request personal
info but where it is unclear who is behind.

© Let's Be Amigos 2013

What is Let's Be Amigos? Who is behind? A company or a person? Please give
some more details.

------
Kiro
So I have done plenty of A/B testing with Facebook login and I can tell you
one thing: having just Facebook login converts multiple times better than
having either email sign up or both. The quality of signups are also much
better. Sure, you lose out on the hackers but they're a minority and from
reading this thread a pretty rude crowd as well.

~~~
devcpp
The hackers are an efficient way to advertise a product for free. They are
continually online and like to go from website to website and talk about stuff
they just learned about.

~~~
precisioncoder
Not to mention they will tell their friends and family constantly about the
cool new thing they found. Also when people consider a new service who do they
ask? Usually the hacker in the social group/family

------
27182818284
Don't offer one way to log in. At least give the standard Facebook/Twitter
choice.

It doesn't make any sense to have a site to help people be more social but
then only offer it to people who are social...

~~~
njoglekar
Coming soon...

------
grannyg00se
Facebook required so you know my interests? Facebook doesn't know my
interests.

Or...unfortunately maybe facebook does know my interests but not because I've
deliberately divulged them. In any case, it would be much better to ask me
directly.

For friend-making through common interests I use meetup.com

~~~
njoglekar
Has it worked well for you? Do you like going to activities already scheduled
or do you think there is value in having people found for specifically you?

~~~
lmm
I think the big advantage of meetup is a lower "creepy factor". If I'm going
to a scheduled, planned event to do something specific then that has natural
boundaries - and then often a subset will go to the pub afterwards where
things get a bit more informal, but you're under no pressure if you don't want
to. I do like this idea because making new friends is hard, but I'm worried
meeting people who have been "matched" with me would turn awkward.

~~~
njoglekar
Love to get your thoughts on our about page. Does this make it seem less
creepy? We want to de-creepyify this as much as possible!

------
jcomis
What if you don't keep track of your interests on Facebook? Or you don't have
one, or want to use your FB account? No other option?

~~~
njoglekar
So at this point, FB is a huge help to help gauge your interests. We do also
let you enter a few activities you like to do after signup.

Lastly, for now wanted to dodge anonymous signups. Won't be much fun to set
you up with people that are not real.

------
drum
In defense of the Facebook sign up, how about issues of safety? Meeting a
stranger online can be risky. Forcing signup via Facebook helps provide data
that users can use to perform a due diligence on the strangers they might be
meeting. It helps hold people accountable if they do decide to do something
malicious offline. Perhaps LinkedIn might be better, but I don't see a problem
with utilizing some sort of identity related social sign up for this idea.

------
mindcrime
I'm not as opposed to the Facebook signin thing as a lot of people here seem
to be, in that I don't consider Facebook "private". My default assumption is
"if it's actually private, it doesn't get posted on Facebook". IOW, Facebook
is mostly just a big online Rolodex to me.

BUT... I am opposed to having only Facebook login, just because it's not an
open standard, and it isn't part of the Open Web. I'd argue for supporting, at
a minimum, OpenID as an alternative.

------
abuiles
I really like the concept, I was thinking on something like this a while ago,
but it was around the concept of going out to dinner with someone, sometimes
you want to try a new restaurant but your friends are maybe busy or they don't
fancy the food, even though you could go on your own, eating alone is not
always fun.

~~~
njoglekar
Thanks, we think dinner is a good idea but so are other activities (playing a
sport, computer game, or whatever)

------
wellboy
This is a great idea, however probably the 5th time this has been on
Hackernews this year. Again, there are 100 startups all trying the same thing
and it just doesn't work, because you have incredibly high critical mass and
no marketing channel.

Examples: Spontacts, Woofound, Matewire, Activepepper

Hope that helped.

------
raymondduke
It's not that I am against signing up with Facebook, it's just that every
service I've used with a FB login claims to help make oneself more social;
however, that is hardly ever the case.

As for wanting to meet people in my area with similar interests, I'll stick to
using Meetup.

Additionally, here is some advice from someone who runs their own Meetup
group. My coffee and conversation group is over a month old and has over 50
members. Only about 20% sign up for a Meetup and about 75% actually show.
These are rough estimates, but from people I talk to that host events, they
have similar results. I think you'll find that once you set up these "meets"
with 4 people, usually not all 4 will show up. I guess if you had them prepay,
they would be more inclined to...

but anyway, good luck!

------
DanBC
Hello!

I like the idea! I hope this is constructive.

I signed up with facebook.

The next page asked me what my location was. I thought that was a bit odd,
because what's the point of giving you access to all my FB stuff? So, I drop
down the thingy and there are 2 towns, both in California. Well, it's brand
new so I kind of expected that. But I have no idea how to enter my location.
Do I just put my town name? Or town name, county? Or town name, UK? Or what?
So, I guess at town and UK.

The next three boxes ask me for some things I've done recently. Eh, I really
don't do much. It might be worth giving people a grid of ideas as suggestions?

~~~
njoglekar
Hi Dan,

Well one issue is that you can work in one city and live in another. That may
not be reflected in Facebook. We didn't think about town vs. county vs. city.

Suggestions are a great idea. Thanks.

------
trevmckendrick
I filled out all the info, clicked submit, and then it just took me back to
the homepage. :( Looks interesting though. I was just talking to my wife about
this problem the other day.

~~~
njoglekar
hmm small glitch we are fixing, it should say:

Thanks our matchmakers and algorithms are hard at work to find the perfect
matches for you.

We will email you soon.

~~~
njoglekar
We should have just fixed this, can someone try and let us know?

~~~
abstractbill
Worked for me just now.

------
bluetidepro
> _REAL-LIFE FRIENDS, NOT FACEBOOK FRIENDS OR LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS._

..."GET STARTED WITH FACEBOOK" button on the same page.

Do you not see the irony in your tagline?

~~~
raymondduke
My thoughts exactly.

~~~
njoglekar
Well we aren't introducing you to your Facebook friends so I'm not sure I see
it.

------
gfodor
I went through the signup process. Was pretty fast and easy. A few
suggestions:

\- I live in Redwood City, CA. Would be nice if this autocompleted.

\- Include more suggestions for the types of things to include in things I've
done in the last month.

\- You should include the "How It Works" info on the landing page after I
finish.

\- There should be other ways for me to find people, I shouldn't have to rely
upon algorithms to do all the work.

------
Sealy
On a more positive note:

I'm lovin the name, it made me laugh so much. Great idea too. I move around a
lot so am always looking for ways to build a solid network of new friends.

If you have a vision, pursue it with relentless ambition. Don't let these
criticisms put you off.

------
willchilcutt
Clicking the "Get started with Facebook" quickly opens and then closes a
popup. I'm guessing this is the "authenticate with your account" popup, but it
closes too quickly to even do anything.

EDIT: Thanks for the support, this issue was quickly fixed.

~~~
guptaneil
Similar problem for me, except it doesn't even open the popup. The page just
scrolls to the top and a # gets appended to the URL. Looks like some
Javescript listener is failing to fire.

I'm using Safari 6 on Mac OS 10.8 if that helps.

~~~
njoglekar
Think we fixed this too, can you try again?

~~~
guptaneil
It's still not working for me. I even tried emptying cache, but no luck.

------
grrrando
Hey njoglekar - your window-fixed "Contact Us" bug is covering up your
copyright in the bottom right. And the white text shadow on your main headline
and some buttons is rendering poorly in Chrome 27 on a MBPr.

------
schulte257
I want this but anonymous. I like meetup but its the same drag, digital me
showing up to an event feeling akward. I'd use the digital equivalent of
picking up a flyer from a coffeeshop.

------
eyeareque
I don't have a facebook. I guess this site isn't for people like me.

------
robertwalsh0
The 'new to the area' headline has a white text shadow on the already white
text that makes the content blurry and hard to read. You probably want to turn
off the text shadow there.

------
chewxy
We've created one like that in the past (strangers for dinner). Similar ideas
- use Facebook info to matchmake for dinner parties.

The project failed. I am quite curious to see how this one goes

------
wallacrw
You need to move that Facebook button much higher on the page. I had to scroll
to see it, and I have a larger than average screen.

------
sukuriant
What does this offer that Meetup.com doesn't?

~~~
njoglekar
Our goal is to actually find people that we think would be a good match for
you. With meetup.com you are signing up for an activity. Here we are finding
people that you should be friends with and setting up an activity. Like a
friend matchmaker.

~~~
hawkharris
Every friendship I've ever established has been based on some activity:
sharing an office, playing sports, watching a movie, etc. And I don't think
I'm unique in this respect.

Meeting a person solely for the person of selecting him or her sounds very
specific to dating.

I think your project is interesting and has a lot of potential — I'm just
pointing out that, by downplaying activities, you may be expecting a type of
socializing that's unnatural to many people, especially if you hope to
differentiate yourself from dating sites.

~~~
njoglekar
We totally agree. When we make a match of 4 people we send them on an
activity. Perhaps we need to make that clearer in the messaging - where would
you like us to say something like that?

------
charleslmunger
Do most people actually like things that are useful? Most of my friends "like"
stuff like Starbucks and Wal-Mart.

------
alexcaps
Sounds like At The Pool -- <http://atthepool.com>

------
orangethirty
I immediately thought about the old sega game called samba de amigo. Cool
name.

------
petersouth
Don't mind all the negative comments. The idea and website are cool!

------
njloof
Can't I just make friends on Facebook? This is silly.

------
jgeerts
Who the hell is igos?

My level of jokes will probably never increase.

------
mmvvaa
So a vanilla version of bangwithfriends?

------
Hydraulix989
Can you add Seattle, WA as a city?

~~~
njoglekar
We are planning the first few groups in the bay area but we have gotten so
many inquiries from Seattle that we can organize something soon

------
jayferd
Let's beam! ...igos

------
Dewie
I'm from Northern Europe and the problem with making friends is that you have
to have an _excuse_ to make friends - there has to be a pretense. Sure, a lot
of sports, volunteer work, hobbies and so on and so forth emphasize that you
will get to socialize, but you don't get away from the fact that you have to
have _some_ kind of pretext to meet new people.

~~~
aneth4
How is that a problem? Go out and do something.

~~~
Dewie
It is a problem because you necessarily need to take the whole pretext as well
- which is fine if you really like that pretext, less so if you don't. Maybe
someone just wanted to meet new people and so she got a volunteer job for some
organization. Now she has the job and has made some friends, but the job is
weighing her down, because it turns out that she didn't care for that job in
itself. "But", you say, "she could just find something she likes", but that
might not be so easy. In her case, she needed to commit to a job, and it is
often something of an investment like that when it comes to these pretexts -
it's not merely a question of "casually drop by that thing I do whenever I
feel like it, but I've committed to noone about doing with any regularity".

Hopefully she can quit her job and still maintain her friendships - but people
also tend to compartmentalize, and without something like a common job, there
isn't necessarily a compartment for her anymore.

I am _not_ talking about merely needing to _do_ something together to meet new
people. I'm not talking about going down to the court and asking random people
to shoot some hoops, and basketball being the pretext. I'm talking about "we
need to work together or have met in some context where it was clear that we
had stuff to do other than make friends with each other". There might not need
to be a pretext after a friendship is established, but you sometimes need to
get over that hurdle.

~~~
aneth4
The premise of this and every tool like it is to bring people together with
common interests. If you are actually interested in something, go do it and
you'll meet people with that interest. It's far more important to do something
than it is to express your interest on some friend meeting site, because
people who are actually interested out pursuing their interest. You can also
participate in an online community around the interest.

Saying you like hiking and snowboarding on a friend meeting site will never
get you anywhere. Go to the mountain. Join the Mountaineers.

------
bitwize
AIMED AT PEOPLE LOOKING TO MEET OTHER REAL ACTUAL HUMANS OFFLINE

[Scumbag LetsBeAmigos]

PRESUMES THE USER HAS A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT

~~~
guptaneil
I see this comment every time somebody posts a social product on HN, and I'm
not sure why. It adds no value to the discussion, and isn't even good
feedback. The number of people looking to socialize but don't have a FB
account is small enough that requiring FB for an MVP is perfectly reasonable.
If the platform takes off, the OP can add their own login system as well.

By refusing to have a Facebook account, you have willingly chosen to avoid a
large portion of the web's social layer. Don't complain when you can't use a
social product then.

~~~
josephhardin
It's not that we don't have a facebook account, but rather that we don't want
to have another app tangled in with all of our facebook data.

~~~
guptaneil
That is a different concern, and is expressed in the current top comment
(<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5781522>), which I upvoted. The comment
that I replied to only bemoaned the assumption that they have a FB account. I
think that is a perfectly reasonable assumption. Now, whether the product
provides enough value for me to want to give them my Facebook details is a
different question.

