

Ask HN: Review My App - TwitBet - erickerr
http://twitbet.com/

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qeorge
This is awesome. Great idea and really well executed. I'll fill my bracket out
tomorrow.

WRT getting people to come back, I'd leverage your stats. Some ideas:

* Tweet during the tournament. e.g., "63% of our users correctly predicted Georgetown over Tenn."

* Tweet / show on the site the percentages of people who bet each way on each game, and the percentage still left in the running

* Show the user their potential chance of winning the $5k over the course of the tournament, as people are eliminated. Like watching poker on TV.

* Show a leaderboard and tweet the current leaders. Have many categories, e.g., "top picker this round", "top overall", "worst overall"

* Tweet / blog interesting stats you see in the dataset. For example, which team do people think is most underranked? Overranked? What team do people think is the absolute worst? Absolute best?

* What does your aggregate Final Four look like? Aggregate Sweet 16? Track the "score" of the aggregated bracket over the course of the tournament.

Edited to add:

ESPN does something really clever with Fantasy Sports you could mimic. During
the football season they'll run ads for a "late league", for people who missed
the draft deadline. If you offered a "late pool" (i.e., one that starts in the
round of 32 or 16) I bet you'd be the only one.

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prawn
Great suggestions.

I agree that it's a quality idea. I think I'd say a bit more up front to
explain how the $5k works and what's involved. I'd introduce another colour to
your palette as it's a bit limited right now. With the disabled button in the
bottom right, explain underneath that it will activate when "x" more picks
have been made. As picks are made (and there are, say, 10 left), highlight the
missing ones with yellow or red perhaps. When I was mucking around, I missed a
couple.

The name is a bit scammy (everyone is skeptical of anything with "bet" in it)
so you could consider something with "Challenge" instead. Or keep the nice,
short URL, and bring "Challenge" into the heading.

I run www.hoops.com.au which is an Australian basketball forum and can plug
your site there if you'd like. Not sure how many people there are Twitter
users though. I also have a few basketball people (players, bloggers, fans)
following me on Twitter if you want me to spread the word. Email is isaac &
triplezero = com ` au.

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mathewgj
Just revoked Twitbet access to my account after it autosent a Tweet for me
without any [edit: enough] warning or pause for approval. Please don't do
that.

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erickerr
Right next to the "Submit" button, it says that the tweet will be sent out.
Also, the button itself says "Save and Tweet Your March Madness Bracket"

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detst
I don't think you're being intentionally deceptive. It just needs to be more
clear that the tweet will be sent for the user.

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erickerr
I built this service in about a week as a full time student. The $5k prize is
guaranteed if 5,000 people fill out the 1st page of the survey.

I'd greatly appreciate any feedback on the product as a whole and if you think
a Twitter-based system could do well as a generic sports betting/following
platform.

Thanks!

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jackowayed
The bracket is well done.

So you're trying to buy exposure, what are you going to do with it? And
whatever you do, you need to do it fast. I'd go ahead and assume that unless
you have something else to show people during the later part of the tournament
when they check how they're doing, everyone will forget about you.

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erickerr
I would agree about needing to have something to show people - what do you
think would encourage people to return?

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dannyr
Maybe before the start of every round, display the percentage of picks (e.g.
51% picked Duke, etc.).

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weichi
1\. Where will you get the $5k? Your own pocket? Are you charging people $1?
But it says free ...

2\. Are sure you aren't going to get into legal trouble? IANAL, and I know
nothing at all about the relevant laws, but still ...

3\. Contest Rules and Terms don't mention the required tweet anywhere.

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JimEngland
Cool idea, except the tweet sent out only includes a link to
<http://twitbet.com/>. Instead, you should link to my personal bracket that I
just filled out, so that my friends can see how badly I am at picking winners
in college basketball.

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andyjdavis
I picked all the teams then logged into twitter using the sign into twitter
button. The submit your bracket button never disabled. What am I missing?

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Mc_Big_G
Quick note: On the last page there is a typo:

 _If you do not complete the first page of the survey survey..._

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Raphael
The survey frame has no scroll bar showing, plus it's taller than my screen.
And it seems rather scammy.

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detst
I really like the idea but I have to agree that the survey does seem "scammy".
If I didn't come across this on HN, I wouldn't even consider getting involved.
As it is, I might do it if I remember in the next couple days.

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CoreDumpling
Heh - is TweetForACause coming next?

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loganfrederick
Don't give him any more ideas. He's probably testing it as we type.

