

Show HN: Groupr - Collaborative List Making Tool - jaredtking

Groupr is a web app to create and share lists. Our goal is to help users organize and retrieve many types of information as well as facilitate collaboration. Lists can be anything: to do list, calendar, customer relations, playlist, and everything in between. By default, lists are private (registration is required), but can be easily shared with the Groupr community or friends. A simple permission set can be applied to shares, so collaborators can be allowed to view, edit and/or comment on lists.<p>And here it is:
http://groupr.co<p>Usage cases:
1) YouTube Playlists - Create a list of YouTube URLs and a nifty playlist app will show up.
2) Databases (i.e. customer relations, places, events) - Lists have a rigid structure (schema). This equates to consumer-friendly databases with less than a minute of setup time plus simple sharing and permissions.
3) Temporary lists - Grocery lists, to do lists, and other lists that are disposable in nature.
4) Arbitrary information storage - Store information for easy recall, i.e. itineraries, notes, ideas
5) Social - The site works well for sharing Top Ten or My Favorite N Things lists. We have a public community which is organized by tags.
6) ? - Groupr has many other uses, it's up to you<p>What makes this different from Evernote, Remember the Milk, etc.?
The difference between Groupr and these other services is abstraction and structure. We do not focus on a specific use case (notes, to do lists), instead we allow lists to have any structure. Groupr requires that lists have structure and that all items in the list follow the structure (again, like a database). There are no limitations to the number of fields and many types are available (Text, Number, URL, Address, Date, etc.). Also, collaboration has been baked in from the very beginning, something other services do not focus on.<p>Mobile?
iPhone and Android apps are in the works.<p>Does anyone find this useful? I would appreciate any feedback or criticisms.
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laurencer
A few thoughts: don't make me sign up to try out the service. I don't want to
leave a trail of dead user accounts around the web because I decided to try
out your service. Most of the time, if I can't see a video demo immediately or
actually access a demo version of the site I just move on.

A lot of your copy on the front page is feature-driven rather than
user/problem driven. From looking at the landing page - I'm not entirely sure
what problem/pain this product is meant to solve. I get the use-cases, but
they aren't exactly problems for me at the moment so you haven't really sold
me to try it out. There's probably a use case that would appeal to me but you
haven't found it yet.

Also - the flexibility of your system means that you need to let me know how I
should use it. I have no idea how I should start - there's no defined
structure and I'm not entirely sure what the best way to get value from it
would be (e.g. what should my lists be called, when should I create a new list
versus use an old list).

It's very similar to Google Wave - in that it presents a bunch of tools to use
but no indication on the best way to use them. This is not good from a user
experience perspective (I am left feeling like I'm not using it correctly or
in the best fashion - not a positive experience).

There's also no user feedback form/email on the landing page - I'd rather send
feedback via email.

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jaredtking
Thanks for your feedback!

It may not be clear from the landing page, but as a guest you can browse lists
that other people have shared. To create lists though registration is
required. Under "Account" is a button to delete your account if you decide to
try Groupr out then change your mind.

I will work on making the landing page more useful. This would explain why the
conversion rate has been so low.

