
Ask HN: Launch an App Month - What did you launch? - sandeepshetty
Curious to know how many took this up and actually launched something.
======
thetrumanshow
Took an idea from jacquesm (thanks!):
<http://fcgadgets.blogspot.com/2010/10/ad-spaces-gadget.html>

Launched this last month: <http://www.textmyoffice.com>

Some other things still in the pipe.

------
JoshCole
I put up two sites this month, but I'm not sure they qualify. They don't have
any chance at growing into a startup, but I'm going to list them anyway.

The first is a little game that lets you try to unscramble words [1]. It's
hardest word list is from a post about the 1000 most useful words that came up
here a while ago. My favourite thing about the site is that it fetches
definitions and the like from wordnik so you can learn as you play. If you
want to try playing let me know and I'll fix the last known bug. The focus is
stolen from the input box when I check to see if the top word has changed, but
I didn't fix it because I got distracted by more interesting projects.

The second is a personal website with links to my blog and a portfolio of past
projects [2]. I figured starting to put together a portfolio would help to get
me a job at some point and that it would be a nice way to start learning
Clojure, which I've been wanting to try for a while. Still haven't decided on
a domain name though.

Right now I'm working on a third project that people on Hacker News might be
more interested in. I'm hoping it will bear some resemblance to Stack Overflow
when it gets a little more fleshed out, but that won't be done this month. God
willing it will be done some time in December so I can share it with all of
you. I'm really excited about it.

1: <http://anagramscramble.appspot.com/>

2: <http://jcolessite.appspot.com/>

~~~
bendmorris
I enjoyed playing anagramscramble for a bit, and I think it's great timing as
I'm prepping for the GRE in a couple weeks - playing your game might help my
verbal score. A couple comments:

1\. You mentioned this, but it would be great if focus stayed on the input
box. That would make it easy to play with just the keyboard, without having to
tab.

2\. Sometimes there are more than one legitimate solution (for example: scalp,
clasp) - you could try checking if the submitted word is real or not instead
of matching it to the word you originally scrambled.

Thanks for an amusing 10 minutes or so.

~~~
JoshCole
I fixed the bug that was stealing focus. In case your curious the problem was
that the code would always think the word had changed due to trying to select
the current anagram with the wrong jquery selector (div instead of span).

As to allowing multiple words for the same anagram. Umm.. that not a bug that
is a feature! It uhh.. it helps you to be more.. creative.. year that is what
it does. More seriously though, I'm busy right now and don't think it really
ruins the experience like the focus bug does, so I'm going to hold off on
implementing that till I'm finished with my previously mentioned 'interesting
project.

Oh and one more thing, thanks for playing!

~~~
bemmu
I still managed to get my focus to escape the box when I tried playing it just
now.

------
ww520
Here's my app for the month launched today. <http://www.previouslook.com>.
Makes it easy to look back at the snapshots of popular web pages over time. So
far it's a proof of concept with couple sites. Will expand to include more web
pages.

Here's my other HN post about it,
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1953087>

------
ashraful
I launched <http://www.hackerlunch.com>

It lets hackers meet up with each other for lunch (and hopefully an
interesting chat). You basically make a post stating when and where you are
free to have lunch and others can join in.

Launched it a few days ago but unfortunately haven't received much interest or
feedback. I will probably release another polished version in a month and see
if it gets more traction.

~~~
iworkforthem
Make it more social. Once a lunch slot is posted, give it an unique url,
encourage users to publish it to facebook/twtter, etc. Store user's location,
advice if the new lunch slot can invite any existing users in the same region,
etc.

Keep on working on it. Nice to have, can't see how it could be acquired, or
make enough for ramien, or anything like that.

~~~
ashraful
Thanks for the feedback. I noticed that you did not use the site to post a
lunch-meetup, is it because you aren't interested in meeting up with others at
the moment, or is it because the site lacks features?

I am working to make the interface a bit more appealing (new design:
<http://i.imgur.com/KOaA8.jpg>). Then I will move on to add integration with
facebook and twitter and let users do more with their posts (invites, privacy,
comments, geo-tagging, etc.).

As for the future, I plan to extend this beyond hackernews and beyond lunches.
Eventually you should be able to post any event you plan on doing and invite
anyone. Kind of like a social network focused around events.

~~~
iworkforthem
The site is fine. It's just me.

Good to hear that you have a plan to develop it further. One problem I have
with my site is to give too much features which are not required, or I dun use
myself. Do guard against that too. Less is more.

------
bgrins
There are some already listed in this thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1938859>

I launched a CSS sprite generator at <http://instantsprite.com>.

------
hariis
Launched a personal finance app 'Can I Afford it now?'

<http://caniafforditnow.com>

Get a Financial health checkup anonymously Get a second opinion before your
Purchase

~~~
iworkforthem
I think the app has quite a bit of potential. Right now, you are just focusing
the user side, afford-ability side of things. Usage is more one-off.

Members option is possible.

Forward planning option to help users build things is also a possibility.

Integrate with other finance/expense tracking app will help too.

Do keep working on it. Love it to see it developed over time.

------
buloy37
Instant map search for nearest hotels, foods, bars, parking, clinics etc.
Launch it this month - <http://www.instamapsearch.com>

~~~
motherwell
That's really cool and super fast (my god is it fast!).

If you are going to launch this, can I suggest that, rather than IP detection,
you build out a series of pages for each location, e.g. New York City, London
etc.

That way you can get SEO traffic (London has a non-ajax, SE crawlable page),
and also provide people a better experience when they plan to go somewhere
(e.g. London from NYC).

Lastly - revenue model? I assume affiliates for hotels etc? If so, you need
traffic, so see my first point :)

------
wulfen
I launched my personal/blog site. I also have a small app I'm hoping to get
released by (tomorrow), but is not quite done yet.

<http://www.wulfpak.net>

------
s3graham
<http://droppic.com/> (<https://droppic.com/> too)

Drag-and-drop gallerys for designers to show mockups and comps.

Feedback appreciated! Was just about to post an RMS, but maybe I'll wait until
the Nov rush has died down a bit. :)

(Idea from @glenmurphy's Dropmocks project from a couple months back + PSD
support + big files + revisions + ipad viewer + ...)

------
netmau5
Though I started with a rough idea several months ago, I did most of my work
coding <http://www.sparkmuse.com> during November. I'm not gonna make it by
the end of the month, but I'll be opening the alpha in around 2 weeks. Right
now most of the coding is done, I'm just on the lookout for more content to
add to the site.

~~~
maheshs
I love you design... Can you share any tips for these type of designing.

------
startupmike
I launched <http://publiclog.com>

(The original post is here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1891808>)

It's a fun way to "log" every activity that you do (eating, drinking, working,
playing, ...).

You can also see the "history" of all of your activities (Past, Present and
Future)

------
sraquo
I launched a cool iPad game: <http://chopperdefense.com/>. Already have a few
"paying customers" and even more Cydia freeloaders :) Now working on getting
the word out and on a major update that would also bring it to iPhone,
hopefully.

~~~
mcotton
How are you tracking the Cydia freeloaders? This has been a concern of mine
and I'm not sure what the best way to deal with it

------
kilian
I launched <http://guitaryst.com> today: a better way to read guitar
tablature.

Hacker news launchpost here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1950632>

------
user24
I took it up and brainstormed a product and wrote a few blog posts up at
<http://WeddingBudgetBuddy.com> but I haven't launched a product yet. To me
building audience is key, and I've been making slow progress getting relevant
traffic. I'm going to try to launch soon.

I learned loads about starting a product (as opposed to a simple project) this
month and it was incredibly valuable.

There's talk of it becoming a monthly thing, which I'd love to be a part of.

Well done to all who launched!

------
bemmu
Submitted a simple card game to the App Store and put
<http://www.myspaceappstats.com/> online. If I could somehow let app
developers know about it, I'm pretty sure many would visit it daily to see how
their app is doing, but I'm not sure how to contact them. Tried just going
through each dev and figure out their contact info from their homepage / app
but that turned out to take a loong time.

------
iworkforthem
Launched this month: <http://tradesalerts.com> Revised it recently to include
AGM Calendar, Downloadable Inc's Dividend records, etc. Low traffic, added
quite a few enhancements to work in the pipline to automate things. Great to
see it developed quite nicely over time.

------
blntechie
Failed miserably trying to write an app for my personal use within November. I
have my back end done and ready and i need to put together a front end still.
Was not possible to spend much hours due to work and also to be honest, time
spent was not exactly productive i would say. Need to proceed and wrap this up
soon.

------
Yoms
Launched a beta of <http://babble.ly> today. The concept was born in late
October, and execution done this month. Would love feedback on it!

My Show HN post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1954329>

------
mgerring
Haven't launched yet, but I've got half an app for planning camping trips
using the new Active.com API. I decided to do it in Rails, so I was learning
something brand new. It's close though. I've got a cool map mashup going at
least.

------
golgo13
Launched a Windows Phone 7 App that is now in the Windows Phone Marketplace.
<http://bit.ly/ezZv2t> I already know C# so making apps for Windows Phone 7
comes naturally.

------
acconrad
I took it up...but never finished :( Unfortunately this was the worst possibly
month I could have picked to join. I had 2 major code releases and a bunch of
late nights. Sigh...I'm so pissed!

------
percept
I've done a "soft launch" to begin driving traffic to ScheduleHQ:

<http://www.schedulehq.com/>

The goal is to grow organically as I build it out.

------
photon_off
I got a job.

------
xtrycatchx
i launched <http://www.adobocode.com>

it's my way of sharing back to the community what i learned from it. a set of
tutorials. hoping this will help some of my people here in the Philippines but
sad to know that most people browsing it are from India and US. but still im
hoping they'll learn from my site..

------
Thomaschaaf
We're right before the point of launching <http://suplify.me> .

------
rahulchaudhary
Launching a free weekly newsletter called NoSQL Weekly, which will feature
curated news, articles, new releases, tools etc related to NoSQL. The first
issue comes out tomorrow. You can go here, <http://www.nosqlweekly.com/> to
subscribe to NoSQL Weekly.

