

Ask HN: Please review my web app: WantsThis - petemack

We just launched last week into a pretty competitive market.<p>The site was built with two people, myself and my partner over roughly 8 months. I did all the design/frontend while he handled all the programming.<p>We'd love to hear any feedback you guys/gals have.<p>http://wantsthis.com
======
Sandman
Clickable link:

<http://wantsthis.com>

The app seems nice, although there seem to be some minor rendering issues when
viewed in FF 3.5.5 on Ubuntu 9.04 (the text in the 'sign up free' box gets a
bit out of the box). However, there were other bugs - when I searched for a
'linux t-shirt', the 'next' arrow dissapeared at one point (there was a circle
in it's place suggesting that it's loading). I then refreshed the page, and
the previous item I added to my list appeared twice. I didn't review it any
further, though, so I don't know if there are any other bugs. Hope this helps.

~~~
petemack
I am seeing the FireFox issue, I think the CSS needs to be tweaked a little
more. I am investigating the results for the search items now.. Thanks for the
bug finding!

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I like the bold styling but it's a bit too big and clunky IMO - you've got
"Create your FREE wish list" then "Create Your Ultimate Wish List" then
"Create the perfect wishlist for ..." all one after another. Instead I'd have
this up next to your "WantsThis" banner with maybe one body text repitition
above the fold, not 3. It's all a little bit too busy IMO.

Also perhaps indicate on the direct purchase links (images in the top products
lists) that they are buy links.

Like your login box.

~~~
petemack
Excellent suggestion, other people have also told me the front page needs a
bit of work and I agree. Thanks for the input

------
nfnaaron
1\. I really like that you can start using it without registering. I assume
that the assigned name is usable beyond "now?"

2\. Signup is easy and low-stress (no "how am I obligating myself" qualms).

3\. Bug: before I signed up, I clicked one of the suggested wants, and I typed
in a want. Then I registered. But in my registered persona, only the typed-in
want was on my wish list, the clicked-on want had disappeared. Probably an
edge case.

4\. It looks like you make your money when buyers click on your Amazon
affiliate links for the wanted objects. I wonder if you might make a little
more money if you also put an explicit Amazon affiliates box/widget on the
side, with a list of related objects?

~~~
petemack
1) Its usable forever, its checked by cookies but you could just return to
that URL and continue using it. However its possible that another user could
add remove things, which is why the password protection exists.

2) That was important to us, glad it came across that way.

3) Thanks, looking into it.

4) We have a number of affiliates including Amazon, hopefully with more
traffic we can expand. We are also looking into recommendations and price
matching directly related to affiliates.

------
chris24
I love apps like these, especially when they have domains that make sense to
have usernames in them.

The amazon.com price comparisons are a little annoying to me, though, because
most products don't ship internationally from Amazon.com. Not only that, if
I'm entering prices that are in CAD$ and price comparisons are from a site
(Amazon.com) that sells items in USD$, the price comparisons don't add a lot
of value. It'd be nice if there was a way to set a locale to get price
comparisons from. That way, you'd still be able to earn affiliate income, but
even more than before because it's more highly targeted to the user.

~~~
petemack
Localization is important to use, especially regarding sites like Amazon, we
are currently working on getting it integrated. Thanks for the feedback!

------
jarsj
An auto-complete would do good to this app. A rich auto-complete with images,
better.

~~~
petemack
An excellent idea! Thanks!

------
ctb9
i really like it, the search works well, the design is nice...well done!

the auto-generated name thing is a great idea, but I wonder if you could
increase the conversion rate by replacing the copy "Create an account now, so
you can choose a better name for your wish list!" with the form itself. That
copy makes it seem as if I need to register in order to select a name, but in
reality selecting a name (and making a password) is the registration process.

one question: are you only pulling products from amazon and newegg currently,
and if so, plans to expand?

~~~
petemack
Good idea, I'll see how feasible it is to work that in. We are slowly adding
more sites as we discover their API's and such. We hope to at least cover all
the main shopping sites.

------
Sandman
I just checked your app for sql injection. The password I chose while
registering a new list was d'artagnan and, sure enough, I was granted access
without any error message whatsoever, but once I logged out I couldn't log in
again. I thought that you might have removed the ' character automatically,
but I also tried with dartagnan and couldn't log in either.

~~~
petemack
You _should_ be able to use an apostrophe in a password without issue as we
did test for that. I'll see if I can reproduce that error.

------
Cybourgeoisie
Hey, this looks great; I'm signing up purely out of interest. Though, one
small thing - if neither password field is filled out and the form is sent, I
receive this message: "The password fields must match". Insignificant non-bug,
but still not the correct error message to display. I look forward to see
where you go with this!

~~~
petemack
Fix is going up for this in the next few minutes, thanks!

------
DrewHintz
Looks nice. The account auto-creation is neat. I didn't see an option to
change the auto-generated account name (such as a35) to something of my
choice.

The Preference checkboxes at the bottom of /settings.php don't appear
correctly on Chrome.

~~~
petemack
You should receive a message at the top of your list if you have an auto-
created list. I'll do some testing on chrome, thanks!

------
flapjack
If a user searches for something like 27" iMac, there are no results, but if
the user searches for 27 iMac, the 27" imac is found. It might be good to
strip any "'s in the add field before searching.

------
taitems
1\. NSFW thumbnail in recently added items list

2\. The grey boxes and text-shadows combine to form some really unreadable
text

~~~
petemack
1\. We attempted to white list the recently added and most popular lists by
trusted sites. It seems amazon sells adult toys, so we will have to tweak that
filter a bit...

2\. Very true, I'll switch that to something more user friendly

------
Concours
nice design and intuitive UI, I like it. What about sync the wish list instead
of import the wish list? sync a wish list will cover import and export as
well. As User, I will love this option, but sure there's a lot to do to make
this work properly, if that's possible.

~~~
petemack
I think I saw this on another site, I'll see if their API allows for deleting
and adding items externally.

------
rksprst
Easy to understand and use, I just don't see how this would be useful? Or why
I would use it.

~~~
petemack
Its most useful for people who do a lot of shopping online for friends and
family members.

------
ucdaz
Cool app! How do you guys plan to make $$?

~~~
petemack
We have affiliate accounts on some online shopping sites, on those items we
get a small commission for the sale.

