
Show HN: Thoughter - dougk16
https://aytwit.com/thoughter
======
dlivingston
Very cool base idea and could become something interesting.

Initial thoughts:

1\. Even assuming both person A and person B use the service within a week of
each other, the odds that they both use the same hastag are astronomically
low. Person A says '#wannaGoOut', but person B says '#IWantToGoOut'. There are
way too many possible permutations of a single thought.

2\. As another commenter said, the design is clean but feels like it belongs
in 1995. It will not get off the ground looking like this. The basic layout is
fine, but the colors and fonts need to go.

3\. Without an app, I think you'll have a hard time gaining critical mass. If
someone has a thought and all it takes to get it out onto Thoughter is to (i)
open the app, (ii) type, (iii) and send, then it will be way more likely to be
used.

4\. This feels a bit like Craigslist Missed Connections. Not saying that's a
good - or bad - thing, it just does.

5\. What if I see a cute girl at a coffee store, we hit it off, but I don't
have her email address - or even her name? What then?

~~~
dougk16
Thanks for your thoughts.

 _> 1\. Even assuming both person A and person B use the service within a week
of each other, the odds that they both use the same hastag are astronomically
low. Person A says '#wannaGoOut', but person B says '#IWantToGoOut'. There are
way too many possible permutations of a single thought._

My hope is that hashtags would become standardized, and hints
([https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints](https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints))
will also help with this.

 _> 3\. Without an app, I think you'll have a hard time gaining critical mass.
If someone has a thought and all it takes to get it out onto Thoughter is to
(i) open the app, (ii) type, (iii) and send, then it will be way more likely
to be used._

Totally agree. An app would also allow the service to avoid email, and allow
encryption on the client-side without the server seeing any plain text at all.
Definitely a goal.

 _> 5\. What if I see a cute girl at a coffee store, we hit it off, but I
don't have her email address - or even her name? What then?_

Good question! I don't have an answer unfortunately. Guess you gotta do things
the old-fashioned way. :)

~~~
ducttapecrown
Sell this to Snapchat

~~~
vermilingua
This really does fit perfectly with Snapchat’s MO of plausible deniability in
messaging; and could be exactly what they need to gain an edge against
Instagram.

Seconding talking to Snap.

~~~
dougk16
How would I go about that? I'm just a clueless engineer. What little I know of
how the world works, is that they would just steal the idea if it were really
attractive to them, and maybe give me a free T-shirt. Am I too jaded?

~~~
snazz
A Snap engineer could theoretically see this post and steal the idea. It’s
usually useless to go around trying to guard an idea. However, if you develop
the service enough so that it would be inefficient to rebuild it completely
from scratch, then they might pay you for the concept _and_ the technology,
which is real IP and can’t be ripped off quite so easily.

~~~
tendencydriven
I'm fairly certain you'd need a user base before Snap were even remotely
interested, or at least prove the idea.

Build an app, get it out there, see whats up

------
dougk16
Hello HN,

Thanks to everyone checking this out. I know it's kind of a weird project, but
that's the idea! I've been kicking this project around since college in 2003
when I was afraid to ask a girl out even though I was pretty sure she liked me
too. Instead of just asking her out I tried to come up with a way to fix my
anxiety with software, and thus Thoughter was born. Don't worry I'm a bit
wiser now. :)

You can read more about the back story at
[https://aytwit.com/blog/thoughter_origin_story](https://aytwit.com/blog/thoughter_origin_story)
and why it took so long for me to complete. Hint: I cared too much about
privacy, before it was cool!

~~~
mritchie712
I actually built this specifically for the breaking up use case. It was called
CleanBreak. I forget the numbers, but at least a few hundred people used it. I
think it'd actually work if you started locally (e.g. get covered in a campus
paper).

[https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/4287xp/i_built...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/4287xp/i_built_a_site_that_facilitates_mutual_breakups/)

~~~
dougk16
Nice! The comments on that thread are valuable, thanks for sharing. Do you
happen to have an instance of it still running somewhere, or screenshots? I
would be interested in some specifics of how you approached it since people
seem pretty favorable in that thread.

~~~
mritchie712
just spun it back up on PythonAnywhere,
[http://mritchie712.pythonanywhere.com/](http://mritchie712.pythonanywhere.com/),
pretty sure most of it won't work, I didn't start the database, but you'll get
the general idea.

~~~
dougk16
Sweet thanks for that. I like it, very straightforward and to the point. I'm
considering how I can "subdivide" Thoughter into little special purpose
utilities like for breaking up, hooking up, etc. Maybe I just need to make
hashtags more standardized, with a dropdown or something. Much appreciated.

------
cowb0yl0gic
As an introvert, I completely understand where this is coming from. What you
are trying to create is a way for people to signal intent in an emotionally
safe way. But I think this misses the mark (by substituting technical
infrastructure for quintessentially human interaction; by encouraging "someone
is" vs. "I am"). There is an art to "working toward" a discussion or
disclosure (which many people are not good at, and many situations make
difficult). To help someone find a way to say something (difficult or risky)
to someone (who may not be receptive), and to allow the other party to
reverse-signal gently (possibly by "affirmatively" ignoring) would be
valuable, but as complex as the varied use cases. I think a system that helped
people work through what they want to accomplish and possibilities for
achieving that would be useful; the infrastructure for communication is
already there, we just need to think about how to use it better (think guided
workflow, decision tree or expert system). Having a mechanism to "buffer"
between the sender and receiver might be helpful (ex., sending someone flowers
or a card/letter vs. speaking to them) to overcome emotional resistance, but
shouldn't substitute for thinking through <your state> \+ <situational state>
\+ <other's state> => <appropriate action>.

~~~
dougk16
Very thoughtful comment, thank you. I am going to write up a blog post on why
you should not use Thoughter in the first place, or at least only as a "break
the ice" mechanism, and I'm going to use a lot of the comments here like yours
as fodder.

------
zdragnar
I think this (or at least, the use cases) is missing something that NLP also
has a hard time with: individual words do not have positive / negative
meaning.

Hypothetical example:

"Hey, you're a cool person! #wannaGoOut ?"

"No, I do not #wannaGoOut"

Now, in spite of the rejection, the person asking is revealed. The thin veneer
of anonymity is utterly lost here.

(for those curious about my NLP reference, pretty much any remotely
controversial topic, word or hashtag will be used with both positive and
negative sentiments)

~~~
ajuc
Even if you handle negatives it will be intentionally tricked by curious
people.

Yeah I #wannaGoOut. Actually Not, just wanted to see who you are.

------
Vinnl
Cool, this is somewhat similar to an idea I had before: two persons each make
a list, and the app informs both parties of common items of the list without
disclosing the rest. That would solve a few of the same use cases you mention,
and help decide e.g. what movie to watch, even if one of the parties (e.g. my
SO) is somewhat ashamed of their preferences (e.g. romantic comedies), unless
the other person shares them.

Not sure if this is interesting to anyone, but in any case, I'm unlikely to be
going to make it, so feel free to run with it.

~~~
glastra
That's exactly the premise behind Mojo Upgrade and other couple sex practice
questionnaires.

------
11eleven
Interesting concept! This could also be cool for missed connections.

In lieu of the missed connection's email address, you could provide a few
specific details about the encounter (choosing from prewritten options):

Time (options provided in 3-hour blocks ie 9am-12pm), name of neighborhood,
city, your ethnicity (or some other easy personally identifying feature).

If the other person also goes on the site to submit a missed connection within
a few days of yours and fills out the same details, they'll be prompted to
answer the detail about your personally identifying feature to receive your
message and relay email to respond to.

(Yes this would only work well if the website became widely known as the place
to go to for private missed connections.)

Probably a few loopholes with this, just thinking out loud.

~~~
dougk16
Wow I had thought briefly of the "missed connection" case but never could work
out the details. Your post makes me think there could be a way, if there were
some standardized version of a "thought" that goes beyond the hashtag.
Interesting. Thank you for jogging my brain a bit.

------
heyitsguay
If you send a hint about a difficult conversation (#reunite, #breakup), what
are the odds that the recipient won't be able to guess who sent it and the
gist of the secret? Is this any better than just having the conversation
directly?

If you don't send a hint, it seems extremely unlikely that the other person
will use the service with the exact same hashtag, as another commenter pointed
out.

So, where is the utility?

~~~
dougk16
Great question. One answer is that it gives the recipient plausible
deniability (I think I'm using that term right, sorta). They have the power to
not respond even though they probably know who the sender is. And if they
don't try to respond then hey they can never be _100%_ sure of who the sender
is. And the sender can never be _100%_ sure their message was even received.
So basically it gives both party's ego/pride some breathing room.

As far as the "no hint" case, well yes the service would need to be in the
zeitgeist in order to have utility. Who knows maybe one of the big social
networks will steal the idea. They can go for it! Just remember little ole me
in the credits section somewhere, is all I ask. :)

------
jpm_sd
Other attempts to get at some of the same issues:

Lovegety and other "proximity matchmaking devices"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovegety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovegety)

Online questionnaires for couples that only yield matching answers:

[https://mojoupgrade.com/](https://mojoupgrade.com/)

[https://www.weshouldtryit.com/](https://www.weshouldtryit.com/)

[https://www.letsexperiment.xyz/](https://www.letsexperiment.xyz/)

~~~
lkbm
Also: [https://www.reciprocity.io/](https://www.reciprocity.io/)

Once in college I got an email from (I think) ecrush.com, saying "someone has
a crush on you", and on the site you could enter email addresses of people you
had crushes on and it would spam them that same thing, anonymous until there
was a match. (Personally, I suspect it was bootstrapping by sending fake
initial "someone has a crush on you" emails to scraped emails, but I didn't
dig in too deep.)

------
prawn
This will get abused by spammers, even with email confirmations. Be prepared.
I had a side project get killed because the utility of it couldn’t quite match
the spam hassle.

Further, if I received an email from this site, I would assume it was a scam
and delete it. I get dozens of emails from services pretending I’ve signed up
to them or that they have real content from me.

~~~
dougk16
_> This will get abused by spammers, even with email confirmations._

Could you elaborate? I have vague worries since there's not a captcha or
anything. But I can't think of an attack or abuse beyond a DoS-type thing, and
I don't know why someone would do that beyond trolling. I know my naïveté
probably sounds painful but I would appreciate more feedback here.

Would a captcha be enough? My concern there is that I'm being super paranoid
about privacy
([https://aytwit.com/about#privacy](https://aytwit.com/about#privacy)) and
wouldn't want to incorporate Google's captcha if I don't have to.

~~~
snazz
You’re letting anyone with an email address send mail (through your service)
to another address. It looks like the spammer wouldn’t be able to completely
control the contents of the message, but they could still send unsolicited
junk emails from your email provider or server, which might get your email or
IP address blacklisted by spam filters and prevent legitimate users’ emails
from being delivered.

I would implement heavy rate limiting and maybe come up with a basic captcha
that would stop most spammers.

Oh, and by the way: if you want italics there can’t be a space between the
asterisk and the phrase to be italicized (like * this * versus _this_ ).

~~~
jmathai
I wouldn't worry about this unless/until it became a problem :)

------
tylerjwilk00
Congrats on the idea!..

But some of the use cases seem a bit childish.

Maybe I'm too mature but it's much easier to just suck it up and be honest and
open about a topic. This seems like it would enable a father to forgo talking
about a difficult subject with his child because he would have a false sense
of "well at least I tried" from using the app. Long story short I think the
idea risks decaying a relationship more then strengthening it.

I'm probably wrong though! I'm wrong constantly.

Good luck!

~~~
dougk16
I like this comment and the two replies. It shows the two sides of the coin.
When I came up with this idea initially in 2003, I was the kind of person who
would use this service. Nowadays I'm more in line with your thinking. But I
don't see myself as "more mature" nowadays, just different. Especially since I
flip flop on so many things throughout life, I wouldn't be surprised if at
some point I turn back into the kind of person who would use the service.
Neither kind of person is "wrong" or immature IMO, just different.

------
sosodev
This is a pretty clever idea though the execution feels a bit off.

My guess is that this would appeal most to a younger audience but how many
teenagers communicate via email?

I think it'd be a hit if it could somehow integrate with social media or even
just SMS.

~~~
dougk16
Yup email support was just the proof of concept. Definitely agree that it will
need to go beyond. In fact if I make a native app then mobile notifications
can be the communication medium itself.

~~~
linuxdude314
They can even in browser. Get an account on Twilio and explore their SMS API.

------
everdev
Sorry, I just don't see the point.

If you send hints like "someone wants to #reunite" I'm sure the recipient will
accept just to find out who the person is regardless of what their offline
intentions are. Since your identity is revealed anyway I don't see how this
saves you from the perceived embarrassment of just asking the person directly.

In the past I've often desired and tried asking for things subtly or in a
round about way so as to hunt at what I want without the risk if rejection. In
my experience it's not a great path to take.

If the fear of rejection outweighs the potential benefits and you can't bring
yourself to ask (for a date, raise, reunion, etc.) then maybe you just don't
want as much as you think you do.

When you want something deeply enough you'll ask for it without fear or
embarrassment.

~~~
goshx
> If the fear of rejection outweighs the potential benefits and you can't
> bring yourself to ask (for a date, raise, reunion, etc.) then maybe you just
> don't want as much as you think you do.

> When you want something deeply enough you'll ask for it without fear or
> embarrassment.

It sounds to me like you are not an introvert and judge who is by "not wanting
things enough". It's not as simple as you think.

~~~
linuxdude314
As an introvert, I disagree. Being introverted does not mean you lack the
ability to be assertive, it simply means you don’t draw your energy from
social stimulation (quite the opposite).

There is wisdom in the phrase carpe diem.

------
kissgyorgy
I don't like this for the reason that it pushes people to use technology
instead of hard conversations and personal contact, because it's so much
easier.

~~~
duderific
I kind of agree with you, but the cat is _way_ out of the bag on this one.
See: Tinder et al.

~~~
hombre_fatal
I don't understand how Tinder is the example of that.

If I have time to meet a woman tonight and it's 4pm, what exactly is Tinder
replacing? The hell of cold-approaching women at bars until one of them seems
to like me? Mine my depleted social circle for a date? Wank off in my bedroom
because I don't have any new prospects and be happy with that?

The whole point of Tinder is to find new face to face interactions.

~~~
wawhal
Not fair.

A lot of people are not comfortable with confrontation in the first place. And
it is entirely normal. It just how people are wired and expecting them to
change themselves drastically is not fair on them. It should be a gradual
process and a thing like thoughter is a great use for "getting started". End
goal is of course to confront.

------
inertiatic
Good idea but it needs some work. I get the reason of having hashtags is to
only reveal the attempt to connect when the intent matches, but with arbitrary
syntax allowed you will get a lot of false negatives when your chances of
people even matching their timeframes are low as it is.

Instead offer a few predefined categories of tags, and the user can select one
or more of them. That also improves the UI as you can now offer autocomplete
in that field and lower the barrier of entry (removing option paralysis).

~~~
dougk16
Agreed in full. I was thinking a dropdown of common hashtags. It's sort of a
chicken and egg problem so far though, in that I don't know what common
hashtags would be. Maybe I'll just use those that are examples on the front
page to start.

------
Syzygies
One obstacle is credibility: Since the dawn of the internet there have been
companies trying to recruit users by pretending that someone winked at you, or
similar. That would be my working assumption, getting a message from you. How
do you get past this?

~~~
dougk16
It may sound either harsh or naive, but seriously my only strategy right now
is to just hope that people using the service don't feel that way. If I
understand your point, I personally (or someone working for the service) would
have to start trying to recruit people by (a) getting big lists of known
emails (easy to do), and (b) sending them fake messages that (for example)
someone is interested in dating them.

So I guess I just have to keep my morality in check? :)

------
wawhal
Love the idea. I was trying this out. Turns out that the email goes to the
spam folder of gmail :(

~~~
dougk16
I noticed people having this problem. Not sure what to do about it. :( Going
to look into it more.

~~~
wawhal
Not sure if you can solve this at all. Because thoughter will be used for a
reason that it isn't meeant to be used for.

So correct me if I am wrong but I think thoughter is most useful when you
almost "know" that you have a thought resonating with somebody else and you
want to confirm it. Its not for making wild hits at people. Right?

~~~
dougk16
Correct, not for making wild hits. And yea getting past spam email anywhere
near 100% of the time is basically impossible, but I did seem to be getting
into people's junk folders more often than I expected. I'm using
[https://postmarkapp.com/](https://postmarkapp.com/) FWIW, so going to see if
there's different language or format or paygrade or something that will
improve my delivery rate.

------
elnik
This is not a great idea in my opinion, here's why:

One should never feel withdrawn from any conversations, or exploring their
feelings. If you want to ask someone out, but have fear/anxiety, you have a
"problem" you need to address bravely. Get to the bottom of your fears, reach
a conclusion and act on it. Whatever happens, happens. Using thoughter just
leaves you buried in your comfort zone, making you never questioning the
nature of your own self. It's an easy way out or an excuse for not being
accountable to your self. Leaving result of important situations in your life
to external circumstances is not a good idea.

~~~
dougk16
As weird as it sounds, I'm the author and I kind of agree with you. I feel
like Steve Jobs selling iPads but not letting his kids use them lol. Not to
say I think someone is wrong or immature to use the service. Indeed I came up
with the idea in 2003 when I was the kind of person who would use it. Now I'm
not so much, but I'm not better/wiser, just different. In fact I fully expect
to flip flop back to my 2003 mindset at some point in life, and hopefully
Thoughter will be there going strong!

------
joelrunyon
So I actually had this idea years ago. People were joking that people can
"sync" up so much on twitter that the next evolution is just thinking thoughts
to each other.

Even bought the domain thottr.com for this back in 2011. Hilarious

~~~
dougk16
Woah crazy! How much you selling that domain for? ;)

There's actually a patent from the mid-90's that basically describes the same
idea that we both came up with:
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US5117358A/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US5117358A/en).
I found it after I had finished the first version and was crushed that someone
had thought of my genius idea first.

~~~
irth
Keep in mind that "thot" is nowadays being used as an acronym[1] that you
might want to avoid being associated with.

[1]
[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Thot](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Thot)

~~~
joelrunyon
stop killing my dealflow man! :)

~~~
dougk16
Lol! I was joking about the domain, but I checked your profile and really dig
what you're doing. Followed!

------
lodi
Doesn't this leak too much information if both parties aren't being honest?
E.g. you could just submit spouse + every likely hashtag--#breakup, #haveKids,
etc.--and then see what ends up matching.

~~~
prophesi
I don't think so. You have to confirm your email, and the target has to enter
your exact email + hashtag for it to be matched.

~~~
lodi
Right, but suppose I know or suspect that a specific person is trying to send
me a hashtag, but I don't know what that hashtag is: let's use the example
given in the posted website of a new romantic partner wanting to take things
to "1st base", "2nd base", etc. Can't I just post all four bases and see what
matches? That would reveal their preference without revealing mine.

~~~
dougk16
Ah but one can argue you _have_ revealed your preference, namely that you have
no preference, that you'll take the highest base on offer! :)

And note that the other party can check if you sent those other thoughts out
if they wanted, so it's socially risky for you to do so ("Ew what a creep, he
blasted out all four bases!"). This stuff is fun to think about.

------
cjauvin
I really like this idea, and I think that exposing the underlying SQL schema
(especially in literate programming style like that) is the next level in
technical transparency.

~~~
dougk16
Thanks! I spent a lot of time on it for just that reason, being as transparent
as possible. Here's the link in case others are wondering what you're talking
about: [https://aytwit.com/sql](https://aytwit.com/sql)

------
duncan-donuts
I think this is a really interesting product, but I also find it really weird.
Maybe I’m just getting older and this isn’t for me. It wasn’t that long ago
that people actually had to have the courage to have a conversation. It kind
of breaks my heart to think that a father (or son) wants to connect again but
only if the other person does as well. That’s just not how that relationship
works.

~~~
ljm
Maybe this makes you fortunate for having kind relationships throughout your
life, or less fortunate for not knowing the difficulty of reconciling a
relationship.

One perfect use-case for this is for an adopted person. They don't know their
birth mum and dad, and it takes intense bravery to face up to that and reach
out and trust them to feel the same way as you. What if you get rejected?
Wouldn't you try to make this interaction safer? What if you could even
practice it knowing that the communication would be erased in a short time?

Yes, I'm talking about me. And others in my position.

~~~
duncan-donuts
I have been fortunate to have mostly kind relationships. I apologize for my
insensitivity. I think you’re right about the use case you’ve presented and
there are plenty more, I’m sure. My criticism of an example use case shouldn’t
have presented as writing off the whole premise. Presenting it as a way to ask
a girl out, or making up after a fight doesn’t present the power it could
have.

~~~
dougk16
I couldn't think of any more powerful examples than those. I might wish
otherwise, but if Thoughter does become popular it seems like it would be, if
I may be blunt, off the backs of teenagers and/or college kids looking to hook
up, so Tinder or Snapchat-type interactions. Or maybe it should go in the
opposite direction and be used for more frivolous situations? Open to any
suggestions.

------
algodaily
Cool premise, but how will the recipient know what they're receiving?

Also, layout is clean, but feels a bit antiquated. Bootstrap perhaps?

~~~
spongo
Best wishes to you.

If I am reading correctly, if person S sends person R a message M bearing hash
tag H, if R sends their own message M2 to S bearing hash tag H2, then M will
be revealed to R and M2 will be revealed to S, __if and only if __H equals H2.
(S may choose some behaviors, such as revealing their identity, in order to
prompt R into sending a message.)

As for your second paragraph: I like this site's design<1> a lot. I was able
to skim it quickly, and absorb enough to answer your question and more. With
respect, I think more work has gone into its design than "antiquated" would
suggest.

For one example, on mobile the body paragraphs on the right of the screen can
themselves be dragged to the left to read all the info, instead of my having
to use the tiny fiddly scrollbar. I think that's a smart feature for a mobile
site with a fair bit of text (such as on the SQL page.) Consider also that the
site uses colors for text, background, and UI elements (body, nav, etc) that
neither clash hideously nor strain the eyes with too-low contrast; plenty of
old websites don't take that level of care (think a typical professor's
academic homepage - now THOSE can get antiquated!)

Bootstrap will get you a "modern"-style site without too much effort, but I
don't think it would add anything here.

<1> By design I am waving in the general direction of layout, color scheme,
ease of use, etc.

~~~
dougk16
Wow thanks for the compliments on the design. I indeed spent ridiculous
amounts of time on the design and making it super simple and accessible, all
the while knowing it would mostly get crapped on. :) I appreciate your
appreciation!

~~~
spongo
You're welcome, Doug. I also enjoyed checking out your personal site in your
HN profile - that crazy interface seems tailor made for a Mobile user to
"explore"! Lots of fun.

------
bhelkey
The hint, "Give them the exact hashtag that you use" seems rather easy to
brute force. Maybe I am just young, but there are only a small number people
who would send me hashtags like "#reunite" or "#wannaGoOut".

As others have mentioned, without this hint hashtags are rather sparse.

~~~
dougk16
Note that hints can also simply be "who sent the thought" and not the hashtag
or anything. Doesn't directly address your point, just another way to use the
service. See
[https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints](https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints) for
the different hint types.

Edit: realized from your comment you probably read that section already,
apologies!

------
electriclove
Interesting idea! Any stats on usage (e.g., how many people have actually
connected without hints)?

~~~
dougk16
This post has driven the only real usage since I finished this about a year
ago, and I'm guessing most of the connections so far are people just testing
it out.

------
musingsole
I tried testing it, but it hasn't come through yet. HN hug of death?

Do the messages to the other person get a delay? Being able to set that delay,
or potentially set a window during which the thought would be randomly sent
would be cool.

~~~
dougk16
Quite possibly! I never anticipated getting to the front page with anything so
I don't know what to expect. Let me know if it eventually came through.

------
calebm
This sounds like a romantic idea for some possible contexts (though I feel
like it's better to go out on a limb in most situations).

------
meter
Why use email? Why not integrate with Facebook? Or use phone numbers? Or
Snapchat usernames?

Using an email address for this seems archaic.

~~~
minitech
Integrating with Facebook or using phone numbers seems archaic – not everyone
on the internet has either of those. Using Snapchat usernames seems even more
myopic.

------
Grustaf
Fun concept in a game theoretic kind of way, but it doesn’t work in practice
obviously. Telling someone to go to a site and push a thought about you is
extremely awkward, the only context where it might work is within a dating
site or similar, but people don’t seem to need that indirection there
nowadays.

~~~
dougk16
Perhaps
[https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints](https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints)
addresses your game theoretic concerns?

~~~
Grustaf
Yeah in theory this is a good way to handle that concern, but I still think it
will be awkward.

Also, it seems this service is only relevant at all in romantic contexts, and
My gues is that most girls are not attracted to men that are to shy to talk to
them directly. But maybe I’m old fashioned.

------
RileyJames
Not a comment on the idea. I like the UX execution on mobile. The menu on the
left is always visible, in the background. The content is swiped left / right
to reveal the menu.

It’s counterintuitive at first, but within a second you work it out. Works
well on iPhone 6s safari.

~~~
dougk16
Thanks, it's mostly gotten negative feedback, which I understand as far as the
pure styling (color, font, etc.), but I did spend a lot of time on the
"structural" aspects of the layout so they work well on all devices without
any real per-screen-size logic. Thanks for noticing! It was a lot harder than
it probably looks. I will probably spruce up the styling going forward.

------
fomojola
A chat bot would probably be a neat interface: 2 people on Telegram/Facebook
Messenger/Whatsapp/Instagram/Snapchat, so no app install needed. You can still
collect the email address, but that could get around the initial hurdle of
accessibility.

------
throwaway66666
So it's a bit like tinder with arbitrary notions and not just I like you.
Pretty cool idea actually. (I didn't mean the tinder comment negatively, I
also think Tinder is a fantastic idea)

~~~
dougk16
I live in a hole so I don't even really know what Tinder is. No offense is
possible! Thanks for the compliment :)

------
ComodoHacker
The reason it won't work in current implementation is people are using too
many identities on too many communication platforms today. Many not using
email at all or not checking it often.

------
zanetti
I don't really have anything to comment on except for the… name. Sorry but how
am I suppose to pronounce this?

Thought - ter? Sounds like I'm saying Daughter.

Tough-ter? As in tuff - ter?

Terrible name imo.

------
realrocker
I don't like the idea since it essentially kills hope. Hope that a
relationship might work out when the time is right. Putting a timer on hope is
a bad idea.

------
joestr87
"You received a hint: someone wants to #breakUp with you"

The thought of that just cracked me up :D Seems like a really good idea
though, I like it!

~~~
dougk16
Lol in that case the initial sender could be more subtle and send a hint that
they specifically are thinking _something_ about the other person, but not
_what_. Then it would be up to the other person to try to match the thought
without direct knowledge of what the hashtag is.

------
sreeramvenkat
I am very curious if OP can share some stats on number of times two people
were thinking about each other at the same time.

~~~
dougk16
Here's a real minimal stats page I created:
[https://aytwit.com/stats](https://aytwit.com/stats)

Short answer: 22 matches so far from this HN post. I suspect most of these
were people testing it out, but who knows maybe there were some real ones? If
anybody's reading still, post if you got a legit match! I purposely don't
store any thought/person-specific data. Just anonymized and aggregated
metrics:
[https://aytwit.com/sql#event_table](https://aytwit.com/sql#event_table)

------
DoreenMichele
My thought: You would need to be adopted by an already very popular company to
have much hope of going anywhere.

This is a classic chicken-and-egg issue: No one will want to use it
unless/until enough people are using it to have some hope of a reply.

Any plan for how to address that issue?

~~~
dougk16
Thanks for your comment. I recognize your username and enjoy reading your
comments.

[https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints](https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints) sort
of solves the adoption problem, in that you wouldn't necessarily need a
critical mass of people for the service to be useful. Even just one patron
could initiate a thought with another.

~~~
DoreenMichele
My bad. I failed to read all the way down.

I will suggest that maybe you need to move the "Hints" section or otherwise
highlight it in some fashion. If they have the thought "Eh, no one even knows
this service exists. Why bother?" before they get to the Hints section, this
could be a barrier to adoption.

~~~
dougk16
Definitely not your bad. I've been in the game long enough to know people
don't read things! (No offense to you personally).

I tried linking to that "hint" anchor tag in the first paragraph but even that
is expecting too much. I'll give a think about how I can highlight the whole
hint/adoption thing more since it's a main point of feedback. Thanks!

~~~
DoreenMichele
Free suggested edits that you can use as you see fit (or not at all --
whatevs):

 _Sometimes you want to ask someone a question or tell them a secret and you
suspect or hope they 're thinking the same thing, but it's uncomfortable to
bring up. This is what Thoughter is for!

And they don't even have to know Thoughter exists. You can send them a Hint.
But more about that later.

Let's say it's the holidays and you and a loved one had a fight a while back.
You aren't sure they would welcome hearing from you. You can send a Thought
like "I miss you #reunite" that lasts one week. If your loved one sends the
same sort of thing with a matching hashtag, you each get the other's email. If
not, nothing happens.

This used to be done much more naturally back when people routinely lived in
close-knit communities. People would ask a friend a question and that friend
would ask their friend. Word traveled by the grapevine, which helped sort
things out.

But in our increasingly mobile world, a lot of grapevines have basically died.
This is your modern grapevine, now with Encryption!_

Move: "The first project out of Aytwit's software research labs." to much
later. Like close with it or something. It's important to you. It mostly isn't
important to the process of getting adoption. Making it the first sentence
amounts to "noise."

~~~
dougk16
Woah great feedback, I will definitely use some of this. I'll ping you again
privately when I make some changes, just so you know I'm not blowing smoke. ;)

The opening line "The first project out of Aytwit's software research labs."
is making me cringe now lol.

------
Simple_Guy
That site says they are open to consulting, but I'm not sure if it's satire or
not.

------
revskill
Good idea.

But this requires too many assumptions on participants.

------
gatherhunterer
font-family: 'AytwitHeaderFontEmbedded', 'AytwitHeaderFontFromUrl', Comic Sans
MS, Comic sans-serif;

I would reconsider this decision.

Edit: To be clear, a font sets the tone for the content of a page and unless
your project is an invitation to a clown orgy then Comic Sans sets the wrong
tone.

~~~
crooked-v
Also, the colors in use combined with borders and rounded edges gives me a
distinctive vibe of 90s kids' software for some reason.

Edit:

Compare the current version:
[https://i.imgur.com/W8stZVf.png](https://i.imgur.com/W8stZVf.png)

...to the same thing with a couple of quick styling tweaks I added in dev
tools: [https://i.imgur.com/RJhLz7B.png](https://i.imgur.com/RJhLz7B.png)

Still offbeat, much less "child's keyboard color scheme"
([https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007YW3CL6](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007YW3CL6)).

~~~
dougk16
Thank you for taking the time to do that. I hope you don't mind, I may have to
steal some of that when I eventually do some tweaks to make it more modern. :)

~~~
crooked-v
Feel free. The main things were just the color scheme, playing with spacing,
and keeping the underlines on the nav links from standing out.

