

Show HN: Spiral – A Reddit-inspired local message board app - m1chael3ma
http://www.getspiralapp.com

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realrocker
Interesting. A couple years ago I worked on something similar, GrabHalo:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grabhalo.m...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grabhalo.main).
You really need to work on location tracking. Right now it pops up a dialog if
GPS is not enabled. What if I don't want to give you my location upto the
accuracy of few meters? Also how do you intend to solve the "Hello World"
problem? You know, users checking in, saying 'Hi' and losing interest when
they find out they have nothing to talk about?

~~~
m1chael3ma
That’s good info on the user experience side. We might be able to implement
something that allows people to just select their location, but then we’d be
concerned that people just fake their location.

I guess we’re doing a few things that help with the “Hello World” problem:
having an adjustable radius, focusing on conversation threads that you can go
back to, and we’re also working on launching at local events and working with
event managers.

Would be great to some insights on what worked or didn’t work for you?

~~~
Jemaclus
Who cares if I fake my location? If I'm in Berlin but I say I'm in London,
does that really detract from anything? I can still talk to people, right?

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ggiaco
It could ruin the experience of having conversations with people who are
actually nearby?

Proximity makes communication more relevant and Spiral makes it easy to filter
your feed by distance around you.

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dam-buty
It may depend on how you define local. For example, when i lived in Mexico,
"local" news for me might have been news from my hometown in France, but GPS
location would not let me see that.

Also, you might wanna consider the middle ground of just using "coarse"
positioning, which is all you need to identify the city. GPS sensors cost an
awful lot of battery life and should only be used for apps that _need_ precise
positioning, imho.

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hangonhn
Did you guys considered using PostGIS? I'm asking because I'm considering that
for my own project and am wondering what other people's thoughts are on it and
alternatives as well.

Thanks.

~~~
m1chael3ma
Honestly this is the first time we hear of PostGIS, as we mainly looked into
NoSQL databases, due both to previous experience with MongoDB and the fact
that we found some big services that have used it.. Curious, what have you
found that PostGIS does better? Is it a preference for SQL vs NoSQL?

~~~
hangonhn
LOL. I'm actually on the reverse side of you. I heard about PostGIS and never
knew MongoDB can be used for spatial queries. The main appeal to me is that
since I need SQL anyways, PostGIS would be a simple add-on instead of having
to manage another datastore. I guess my choice is more of an accident of
history than any specific reason. Had I started with MongoDB first, I think I
would have gone your route as well.

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27182818284
"Login with Facebook"

That's too bad. I was looking forward to trying it, but re-creating a Facebook
account deleted years ago and then dealing with new friend emails, etc, isn't
worth it to me.

* I'm happy you also have an Android version

* I'm sad that it requires Facebook. Note that Reddit even apologizes for using a captcha during registration, and does not require an email address to this day.

~~~
m1chael3ma
Thanks for the feedback. These are not easy product tradeoffs we’re trying to
think through so we really appreciate the thoughts.

We’re thinking of having our own login in the future. Right now, creating our
own login would force users to go through a longer flow. Also we’re
considering adding a friends filter, and Facebook’s social feed is probably
the best starting point for that.

Is there any sources of login you trust that you have your friends connection
on?

~~~
ToastyMallows
I'm not speaking for 27182818284 but I would rather sign in with Google than
Facebook.

~~~
wkdown
or Twitter or ...

Give them options, and they will sign in.

~~~
27182818284
Yes. I think a lot of startups and app developers incorrectly think that if
someone doesn't want to log in with Facebook, they don't want to use any sort
of account, but that's not true. Even though I don't have a Facebook account,
I still use Twitter to sign into a few apps and still use Google+ to sign into
others.

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djb_hackernews
You'll need to solve the problems every other somolo app has, I'd do what
Reddit did, fake accounts. Easy to determine the interesting stuff by surfing
the city subreddits.

Also, I wouldn't worry too much about the negativity over Facebook login, I
bet you'll find it doesn't add much friction for the average user. That said,
I think this is a great app to use the Facebook anonymous login option.

~~~
m1chael3ma
Thanks for the feedback on the Facebook login.

We don’t really want to use fake accounts, but we could have some admin
account that has information that’s interesting and just be a “Spiral News” or
“Spiral Events” account? Would that be something that you’d find interesting
or is content most interesting if it comes from a user only?

~~~
wkdown
I would recommend being more transparent on why you use only FB and what data
you use. That can help alleviate some anxiety over using it to sign in.

~~~
ggiaco
Good point. We've been looking for examples of apps that do this particularly
well, e.g. via a tutorial or as part of the on-boarding process. Do any
outstanding examples come to mind for you?

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dingdingdang
Is this really first/only app to make efficient use of geo-data or..? Looks
sleek/fine to me, but of course the uptake is going to be the defining factor
with this stuff.. FB & co. could kill it in an instant by enabling a similar
feature in already existing networks..

~~~
m1chael3ma
dingdingdang, it's not the first app to use geo-data and we agree the uptake
is going to be super important (especially uptake in one geographical area). I
do think FB and other companies at it's core care mostly about your social
graph vs. we're more concerned about what strangers or friends around you are
doing. Facebook has "nearby friends" for example but doesn't give you any info
on people who have similar interests around you.

~~~
danielsht
Also Twitter has Tweets near me... but its really hard to have a conversation
on Twitter. I can retweet or tweet back at someone, but more than 3 people is
hard

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eglover
Not only is is app only, but facebook only. Why??

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m1chael3ma
Definitely a point we’re constantly evaluating and feedback is appreciated.

We think that by bringing some identity into the app there can be more useful
interactions and bad behavior self-policed. We’re working off an assumption
that people are, on the whole, pretty awesome, and we shouldn’t fall back on
anonymous as the only way to engage seriously in the public sphere. What do
you think? Would you add other social logins? Twitter?

~~~
jefurii
> ...we shouldn’t fall back on anonymous as the only way to engage seriously
> in the public sphere.

I don't think anyone is saying that anonymous should be the _only_ way but it
should be an option. It's not really a public space if you can't be anonymous.

~~~
ripter
Unless you are wearing a mask every time you go out in public. You're not
anonymous. Whether or not you wear a mask does not change a space from being
public or not public.

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lu1spd
Nice app. It makes you open your sight to a broader spectrum of "what's
happening". Very fast and intuitive.

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josephschmoe
What tools\libraries did you make this with? The UI is very responsive.

Edit: I mean the Android version.

~~~
danielsht
We are using the Java Play framework for the REST API, MongoDB as our DB.
MongoDB has geospatial index support that makes geo queries pretty efficient.
For iOS, pretty standard Cocoa libraries... glad you think its responsive :)
On Android, also pretty standard libraries.

We designed the client to be very light and do as much processing on the
server and also are very careful to do as much asynchronous work as possible
(networking a must)

