

Couple Live Map - mikeknoop
https://map.couple.me/

======
useflyer
Running a 10 minute stopwatch over the message count (at 8:30pm pt, a popular
messaging time I'd imagine), I recorded 43k messages sent; extrapolating,
that's 6.2 million messages per day; given that there have been 1,593 million
messages sent in total, this is a 0.388% daily growth rate, or compounded a
12.6% monthly growth rate.

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mbesto
Interesting - for a company/app that has to value security in order to keep
users (unlike other apps, where sharing to a larger audience adds value) I
could only assume that this type of marketing would only deter people and/or
cause existing users to think twice about their data. I can just see Sally
sitting with her iPhone in Charlotte, NC, looking at this thinking "Oh that's
so sweet...what a minute how do they know I'm sending a txt to my bf in NYC?"

~~~
1a2a3a4a
I was trying it, but I think I would have preferred to see higher security for
something only used to communicate between two people. Since it's only two
people, they could decide on a secret outside of the app and then encrypt all
the information sent between them with this secret so that the server doesn't
need to be trusted. Are there any apps for couples that do something like
this?

Couple appears to encrypt information between client to server using SSL, but
the information is stored plaintext on the server.

~~~
grinich
How do you know they don't encrypt it on the server?

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1a2a3a4a
It's not encrypted client side, so the server is getting it unencrypted. They
also return the data unencrypted, so if it is stored encrypted, it's not that
useful encryption since the server also knows how to decrypt it.

Also their privacy policy notes that they'll give authorities access to your
messages if they receive a warrant.

~~~
gregbarbosa
Following in line with this thought, I've actually plugged in my iPhone (non-
jailbroken), downloaded the sqlite database onto my computer, and was able to
see all the messages and URLs of photos sent. Even photos marked as "secret"
(the apps Snapchat-like feature of deleting and hiding photos).

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mpetrov
We're planning to do a larger tech focused write-up on this infographic soon.
On the backend it's powered by Node and Redis and runs within an EC2 auto
scaling group.

Let me know if I can elaborate on any of the tech behind this visualization.

~~~
dsl
Do you filter out data points within a given city? It seems like most couples
would live in the same city...

~~~
mpetrov
Those data points appear as circular flashes without a line, there are quite a
few of them there. The app appeals to a lot of long distance Couples so the
map is somewhat biased towards long distance communication.

Also if you look at big cities (LA, NYC, SF) you'll see a continuous stream of
circles flashing without lines. So the data just overlaps a lot.

~~~
dsl
Ah. I thought that was just artsy.

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neumann
I am not sure why this creeped me out as much as it did.

Maybe the visualisation rate makes it seem like your communication is not as
'private' as you think. Or the fact that it highlights all the data that is
being collected for something that I consider private and intimate.

~~~
ethanbond
Collected...?

I don't follow. You're using a service that stores (read: collects) your data
for you.

~~~
neumann
Of course. It is not that I wouldn't be aware before signing up (and hence
don't), it is that this is such a good visualization to demonstrate that they
have stored this information for|on you.

Irrationally, I am more comforted by large companies having this type of data
on me, under the _wrong_ assumption that I am part of a larger dataset and
hence more anonymous. I understand the fallacy of this, especially when
considering the additional meta data big players like Google have on their
users. Yet somehow this vis creeps me out as I watch that couple messaging
long distance between Paris and Sydney. Even if the data is anonymised,
details about their private lives are being shared.

Then again, I am the nut who never signed up to facebook et al, having rolled
out a private communication site amongst friends beforehand.

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manulp
Maxmind offers free databases to do IP localization :
[http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/legacy/downloadable/](http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/legacy/downloadable/)

It's not extremely precise, but is enough for applications like this. Notice
for instance the point up north in Canada, a lot of IPs will be placed there.
It's in the middle of Manitoba, and there's pretty much nothing there. I
believe it's the geographical center of Canada, and the default value when no
other coordinates are known.

~~~
mpetrov
That's pretty much exactly what's happening with some locations. We do our
best to get an accurate location based on a few sources, but ultimately
Maxmind is the database we fall back to for pure IP based location if that's
all we have.

~~~
ntaylor
We have the same difficulties with our Maxmind IP database. An inordinate
number of our users supposedly live in Potwin, KS, AKA the geographical center
of the United States.

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thom
A fair few of these landing in the sea near Africa. Always makes me do a
double-take seeing something pop up there and wondering why, before
remembering it's 0,0 and generally means there's a null somewhere.

~~~
pierlux
Similarly, there's quite a few messages going to a uninhabited point in
Manitona Canada, that's usually where the label for Canada is. Country level
geocoding in plain sight!

~~~
bentcorner
Good catch. I was wondering why there were so many people in Churchill, and
Winnipeg isn't getting anything.

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jpdlla
Really like seeing those long distance connections being made. Kinda awesome
to think about couples making it work even if they are in the opposite
hemisphere.

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dnautics
ok, anyone know what's up with all the pings to Churchill, manitoba, and to
multiple different cities?

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mpetrov
It's the geographic center of Canada, that's the coordinate that the geo-ip
database gives us back when no specific city is available. Works well for
smaller countries, but in Canada it's quite visibly "off" :)

~~~
nwh
Even more visible in Australia, nobody lives in the center.

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pan69
Zoom in on this:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Alice+Springs+NT+0870/@-23...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Alice+Springs+NT+0870/@-23.673543,135.6007149,5z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x2b321944be8f1331:0x50217a82a254fd0)

~~~
nwh
I do know that Alice Springs exists, but it's an error in the Geo IP database
they are using rather than true data. That's where the general hand-waving
"australia" marker is placed when they don't know more than the country of
allocation. There's a huge disparity between the number of people that live in
NT and in other states, so the large number of results "coming from" there is
telling in itself.

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shravan
Very cool visualization. It appears as though this buffers events if you leave
the page. So leaving the page and tabbing back to it results in a flurry of
activity.

~~~
antonksky
Side effect of JS setinterval, it doesn't work when you leave the tab. Made
sure to put a limit on the buffer to make sure the page doesn't use too much
memory.

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eitally
There are several similar apps. Does anyone happen have experience with them
(Couple/Pair, Avocado, Between, ...)? This is one of those kinds of things
that's annoying to cross-test because it requires someone who oftens doesn't
care nearly as much, to help test.

~~~
Gurrewe
I used Avocado heavily with my ex for about a year. Just by comparing my
experience of Avocado with the video of Couple [1] I would say that Couple has
impressed me more.

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkveWyiU4Go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkveWyiU4Go)

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8ig8
Instantly thought of that final scene in WarGames. Launch Detection...

[http://youtube.com/watch?v=s93KC4AGKnY](http://youtube.com/watch?v=s93KC4AGKnY)

~~~
namuol
Love: The Only Winning Move...

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joeframbach
Someone seems to message from Hawaii to Korea a lot. The visualization is
taking the loooooong way to get there, instead of the short path, a portal on
the edges of the screen. It's causing a bit of noise in the middle of the map.
That's an interesting visualization problem for another day, I guess.

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gregbarbosa
I love Couple, I really do. But they have seemed to slow down development and
taken focus into different areas and not exactly improving the application.

Although this is cool, I really wish some features were brought to the app
(data exporting, bringing search back, etc.)

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goeric
Not sure the Total Messages Sent counter is completely accurate. Refreshing
the page sometimes gives me a lower number than the one displayed before I
refresh. It should ALWAYS be higher if it's accurate. Time has passed
therefore more messages have been sent.

~~~
mpetrov
Good catch! There is a small variation depending on the server that you hit
but the variation should never be more than 1,000 messages. It's just a side
effect of how we're scaling the system.

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thrownaway2424
If you can make this look like the map from the game DEFCON, that would be
perfect.

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gone35
Try changing the background-color of 'body' in style.css:7 to #14142F, and
change the fillStyle/strokeStyle object attributes in canvasController.min.js
from #5CBAD5 or rgb(92,186,213) to something like #7E5DEC or rgb(126,93,236),
whichever is used.

You'll have to call cc.init() again though to take full effect. It definitely
looks more DEFCON-ish with this palette.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Nice :-) Now they can change their motto to "love is war."

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sanxiyn
Between has been around for longer:
[http://between.us/en/](http://between.us/en/)

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calinet6
Is this app new? Very interesting. Can you give us a run-down on how it's
different from You&Me?

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antonksky
Couple has been around for 2 years (used to be called Pair).

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kirillzubovsky
Quite mesmerizing. I cannot stop looking. Brilliant idea!

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jordanlee
very cool... artfully done and rather touching, really.

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naturalethic
Let's play Global Thermonuclear War

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ParadisoShlee
#BigData #BigLove

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hadem
Maybe this is a sign of me getting older, but was I the only one to think, "go
outside and spend time with each other instead of spending time via a phone
app!"?

Perhaps I am no where near their demographic...haha.

~~~
lotharbot
When my wife and I met playing video games online (back in 1998, before it was
cool), we lived about a thousand miles apart, and maintained a relationship
over that distance for about 3 years before we finally got married and moved
to the same state.

I initially worried her grandparents wouldn't approve of starting a
relationship online. It turns out they were reminded of their own relationship
-- courting through letters during the war.

Relationships happen. So do significant life/world events that can separate
people by vast distances.

~~~
frik
Thanks for sharing!

