

[Show HN] Crowdspottr - shubhamgoel
http://crowdspottr.com/

======
revorad
That is beautifully designed. Here are some thoughts from first impressions of
the web app:

The Facebook login page looks like an error page. Coming from the beautifully
designed homepage, it looks like a completely different site. Why don't you
just add the facebook connect button on the homepage? Saves me a click and
keeps it beautiful.

Once connected, it lists events by default by Popular. The problem is that
some of the most popular events in my Facebook feed are in the past. Since
your focus is on getting people out, I'd not even list past events. Just sort
future events by popularity and filter by location, friends and time.

I just noticed the buttons at the bottom of the screen. I don't know how they
look on a phone but on my computer screen, they are almost invisible. You
might want to change the colour a bit.

On a particular event's page, the text is almost unreadable, as you'd expect
from grey text on a grey background. This seems to be the most common
annoyance I spot on well-designed websites. Maybe designers can perceive tiny
differences in shades of colours, but most normals like me can't.

I'm not sure what the search function is for. It doesn't return any results
for my friends' names, even when I can see events listed by them.

[Edit: In the list of events, it doesn't show me which friend of mine has
created the event. Putting a picture of my friends' faces next to each event
will make me hugely more likely to click on them.]

[Edit: Your blog doesn't link back to your main site. If I launched an app
every time I spotted this on a startup blog, I'd be the appiest man in the
world.]

One social problem with this kind of listing of events is that while it's cool
to see what events my wider circle of friends are attending, it's not very
useful unless I've been invited. (edit: and if I've been invited, umm your app
is not very useful.) If I can see Sally is going to the music festival next
Sunday in the park near my house, that's cool but I won't join her unless she
invites me or she's a really good friend who won't mind me turning up.

Which brings me to the main problem with the concept of this app. Your
taglines are:

 _Don’t know where to go and whom with? Discover what your friends are up to!_

The first one (where to go) is often a question I have. Whom with? Never. I
mostly go out with the same set of friends and their friends. Discovering what
my friends are up to is not hard with Twitter, Facebook, SMS, email or a phone
call.

I haven't yet seen or used an app which recommends me things to do based on my
interests and the events I've _been_ to. Maybe Foursquare does this. I should
try it out, but its focus (check-ins to get free beers) is something I'm not
too interested in.

If you made something which actually tells me really fun stuff to do (my kind
of fun), I'd use it, even if the design was fugly. Like Google.

~~~
manuelflara
Regarding your issue of "I already know what my friends are doing" and "I
don't want to go somewhere I haven't been invited", I guess it all depends on
what you define as "friends".

Your closest 10 friends? Sure, it applies. But who doesn't have hundreds of
_friends_ on Facebook these days? Taking that angle it's easy to see how
you'll find out cool events (not private parties to crash, but concerts,
conferences, art exhibits, etc) that you can go to, that someone you know is
also attending (even if you're not close friends, you'll probably give them a
call to go together, meet there, or whatever).

Having quite a busy social life, yet still some days when there's nothing
interesting to do, I've found my app (see my other reply), and by extension,
also Crowdspotting, to be useful. Also they make for good conversation when
you happen to meet those _friends_ from time to time ("Oh, I saw you went to X
or Y, how was it?").

~~~
revorad
I agree that I might find some cool events through friends of friends. But I
guess I was going by what I saw when I logged into Crowdspottr. Most of the
events my friends post on Facebook are private parties or small events which I
wouldn't want to gatecrash.

By the way, fiestastic looks great. I signed in with my Facebook but then was
told I can't use it because you're in private beta! I think you should make
that clear on the homepage itself. Any chance you can let me try it now?

I like that you show a map of events. That's another problem with Crowdspottr.
A lot of the events it shows me are in another continent.

I think this is why beautiful looking apps are often not as useful as ugly
ones. Instead of making the app useful, more time is spent on making it look
shiny.

~~~
manuelflara
You should be able to log in and use the site now :)

~~~
revorad
Thanks, got it!!

------
manuelflara
Whoa! I feel like I've just been slapped in the face. Don't get me wrong, the
design is beautifully, and the app is great. The thing is.. I've been working
on something like this myself! And yours looks _way_ more complete and
polished.

Here's mine: <http://www.fiestastic.com>

NOTE: It's now in private beta, but if you (this goes both to the Crowdspottr
team as well as anyone reading this :P) would like to give it a try, just sent
me an email to manuel@fiestastic.com with a link to your Facebook profile and
I'll add it to the list of "allowed users".

I've taken more of a regular website approach while you guys are doing first a
mobile app/site, which makes more sense, but I'm not very skilled in native
iPhone/Android development.

I'm not sure if I should be depressed (someone else is doing what I'm doing,
and so far, looks better!) or happy (someone else is doing what I'm doing, so
must be something worth doing!), but anyway, good luck with Crowdspottr! I'll
be keeping an eye on you ;-)

~~~
paulnelligan
definitely don't be depressed, take the lessons learned and apply it to
everything else you'll ever do ..

and ask them for a job!

really impressed by this app by the way - my only issue with most new apps
like this is that they usually don't work so well in europe, due to low rate
of adoption, and lack of focus by entrepreneurs on non-US markets ...

~~~
manuelflara
Well, the good thing about both Crowdspottr and Fiestastic is that, unlike
classic social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc), even if only 1 user uses the
service, it's already useful for him/her, as all data (events and friends)
comes from Facebook.

Of course, being widely used (at least in a specific area) would bring extra
benefits and more possible features, but I like that it's useful even to the
very first user.

------
masonhensley
Im probably gonna catch some flack for being a negative nancy-

Am I the only one that realizes that all this does is reorganize information
on FB? It's pretty and works (slowly), but that's it.

~~~
manuelflara
You're right, that's what they do (mostly). That doesn't mean they're not
useful. Plenty of services have been creating around "reorganizing" (more
efficiently) sources of information. Also, once you get some volume of events
and user info, you can do more interesting things with this data.

------
tudorizer
That comparison chart is all that matters.

