

Ask HN: Review my startup - tripstamp.com - teddiekgb

TripStamp allows users to create a digital scrapbook of their travels, past and present. Any feedback on the concept, design or functionality is welcome.<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tripstamp.com
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ced83fra
I love your landing page. It's a cool idea to show the product with a cool
high quality easy-to-understand animation.

On the last image, don't hesitate to add a big CTA, or a an arrow appearing
toward the facebook button. The viewer's eyes on the right side (where all the
images are :) ), and when it stops, you have to show him in a big way !!!

Also, Login with facebook doesn't tell about the product. Maybe have a button
saying : Start your scrapbook now ! (and below, the facebook logo)

Say with who they can share : with their parents ? Or friends ? If you _say_
to people they can show how amazing their trip are with their very close
relative, they would be happier.

Is there a reason why there is nobody on the pictures ? What about showing
some cool, funny pictures with people in special places ?

When we check people's trip : can we add a comment on their overall trip ?
What about giving some badges, ranks, points to encourage people ? Maybe
people could vote up trips or photos ; give them a grade for each level ?
(check [http://www.quora.com/User-Acquisition/How-has-Turntable-
fm-g...](http://www.quora.com/User-Acquisition/How-has-Turntable-fm-grown-so-
rapidly-with-no-marketing)) As you know, facebook may lose speed in the
future, so I suppose you are working on a way to import instagram pictures or
else.

Don't hesitate to 'show some love' in your privacy page, if it's actually
something you want to emphase on. Like saying, on the top of the list, that
you would like to keep people's privacy, respect it, etc, that's why you don't
do this or that.

Tldr, it's cool stuff you are working on ! Focus on things that would really
set that apart from facebook, instagram and others. Work a little bit on your
landing page ( add a bigger and clearer call to action button (not 'login to
facebook', but 'Start your trip (login to facebook)' on the button) ). Add
some social incentive and gamification to increase your user engagement.

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larrywright
I think it's a neat idea, but when I saw the name "TripStamp", I immediately
thought of "tramp stamp", which isn't really a great association.

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7Figures2Commas
That's a feature, not a bug. It's always wise to be positioned for the pivot.

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evanb
One thing that makes me nervous about these kinds of "store your memories
here" sites is that, to be frank, the site may disappear with all of my
memories.

I would love to use this, but then host the resulting content myself. Maybe
you could offer exporting a trip for a fee?

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ams6110
Exporting a bunch of photos that presumably you uploaded yourself? Don't you
already have them?

What I think of is the classic comedy sketch scenario of being invited to a
friends house to view a slideshow or home movies of their last trip.

People like to share this stuff... that's obvious. What seems harder to admit
is that nobody else cares.

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napoleond
Depends on the trip. I went on a long bicycle tour a couple years ago, and had
over 100 people regularly visiting the blog I'd set up for the trip. It wasn't
set up for publicity, I just set it up to share with friends and family (and
most of the visitors _were_ friends and family, just further extended than I'd
expected). I met several people riding to raise money for charities; they had
even more followers on shitty little Wordpress blogs. I know of people that
volunteer in remote locations who also have a similar following, and I have
friends who perform in ultra-endurance athletic events (think 3-day trail
races and the like) who also publish race updates to a more-than-50-person
following every time they go. So I think you're right that nobody cares about
someone's most recent all-inclusive resort vacation, but I think there are
many people who are interested in living vicariously through the adventures of
others (possibly moreso if the "others" are somehow known to them) if the
adventures really are unique.

During and since that trip, I have often thought about building something to
make sharing those kind of experiences easier. I think TripStamp hits some of
those points, but one major problem that would be difficult for TripStamp to
solve in its current incarnation is that of being able to make updates while
offline, and have them sync whenever internet is available. (I'd often write
blog posts in my tent at night and then upload them from whatever public WiFi
I could find the next day, and I think that would apply even more to people
travelling in remote locations where a lot of this "exciting" travel happens.)

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ericcartman
[http://cl.ly/image/0x331G1c2a2f](http://cl.ly/image/0x331G1c2a2f)

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jaxbot
On the bright side, he/she's using bcrypt.

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goldenkey
No salt.. It's sad that we now have to salute something like that after the
Adpbe breach. Decent hashing and salting should be something standard, normal,
not worthy of praise.

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Kequc
Bcrypt eliminates the need for multiple columns and is very secure so this
person is doing it right. Actually I get a little bit ancy when people still
aren't using Bcrypt.

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syerram2
Great site, but I see a bigger opportunity that would require a small pivot
after thinking more about the real problem behind the concept. Instead of
solving the problem behind "sharing" or "creating" a scrapbook of your travels
- one of the big holes/problems I see in the market is around booking trips
together. I'm planning a trip to China in a few months with a few buddies -
organizing the all the logistics, payment, bookings etc. - is a nightmare for
1 person - imagine if your talking about 3 or more people. There a number of
trips planned every year for groups - weddings, bachelor parties etc.

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ams6110
Seems hardly a "small" pivot (but not a bad idea, itself).

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antoinec
On the second level of zoom, when clicking on the letters, I think it would
make more sense to directly show the picture in full screen. At this point, I
already know that this website is made for seeing picture so I'd like to see
them asap, and having to click on a thumbnail seems more frustrating than
needed.

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mikeg8
I really like it so far, I actually had an idea that was very very similar
concept but mine would have also included the ability to journal about your
travels/destinations and journal entries would be tagged/associated with
different albums, places etc.

By adding in journaling you provide users the ability to tell more of a story
and remembering the story is one of the main reasons someone would use this
service over FB or flickr. Like antoinec said, you should either do away with
the small thumbnails in between the large photos or if you adopted the
journaling concept, have a two options for that intermediate view, See Photos
or See Journal entries (possibly with photos embedded). Best of luck!

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teddiekgb
thank you, we had actually recently discussed the idea putting more emphasis
on the description of each place for those users who r looking for more of a
journal. if we go down that road the user would probably want to include more
information about each stop such as transportation mode, amount of time spent
etc... useful comments mike which we will take on board :)

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MichaelTieso
I've been in the travel industry for awhile and have been seen a lot of
similar trip planning, organizing, and documenting sites come and go pretty
quickly. I'm not sure what you plan on implementing but right now this really
isn't different than the others. Not that you have to implement something very
unique but I think you have to try to find something that separates you from
the others. You're going to have a hell of a time trying to convince people to
use your site. By far the most popular way to share your travels is simply
creating a Facebook album and uploading all the pictures. For many, that's as
simple as they want it.

Good luck!

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adamzerner
I think the search bar should be on the right side because that's where people
are used to it being.

I'm sorta iffy on what a digital scrapbook is. I think the above the fold part
of the home page should illustrate the pain point and how you solve it.

I like the idea with the slideshow, but I think a video would be better, or at
least a slide show where the user decides when it goes to the next slide.

I'm still not really sure what you do that makes making a scrapbook of travels
notably easier than it already is.

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Hoozt
Solving a problem: Nope. Doing something I'm already doing, better: Nope

Those are the two first things I think about, but maybe that's just me. I'm
not a very social media type of person, also I'm living in Sweden, so I'm
probably not part of your main audience here, but I don't see why I should
spend my precious time on this, that's all I can say.

Oh, and good luck! :)

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joshstrange
Link: [http://www.tripstamp.com](http://www.tripstamp.com)

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jliptzin
Looks like a nice site, but not something I would use. Then again, I'm not the
target audience. I would have said the same about Twitter, Instagram, and
Snapchat (I use those rarely, if ever).

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SandB0x
The explanation text and login buttons flash up while loading (Nexus 7 2012
model) then disappear, leaving me with just a map and a green header with no
text at all.

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larrywright
I get the flashing while loading on OS X/Safari, but the page then loads
properly.

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zekenie
Nice implementation. Looks slick. I want to know how it's different from a
similar Facebook feature... But nice job.

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goldenkey
Doesn't work on mobile and the year is 2013. Fail.

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ashazar
I can see it on my iPad with no problem.

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goldenkey
An iPad is not a phone.

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bizodo
No mobile site?

