

Ask HN: Review my site - readit.me - kungfooey
http://readit.me/

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hajrice
First of all, when I arrive, I have no idea What the app is for, how it helps
me, etc. I suggest you add a paragraph or two explaining what it does and how
to get started. But overall it's a pretty cool site. Good luck!

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kungfooey
I guess that's what the "about" link in the top right-hand corner is there
for. I suppose it needs to be more obvious?

Edit: probably need some sort of boilerplate on the front page to explain it
succinctly. Thanks for the pointer.

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diN0bot
yeah....a landing page of sorts.

also, i'd lvoe there to be different lists. not just recently, more
recommendations within a genre. i'm constantly looking for science fiction
rec's (and even then, i only like certain kinds of scifi...the not fantasy
kind; magic realism is ok, though, bc often well written and brief...)

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kungfooey
I started out with Java, but I've worked in PHP for a few years now. I dabbled
with Django, but this is my first attempt to build anything useful in Rails.
It uses the Amazon API to gather book data, and obviously authlogic +
facebooker for Facebook Connect.

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kingkilr
Why would I use this over Readernaut: <http://readernaut.com/>

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kungfooey
I tried readernaut but felt it did too much. I just wanted a minimal way to
keep up with what I've read, not add reviews (that's what Amazon is for), add
friends (we all use Facebook, right?), or create lists.

There's also <http://goodreads.com/> and <http://www.librarything.com/>

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CWuestefeld
Is this just a way for me to log what books I've read? I'm not really getting
the point, I'm sorry to say.

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kungfooey
You got it. Just a minimalist reading diary - there are other sites that
handle reading + networking (goodreads, readernaut, etc) but I find them all
too cluttered. The 'about' page tells more about what I was aiming for.

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ilconsigliere
Phonetically, readit could easily be mistaken for the immensely popular
reddit. This seems rather important from a branding perspective.

I assume its meant to be "read" sounding like "reed," not "read" sounding like
"red".. but it's easy to see how this could cause confusion.

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Psyonic
Actually, given that it's a log of what you have read, I'm going to assume it
is pronounced red-it.

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kungfooey
Originally it was going to be "Who Read It?" but then I realized that the
domain name could be creatively interpreted. Hence, just Read It. When I say
it myself, I pronounce it "reed", probably due to the similarity to reddit
(which I don't find to be particularly bothersome).

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jayliew
Is this just a side project .. or can you share your vision and plan for this?

I like it, but I have to say that I've been using Shelfari for a while and it
appears to pretty much do the same thing.

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kungfooey
It's just a side project (mainly to become familiar with the Rails dev
environment and tools).

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jayliew
cool, all the best to you. The founder of crazy-profitable
<http://www.plentyoffish.com/> started the site to learn how to program.

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barmstrong
Cool idea! Could be something there. Props for getting it out there.

Could be a facebook app?

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azeemazhar2
Hey that is really nice. Will it show me recommendations in some way?

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kungfooey
Thanks! Nope, no recommendations yet. I'd either have to build in
recommendations or (preferably) somehow yank that data from Amazon. Might be
something I try to do next, since I've had a couple of users ask me about it.

