1. This is a really neat idea. I love the creativity.
2. But for $5 you're not giving me a whole lot more than what I can get for myself on Reddit, HN, Social Media. What do I get exactly that I can't get by just asking on social media?
3. Call me wrong, I'm not actually sure how I feel on this. But it kind of slightly maybe smells like profiteering. Do you really need $5 per person? Does the price really need to go up if I don't act fast? (I'm anxious enough, thank you) Maybe make it free and ask for server donations?
4. The two bios on the front page feel so fakey fake fake that it turns me right off the service. Maybe that's just me.
5. I really _do not_ want to discourage you. I really hope this feedback is constructive enough.
It's just a cash grab. Created yesterday, stock photos, a '50% off' deal at $5 since inception with no demo of how it works. A lot of people will pay $5 and just not think more of it, but that can turn out pretty nice in these times.
I do like the idea, but I feel that a Discord chat with separate rooms where multiple people can hang out and find eachother again would be cheaper and more useful.
Edit: Actually, if someone feels like setting one up, just ping or reply here. I'd love to join and talk to all sorts of devs from all over who are remoting. My best coworker just had his last day today so doubly interesting personally.
At least the other sites have scheduling systems and calendars. This is literally paying someone 5$ to have a guy send you someone else's email address.
For $5 you get the knowledge that the other users have also paid $5. I imagine that cuts out a whole lot of troll accounts and people waving their dicks around.
Unlike Chat Roulette, there's a financial consequence for getting banned and you would need to pay for a new account.
Uh yeah, especially on the 4. Tineye shows they're stock photos, which seems incredibly shady because you know the quotes are totally fabricated as well. This seems very opportunistic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but opportunism + shadiness is a bad look.
They're generic usage scenarios and clearly intended as such. I can see how someone might find this off-putting or unappealing but calling it 'shady' is a bit overwrought. There's no intent to deceive here.
The quotes next to them make it strongly seem like they're real people endorsing the product. Coupled with this "Show HN" post, one would think they're genuine people. If this were some corporate blog, I would disagree.
I don't see quotes, just descriptions. They're quite obviously stock photos. This sort of thing is common on all sorts of product pages, tv advertising, etc. It's not my favourite practice and I do think it gives off a kind of low-rent vibe. But it's not intentional deception and is well in-line with typical phoned-in marketing.
>They're generic usage scenarios and clearly intended as such.
Based on what? I assumed they were real users because there was no indication otherwise. This is why we have words like "actor portrayal" displayed at the bottom of our screens when a person makes a claim about using a product and it's actually just a person reading a script.
Based on, I dunno, browsing the web? Seeing an occasional TV ad on an airport TV? I don't think it's quality stuff or anything but if you found these confusing, I suppose we move in entirely different media environments.
Edit: And, of course, it's also a typical way we often talk about generic scenarios outside of advertising. Alice and Bob are not real people trying to establish secure communications. There is no specific Johnny who can't read, etc.
Money makes for an interesting barrier. For example, SomethingAwful charged $10 to sign-up and it basically weeded out all the trash and spam.
You could have a tier system. E.g. $5 for general meetings and $100 tier to talk to whatever person will pay $100 for this.
Not even sure how I feel about a free tier, but even a $0.01 fee paid in crypto would instantly transform the type of people you might encounter on the service.
Immediately thought... So I'm chugging along with work and ready for a little endorphin hit from a social interaction and Bam, a penis. Skip, Bam, an A-hole screaming the N-word at the top of his lungs. Why again did I... People suck, I don't even want my to work anymore.
If it’s a barrier to entry against creeps, it’s got to be higher. Maybe a deposit of some kind?
Also - since you made the bizarre choice to directly reference it below the “50% off till Monday” tag - it’s coronavirus or COVID-19, not corona virus.
Oh man, we did this (MVP style) about 6 years ago, called it Collabo. Tested it with a Facebook group, then we manually connected random people together and scheduled them video chats. We called it "the water cooler for solopreneurs." Really just a fun experiment more than a business. Happy to share whatever learnings I can dig up.
Edit: Just found the homepage mock. "A first-of-its-kind virtual water cooler for freelancers and solopreneurs." It was invite only, too. At least at the start.
Bunch of reasons - never intended to do anything other than have fun with it, co-founded another startup that ended up catching a little fire, and finally, it was just me (marketer) and a designer doing this. Would love to see it work, though.
Should probably make it free to use to get a faster test on your assumptions. It is a very novel assumption that people will actually use this as intended and return everyday.
I see more revenue opportunity for advertising, partnerships, and affiliate relationships than a flat membership fee.
You can have a premiere membership that has special features like improved vetting and ability to refine matching specifications, after a person ends up liking it, and it’s usage becomes routine. You should give users the opportunity to try, because again, its a novel assumption.
For the free tier, the 728X90 leaderboard above the chat screen would be highly valuable real estate.
Honestly, just having a Zoom call going for the entire day, with different breakout rooms and multi-person screenshare, would go a long way towards companionship. You don't even need your own platform! $15 / mo. for 100 people for a 24 hour long session :D
If it's something like that, and you have DevOps and Full-stack people signed up, and we can switch breakout rooms by host request, I think I'd sign up!
10 or 15 years ago it would have been a giganticover-engineered distributed XML-based chat protocol that would have been proposed...
Instead we have a down-to-earth simple subscription to a centralized list of email addresses and an automatic pairing service. For 5$. What have become of our dreams...
Just kidding. I wish you success but I personally won't pay 5$ for this, even if it's my first time working from home too.
Our team ended up creating a Discord voice channel that we can each chime in on as needed. It gives us a "ambient chat" as one of my colleges put it and helps simulate working in the same environment.
Working remotely for almost 4 years here. Whenever I join a call with co-workers to "hang out" there's no work being done. If someone is there I will speak to them or I'll want to hear what they're saying. And if we're just quiet, my work just becomes the same as if I weren't on the call except I can't have Spotify on.
I think there could be a demographic for this tool, but I'd wager not a lot of work will be done while connected to it.
I usually just have a twitch programming stream running in the background. I can participate in the discussion via chat if i feel like it or just focus on my work while hearing someone typing in the background. Not sure why but it gives me a sense that I’m not totally cut off.
By that do you mean you dislike the lack of social contact? I started a remote role in November and I'm just starting to appreciate how much I miss spending my day in the company of others.
Don’t know if it’s any good, and there clearly seems to be some controversy about that in this thread, but jibes well with my sentiments over the years, some of which have gathered extensive HN discussion:
Edit: the point isn’t to promote my blog posts, it’s to say that I’m glad this aspect of remote work is finally being recognised in various ways — some good, some bad, but above all else, recognised.
For people interested in talking about politics and local community civic projects, I made a chat roulette service to connect people with similar topic interests:
It says you should prepare for the debate with sources and that the next round will start in 1.5 hours... but no topic is given and when I click guest access I get a message saying that dinner is already over. The last tweet is from a few weeks ago, no topic announced there either to gauge whether I'm interested in the first place. Not sure how I should get involved other than showing up unprepared and seeing if anything is going on.
I somehow missed that this was a paid service. That is actually probably enough of a barrier to adoption that it could minimize junk-showing. It also removes the anonymity a bit (credit card), so it could serve to discourage that behavior.
1. This is a really neat idea. I love the creativity.
2. But for $5 you're not giving me a whole lot more than what I can get for myself on Reddit, HN, Social Media. What do I get exactly that I can't get by just asking on social media?
3. Call me wrong, I'm not actually sure how I feel on this. But it kind of slightly maybe smells like profiteering. Do you really need $5 per person? Does the price really need to go up if I don't act fast? (I'm anxious enough, thank you) Maybe make it free and ask for server donations?
4. The two bios on the front page feel so fakey fake fake that it turns me right off the service. Maybe that's just me.
5. I really _do not_ want to discourage you. I really hope this feedback is constructive enough.