4 ms·

Ask HN: Rate my Startup www.birdpie.com (Updated)

20 points by railsbob 17y ago

railsbob 17y ago
I always wondered when I saw 'Tweet This' button on popular blogs for sharing bookmarks and links. However there was no easy way to go back and search/manage the bookmarks tweeted by you. We have developed an application www.birdpie.com which stores all of the URLs (Web Links) you have entered on Twitter as bookmarks, so you can refer to them at a later date. The application takes care of minified urls to avoid duplication and pulls information from the url to auto-tag and assign a proper title. Some features are pending (like search bookmarks with keywords, etc) but they will be pushed soon. I'd love to have feedback on its features, appearance or improvements. Thanks!
- indiejade 17y ago
  In general, I really like the look (CSS3 + HTML5 = Awesome!), but maybe you should have linked to the "about" page, which is a wee bit more explanatory than the demo of your links. It takes a minute to figure out that "slices" and "bites" are a play on the "pie" aspect of the name . . . maybe change the logo to birdPIE to make it a little more intuitive, or perhaps include a pie-like spatula or a fork icon beside the links for people to "get" the lingo.
- mattwdelong 17y ago
  You should put this explanation somewhere on your website.
mikeryan 17y ago
On first hit I had no idea what it was. I thought some sort of digg/reddit/hackernews dealio
- mikeryan 17y ago
  I should note for other "Rate my site" people. This is singularly the most common issue I face with new sites. If its brand new explain what it does a bit somewhere near the top of the page. (Even a "What is birdpie?" link on the top of the page works for me)
coffeemug 17y ago
The first (and biggest) problem is that when I land on the home page I have no idea what the service is supposed to do.
- crux_ 17y ago
  The problem remains even after you click "about." :( Edit to add: Oh -- the submitted link is -not- to the home page, but rather a subpage.
- railsbob 17y ago
  Hi coffeemug, that was a mistake. We have corrected about page with the introduction now.
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    I think he means that the first sentence on the about page should actually be on the front page. I felt the same. The worst part was that I actually think your product is useful, even though I'm not a twitter user. Don't hide your best selling point on some other page!
    - vaporstun 17y ago
      I think this was an accident. The true homepage to this site is: http://www.birdpie.com/ http://www.birdpie.com/ and the submitted link is http://www.birdpie.com/railsbob http://www.birdpie.com/railsbob which points to a user's page. The only way to truly fix this submission would be to edit the URL.
      - run4yourlives 17y ago
        ah sorry.
mshafrir 17y ago
The site uses jargon that isn't clear. What are bites? Slices?
warp 17y ago
From the landing page I have no idea what the site is about, so I click 'About'... and I still have no idea. From the <title> tag I can see this isn't something for which I am the target audience. Seems odd to not have that somewhere on the page.
natch 17y ago
I dunno. What do you have against putting a blurb on your home page that tells what the site is for? [update: Oh, it's not the home page. But still, I can't tell what this is for, and I should be able to, even on a sub-page. 'Slices' - what? I have been thinking about Slicehost lately, and the first link mentions Ruby, which I don't know. So when I land on this link you have me thinking that maybe the site is a way for Ruby users to manage their slices on Slicehost. The About page should definitely tell what the site is about. And the help pages are not loading for me. If you want to do a tweeted-link application, you should add a bit more value - maybe have thumbnails of the destination site, or expand bit.ly/etc. URLs (while keeping the bit.ly one too). If someone uses bit.ly to shorten every URL they tweet, bit.ly stores the URLs for them already, so...]
megamark16 17y ago
It doesn't show up very well in Chrome (at least, it looks a little fuzzy to me), but fine in Firefox. Seems like a pretty cool tool.
djb_hackernews 17y ago
Startup? No. Webapp? Probably. Looks like more of an exercise in ui design than actual functionality, which isn't a bad thing.
peteysd 17y ago
I like the site design. Simple and clean. I agree with the other poster that commented that some of the jargon was misleading. Some of the information on the Help page should probably be made more prominent.
axod 17y ago
really good design, but I have no idea why it would be useful.
- vnorby 17y ago
  Design is nice, but the UI/information architecture is confusing - lot of information that I don't understand, and the nomenclature is awkward. I would suggest showing less information, i.e. you don't need to show who submitted the links on every "slice," considering that all the slices on a page are inherently connected to one person. I think you could get rid of the "see original tweet" text as well, and maybe just show the bird somewhere if you really need that feature (although I think it can be removed).
johnrob 17y ago
First thoughts: Looks like digg.com, calling votes 'bites' instead of 'diggs'. Oh, and there are 'slices' too... After reading the help menu, I understand that tweeted bookmarks are the things in the list (aka 'slice'?). I think the most important feedback I can give is to either include more help on the landing page (what are bites and slices?), or change the terms to be more obvious at first glance.
yosho 17y ago
the site seems to have errors now... or is it just me?
- fname 17y ago
  +1.. errors here too
- railsbob 17y ago
  Sorry, we redeployed it just now with corrected content on 'About' Page.
bgriggs1 17y ago
The golden rule of UI: never sacrifice usability. Those fonts might look interesting and add to the overall aesthetic, but the smaller versions are virtually unreadable on my machine.
Raphael 17y ago
You need a denser UI. I can only see 4 bookmarks on the screen at a time. Raise that to at least 10. Categories and tags are redundant. Remove categories. I like the automatic tagging, but I may want to manually edit them sometimes. Link to Twitter.com's profiles and tweets. Re-tweet buttons would make sense.
traisav 17y ago
An amazing website - great design and easy to use. Incredibly helpful. Thanks Dynamic50!

20 points by railsbob 17y ago

I always wondered when I saw 'Tweet This' button on popular blogs for sharing bookmarks and links. However there was no easy way to go back and search/manage the bookmarks tweeted by you. We have developed an application www.birdpie.com which stores all of the URLs (Web Links) you have entered on Twitter as bookmarks, so you can refer to them at a later date. The application takes care of minified urls to avoid duplication and pulls information from the url to auto-tag and assign a proper title. Some features are pending (like search bookmarks with keywords, etc) but they will be pushed soon. I'd love to have feedback on its features, appearance or improvements. Thanks!

indiejade 17y ago
In general, I really like the look (CSS3 + HTML5 = Awesome!), but maybe you should have linked to the "about" page, which is a wee bit more explanatory than the demo of your links. It takes a minute to figure out that "slices" and "bites" are a play on the "pie" aspect of the name . . . maybe change the logo to birdPIE to make it a little more intuitive, or perhaps include a pie-like spatula or a fork icon beside the links for people to "get" the lingo.
mattwdelong 17y ago
You should put this explanation somewhere on your website.

mikeryan 17y ago

On first hit I had no idea what it was. I thought some sort of digg/reddit/hackernews dealio

mikeryan 17y ago
I should note for other "Rate my site" people. This is singularly the most common issue I face with new sites. If its brand new explain what it does a bit somewhere near the top of the page. (Even a "What is birdpie?" link on the top of the page works for me)

coffeemug 17y ago

The first (and biggest) problem is that when I land on the home page I have no idea what the service is supposed to do.

crux_ 17y ago
The problem remains even after you click "about." :( Edit to add: Oh -- the submitted link is -not- to the home page, but rather a subpage.
railsbob 17y ago
Hi coffeemug, that was a mistake. We have corrected about page with the introduction now.
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  I think he means that the first sentence on the about page should actually be on the front page. I felt the same. The worst part was that I actually think your product is useful, even though I'm not a twitter user. Don't hide your best selling point on some other page!
  - vaporstun 17y ago
    I think this was an accident. The true homepage to this site is: http://www.birdpie.com/ http://www.birdpie.com/ and the submitted link is http://www.birdpie.com/railsbob http://www.birdpie.com/railsbob which points to a user's page. The only way to truly fix this submission would be to edit the URL.
    - run4yourlives 17y ago
      ah sorry.

mshafrir 17y ago

The site uses jargon that isn't clear. What are bites? Slices?

warp 17y ago

From the landing page I have no idea what the site is about, so I click 'About'... and I still have no idea. From the <title> tag I can see this isn't something for which I am the target audience. Seems odd to not have that somewhere on the page.

natch 17y ago

I dunno. What do you have against putting a blurb on your home page that tells what the site is for? [update: Oh, it's not the home page. But still, I can't tell what this is for, and I should be able to, even on a sub-page. 'Slices' - what? I have been thinking about Slicehost lately, and the first link mentions Ruby, which I don't know. So when I land on this link you have me thinking that maybe the site is a way for Ruby users to manage their slices on Slicehost. The About page should definitely tell what the site is about. And the help pages are not loading for me. If you want to do a tweeted-link application, you should add a bit more value - maybe have thumbnails of the destination site, or expand bit.ly/etc. URLs (while keeping the bit.ly one too). If someone uses bit.ly to shorten every URL they tweet, bit.ly stores the URLs for them already, so...]

megamark16 17y ago

It doesn't show up very well in Chrome (at least, it looks a little fuzzy to me), but fine in Firefox. Seems like a pretty cool tool.

djb_hackernews 17y ago

Startup? No. Webapp? Probably. Looks like more of an exercise in ui design than actual functionality, which isn't a bad thing.

peteysd 17y ago

I like the site design. Simple and clean. I agree with the other poster that commented that some of the jargon was misleading. Some of the information on the Help page should probably be made more prominent.

axod 17y ago

really good design, but I have no idea why it would be useful.

vnorby 17y ago
Design is nice, but the UI/information architecture is confusing - lot of information that I don't understand, and the nomenclature is awkward. I would suggest showing less information, i.e. you don't need to show who submitted the links on every "slice," considering that all the slices on a page are inherently connected to one person. I think you could get rid of the "see original tweet" text as well, and maybe just show the bird somewhere if you really need that feature (although I think it can be removed).

johnrob 17y ago

First thoughts: Looks like digg.com, calling votes 'bites' instead of 'diggs'. Oh, and there are 'slices' too... After reading the help menu, I understand that tweeted bookmarks are the things in the list (aka 'slice'?). I think the most important feedback I can give is to either include more help on the landing page (what are bites and slices?), or change the terms to be more obvious at first glance.

yosho 17y ago

the site seems to have errors now... or is it just me?

fname 17y ago
+1.. errors here too
railsbob 17y ago
Sorry, we redeployed it just now with corrected content on 'About' Page.

bgriggs1 17y ago

The golden rule of UI: never sacrifice usability. Those fonts might look interesting and add to the overall aesthetic, but the smaller versions are virtually unreadable on my machine.

Raphael 17y ago

You need a denser UI. I can only see 4 bookmarks on the screen at a time. Raise that to at least 10. Categories and tags are redundant. Remove categories. I like the automatic tagging, but I may want to manually edit them sometimes. Link to Twitter.com's profiles and tweets. Re-tweet buttons would make sense.

traisav 17y ago

An amazing website - great design and easy to use. Incredibly helpful. Thanks Dynamic50!