5 ms·

Show HN: Birdy Comments – comments for people, not websites

5 points by corrys 11y ago

fiatjaf 11y ago
That is nice, but why not Hypothesis?
- corrys 11y ago
  Hypothesis is a great idea but in my opinion is overly complicated for most users. I was very excited about Google Wave as well and that didn't didn't turn out very well. Birdy is very different - it works on most modern devices and is very intuitive. Everyone used comments before - now you just can comment on any page instead of relying on website owners to provide you with a platform.
wingerlang 11y ago
What's your plan to avoid the issues of not enough users making the extension pretty much worthless? There have been numerous attempts of this exact thing before. There are so many unique urls that finding another user who have commented on that specific one will be more or less impossible.
- corrys 11y ago
  Good point but I think it goes without saying that all social apps are worthless without a user base. I hope the convenience and advantages of this approach will attract future users. I am not handling all unique URLs as truly unique - they are normalised. So actual pages where you would want to leave comments - say some business' home page or a Twitter user's feed - will have a unique URL and will allow multiple users to discuss content. Something like https://youtu.be/PcdMU-H9Jts https://youtu.be/PcdMU-H9Jts and https://youtu.be/PcdMU-H9Jts?t=899 https://youtu.be/PcdMU-H9Jts?t=899 are kept as aliases in my DB and will have the same comment tree.
  - wingerlang 11y ago
    > I hope the convenience and advantages of this approach will attract future users. But as far as I know, it hasn't worked for the others. And as far as I know, they are not only similar things - but identical. What distinguishes your implementation? What actually is the advantage of this approach? I haven't seen the iOS integration before, but honestly - I would never use that, what is the chance of finding comments? 0.0000001%?
    - corrys 11y ago
      I am curious to know which other apps you refer to. You answered you question yourself actually - mobile integration is key. iOS and Android extensions allow users to add comments not only to any page in the browser, but to all URLs that other apps share. Like Tumblr posts shared from Tumblr app. On another note - public comments do not necessarily mean that you need an active instant discussion. You can leave a review, for example.
      - wingerlang 11y ago
        Honestly it was quite hard to actually find them, weather that means I over-estimated the amount or that they have simply failed I don't know. I think a bit of both. Maybe this [0] and this [1] fits the bill, both of them have very few users. I still don't see how mobile will make it work, you will still have no idea if there is something going into the button and as I said if you go there to read something you will never ever find another comment because of the massiveness of the web. Even if you write a review, who is it for? The chance of someone reading this review, on this app, on the specific page for a product they want is so small it is not even funny. And writing a review usually means you do it for either the "stats" of writing reviews which you now don't get, or for others to read, which they just won't. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for something like this to succeed and thrive. I just don't see it happening right now. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dropchat/eaejhpdjaoedfbbnajilifkhdngdgbno?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dropchat/eaejhpdja... [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/retort/ianfcbdiagddaggjakeebfdccjihfkid?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/retort/ianfcbdiagd...
afaqurk 11y ago
This looks great. I have seen this idea implemented several times and each time it was an uninviting / non-modern UI. I always wanted something like this to become popular and gain a user-base because it might lead to a more community-feeling web. Here's hoping you accomplished it. Cheers.
- corrys 11y ago
  Thanks! I, too, value consistent and simple UI. Ideally when distributed web takes off Birdy should become completely distributed and encrypted.

5 points by corrys 11y ago

fiatjaf 11y ago

That is nice, but why not Hypothesis?

corrys 11y ago
Hypothesis is a great idea but in my opinion is overly complicated for most users. I was very excited about Google Wave as well and that didn't didn't turn out very well. Birdy is very different - it works on most modern devices and is very intuitive. Everyone used comments before - now you just can comment on any page instead of relying on website owners to provide you with a platform.

wingerlang 11y ago

What's your plan to avoid the issues of not enough users making the extension pretty much worthless? There have been numerous attempts of this exact thing before. There are so many unique urls that finding another user who have commented on that specific one will be more or less impossible.

corrys 11y ago
Good point but I think it goes without saying that all social apps are worthless without a user base. I hope the convenience and advantages of this approach will attract future users. I am not handling all unique URLs as truly unique - they are normalised. So actual pages where you would want to leave comments - say some business' home page or a Twitter user's feed - will have a unique URL and will allow multiple users to discuss content. Something like https://youtu.be/PcdMU-H9Jts https://youtu.be/PcdMU-H9Jts and https://youtu.be/PcdMU-H9Jts?t=899 https://youtu.be/PcdMU-H9Jts?t=899 are kept as aliases in my DB and will have the same comment tree.
- wingerlang 11y ago
  > I hope the convenience and advantages of this approach will attract future users. But as far as I know, it hasn't worked for the others. And as far as I know, they are not only similar things - but identical. What distinguishes your implementation? What actually is the advantage of this approach? I haven't seen the iOS integration before, but honestly - I would never use that, what is the chance of finding comments? 0.0000001%?
  - corrys 11y ago
    I am curious to know which other apps you refer to. You answered you question yourself actually - mobile integration is key. iOS and Android extensions allow users to add comments not only to any page in the browser, but to all URLs that other apps share. Like Tumblr posts shared from Tumblr app. On another note - public comments do not necessarily mean that you need an active instant discussion. You can leave a review, for example.
    - wingerlang 11y ago
      Honestly it was quite hard to actually find them, weather that means I over-estimated the amount or that they have simply failed I don't know. I think a bit of both. Maybe this [0] and this [1] fits the bill, both of them have very few users. I still don't see how mobile will make it work, you will still have no idea if there is something going into the button and as I said if you go there to read something you will never ever find another comment because of the massiveness of the web. Even if you write a review, who is it for? The chance of someone reading this review, on this app, on the specific page for a product they want is so small it is not even funny. And writing a review usually means you do it for either the "stats" of writing reviews which you now don't get, or for others to read, which they just won't. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for something like this to succeed and thrive. I just don't see it happening right now. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dropchat/eaejhpdjaoedfbbnajilifkhdngdgbno?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dropchat/eaejhpdja... [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/retort/ianfcbdiagddaggjakeebfdccjihfkid?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/retort/ianfcbdiagd...

afaqurk 11y ago

This looks great. I have seen this idea implemented several times and each time it was an uninviting / non-modern UI. I always wanted something like this to become popular and gain a user-base because it might lead to a more community-feeling web. Here's hoping you accomplished it. Cheers.

corrys 11y ago
Thanks! I, too, value consistent and simple UI. Ideally when distributed web takes off Birdy should become completely distributed and encrypted.