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Ask HN: Review my app: Wappr
- unignorant 17y agoInteresting! Perhaps I missed it, but I feel that you need some way to break down the suggestions into categories. Also, of course I don't know your long term intentions, but something like this would seem difficult to monetize.
- bearwithclaws 17y agoThanks for the suggestions. I'm thinking of categorizing the suggestions using hashtag (e.g #iphone, #web, #android). There's no long term intention or any intention to monetize from this. I just started on programming and wanted something to code for (instead of just banging on the books).
- dconti 17y agoActually it seems like this is easy to monetize? Selling ad space to people who develop these apps and want users? It's a great idea and a great lead gen for anyone trying to build solutions for some of these things. He could fence it so it shows a user pic and the display name, but not the twitter handle and without a link to their twitter profile. So for any idea he knows who submitted it and who voted it up, and can offer their twitter handles as lead information to someone building that app..
- bearwithclaws 17y agoWappr is my lil weekend side project (and also my first app!) that provides a votable list of app requests powered by Twitter. It's a simple app with the purpose of providing entrepreneurs/hackers/developers ideas & inspirations on what app to create, based on feedback from the public. I would love to hear your feedback.
- antileet 17y agoHi, Your app looks great. A lot of the popular questions actually have products which solve the problem. A feature to comment and say this app already exists might prevent someone from trying to reinvent the wheel. Of course, this would inevitably lead to spam.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- antileet 17y agoOh my, I noticed that this app automatically posted something to my twitter account when I voted up an idea to test it. I am sure this is going to greatly piss off many people because you're promoting something random on their feed without telling them. You're venturing into facebook territory where you're posting something on people's public stream, and _especially_ without even telling them that this is happening. This is a massive betrayal of trust, and, in my opinion is something you should disable immediately, or atleast give people the option to post if they choose _after_ voting it up.
- bearwithclaws 17y agoThe settings could be changed thru the top link. Would you suggest that I turn it off by default?
- jdee 17y ago100% turn it off. you stand to piss a lot of people off very fast if you dont. other than that, i like the concept. reminds me of www.halfbakery.com but twitter powered. bookmarked it.
- rdrimmie 17y agoIt should absolutely be off by default. The way these things spread is one tweet that is your message, then the next tweet that says "sorry I didn't mean to post that". Just make a button or a checkbox that says "Tweet this" and lots of people will do it. The behaviour should be opt-in, just like email subscriptions.
- bearwithclaws 17y agoIt's turned off by default right now.
- vinhboy 17y agoclicking "what is wappr" should toggle slideup slidedown, not just slideDown.
- bearwithclaws 17y agoHad it fixed. Thanks.
- dangrossman 17y agoI like the idea. I actively look for "I wish there was a [website, app, plugin, extension...]" threads in forums sometimes just to get some inspiration. In Chrome 4.0, there seems to be white "vote now" text running down the left side of the page, barely visible against the gray background, after I maximize the page. It might be a bug that only shows up upon resizing the browser?
- bearwithclaws 17y agoThanks. Ok, got it fixed (text-indent problem). You must have a really big screen.
- dangrossman 17y agoJust a 22" at 1680x1050, they're pretty common now. http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
- thenduks 17y agoIt's just that people with resolutions like that usually don't maximize their browsers (wasting 600+ pixels with nothing but white).
- dangrossman 17y agoDo you have anything to back that up? I have 1.4 billion data points that say plenty of people maximize the window at least sometimes :)
- thenduks 17y agoAre your datapoints from Google Analytics? If so keep in mind that they are reporting 'screen resolution' not the dimensions of the browser window... I'm sure you're right though, most users (especially Windows users) maximize their windows... What I meant was most people here.
- DeusExMachina 17y agoGreat app! Some time ago I was thinking about creating something similar. I am one of those developers that finds figuring out what people want extremely difficult. But I did not think about it in terms of twitter, so it appears you implemented it better than I would have done. A possible way to expand it could be the possibility to tell people when something already exists or if you are developing it. It could become a good promotion channel.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- epall 17y agoI'm seriously depressed by the number of requests for social networking aggregators (Twitter+FB+Wave+Buzz or whatever).
- badave 17y agoI'm seriously depressed by the number of social networking sites.
- chuhnk 17y agoI have to agree with your and epall's comment. Social Networking is over saturated and we need to move onto the next step, which is doing something more useful with our "connections" and identities on the net.
- gloob 17y agowe need to move onto the next step, which is doing something more useful with our "connections" and identities on the net. I'd disagree, but I know I'm in a small minority. I've never entirely understood the desire that people apparently have to bring their real-world identity onto the Net; I've always felt that going in the opposite direction (trivially changeable pseudonymous identities or just straight-up anonymity) would be more interesting[1]. Ignoring the oft-cited benefits for political dissidents, etc., I sometimes feel like we're losing the whole "on the Internet, no-one knows your a dog" thing, which I find a little saddening. [1] Though "interesting" (my word) and "useful" (your word) are somewhat different criteria, I guess.
- chuhnk 17y ago"changeable pseudonymous identities" have their place on the internet, in chat rooms, on blogs, throw away accounts on reddit, etc. But imagine how much "spam" is accumulated by allowing something like this to occur. Our identities right now are facebook profiles and twitter accounts, connections being friends or those we follow or are followers of. What do we do with them? Post ramblings of what is happening in our daily lives, tweeting about the something that people may interesting. Millions of us using all this technology for something that amounts to nothing but keeping ourselves amused. Think of what we could actually do. I am not righteous by any means or a do gooder, but with all the connections we form, the groups, the followers, the friends, the masses that flock to whats cool, couldn't it all be geared towards helping people?
- mscantland 17y agoYour app should have a "how much would you pay?" field. The answer is probably zero for most of these.
- dconti 17y agoI think it's great. Having organization (so you can minimize dupes and easily sort through items) would be a great next project and would keep the utility high. Per the other post, i think you could do a little bit to make it an interesting source of leads for anyone who tries to solve one of the posted problems. Nice work!
- sahueso 17y agoI'm very impressed that that's your first app. I started programming my first serious web site recently, before this I just made small sites to learn how to use CSS,PHP, Javascript and MySql, however I doubt that whatever I make will come looking as good as that. What did you use? From what or where did you learn? Another thing, could you please recommend me a book that covers everything in general about making a site? From programming it to handling issues like balancing the load between servers, etc. Thanks a lot.
- bearwithclaws 17y agoFor CSS, I learned most from 'CSS Mastery'; For Ruby on Rails, I'd recommend 'Simply Rails 2'. I don't think there's any book that covers everything. Server/hosting wise, I leave everything to Heroku.
- techiferous 17y ago"Server/hosting wise, I leave everything to Heroku." Heroku is great in that it commoditizes the hosting. It's nice for a first side project but if you're planning on doing multiple side projects I would recommend Linode.com (or some other VPS). For just $20/month you can host as many apps as you want (which is a lot if your side projects don't get much traffic). For Heroku, it's $36 per month per app, isn't it? I have a side project on their free version but it seems that if it gets two web requests at the same time it's too much traffic and an error page is displayed for the user. Using a VPS like Linode.com is a lot more work but it's actually a plus because you get to increase your skills while having fun. :)
- stuntgoat 17y agoDon't stop at ideas for webapps. What about ideas for creating jobs or reducing environmental problems? I guess you could crank out other sites that used collective decision making fairly quickly, now that you have the template. Build a network of these sites and sell it to someone. If you had groups for people to join it might make sorting easier; we still have to sort through people with ideas that cannot type URLs in a browser: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1119184 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1119184 Also, allow me to unvote. I accidentally clicked on voting for some top app to see how test how voting worked. Please don't have me default post to Twitter when I vote for an idea after logging in with Twitter; that is sort of annoying. Consider how search engines are going to index the ideas from your users. Create a URL object for each post and have the relevant content there. ( such as other users' comments about how to improve the app idea ) How do I submit ideas from the Wappr site?
- bearwithclaws 17y agoAwesome idea. The default post to Twitter settings has already changed. You could submit your ideas by starting your tweet with the any one of the following phrases: “I wish there was an app ...” “I need an app to ...” “I want an app that ...”
- lawn 17y agoThe site looks good but I'd like it a lot more if it was unobtrusive (works without javascript). Not a biggie but still.
- rapind 17y agoUnobtrusive is an overrated buzzword IMO.
- lawn 17y agoYeah a bit, but I like my websites to work off the bat. I've got javascript disabled as default and it kinda bugs me... Maybe a small notifier would be helpful.
- smanek 17y agoIn my experience the cost (in terms of engineering time, if nothing else) of supporting degradable javascript is rarely worth it for a consumer facing startup. The extra "N" hours it takes to support something that a fraction of a percent of your users will need (which is only a handful of people for a small startup) could be better used on adding new features, marketing, adding polish, etc.
- nostrademons 17y agoFor an app like this, the cost is pretty negligible. First you build the site so that it's functional (but not necessarily all that polished) in straight HTML with no JavaScript. Then you add the JavaScript to make it even easier to use. It falls out naturally of your incremental development process (you do develop incrementally, right?) I've done a lot of the works-without-Javascript polishing for google.com, and it's very far from being our most expensive feature. It's mostly just a matter of remembering that you have HTML + CSS under all that JavaScript, and that the HTML does what you intend.
- prodigal_erik 17y agoThis. Maybe you can get away with useless HTML for a solidly non-technical audience, but I for one judge it more harshly than broken images and typos. It's not even hard, just a basic display of diligence and competence.
- tom_ilsinszki 17y agoA single sentence should be enough to describe what Wappr does. It probably could fit next to you logo too.
- gridspy 17y agoA bakery for half baked ideas Idea nursery Inspire developers Make your dreams real
- tom_ilsinszki 17y agoMy simple guess for that 1 sentence: 'Wish for a Twitter app.'
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- lisper 17y agoI love it! I think you may be seriously underestimating the potential of what you've done here.
- lucifer 17y agoIt is a good idea & there is definitely a potential migration path to a market place for software development. It won't be trivial but having an automated classifier to unify similar/duplicate wishes would be very nice.
- adrianwaj 17y agoThis is also a great app to find new users for any particular site that already fulfils a request. Thus, there could be a field where people can write the name of an applicable pre-existing app with a note, with that also being tweeted out to the requesting user. Then, bunch all the notes and source tweets that apply to the same pre-existing app together. Ideally, you could also group similar requests together for developers to approach jointly to raise funds using a note they place below, that also sends a tweet out once inserted, or, these people can be informed of a suitable app once launched. So, you'd be building a directory (eg http://twittown.com/ http://twittown.com/) of existing and proposed apps, tied to the tweets you've recovered, each with user responses as submitted on the site.
- vais 17y agoPlease add the ability to search.
- iaskwhy 17y agoI'm a faviconist claiming that every site needs a favicon. Very nice and simple idea, I've been working with some similar stuff and believe there's a bunch of work to do with what people say. Given that it's free what people say on Twitter, etc, I'd say thinkers should start finding interesting stuff there, even on the most simple 140 characters. Also, since it's your first app: good work!
- maxklein 17y agoDo you do this with the twitter API?
- bearwithclaws 17y agoYes. I use this fantastic Twitter gem by John Nunemaker: http://twitter.rubyforge.org/ http://twitter.rubyforge.org/
- abraham 17y agoI still don't know what it does...
- lucifer 17y agoDon't you wish there was an app that reviewed "review my app" submissions and posted what it did on HN?
- thenduks 17y agoSo how do the people wanting something (poster and voters) find out about it when it gets made (or told about it if it already exists)? Am I missing a feature?
- techiferous 17y agoSome design feedback: * "What is Wappr?" -- the font size and style should be the same for the whole phrase. * The slidedown should be much smaller. Wrap it in a differently colored box with rounded corners (perhaps a background darker than the page background). * Add another color besides the light blue. * Increase the contrast on your Wappr logo (either black letters or darker blue background). * You have too many font sizes. I would pick three font sizes and stick with them (and make sure the font sizes aren't too close to each other). * The "sign in with twitter" animation when you click "vote this" is really cool. * Make the previous/next/page links more prominent (or change them into image links). * The twitter icon at the bottom of the page needs to breathe (it touches the fat footer). * I really like the light, simple, zen-like feel of the design. * Your fat footer spans the whole width of the screen. If your header did the same it wouldn't feel like the page is completely squished into the middle of the screen with unused space on the edges. * I like the subtlety of the divider separating the list from the header.
- resdirector 17y agoAwesome. Should get more and more useful as we approach the singularity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity :)
- fname 17y agoMore importantly, is anyone working on an app they see suggested here already?
- diN0bot 17y agohow do i post an idea? would be nice to have an input box on the website.
- ddemchuk 17y agoOh man I was loving the css work on the site until I hovered over What is Wappr?...please please tone down that blue drop shadow when you hover, it looks like a bad mistake because of the amount of blur. Otherwise, great design!
- stralep 17y agoIt's a nice site! My JavaScript was turned off... When I clicked "what is wappr" nothing happened. Could it be a nonJavaScript friendlier (just a little :) Nice work! EDIT: JavaScript in my browser...
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- nandemo 17y agoThis is interesting and hope HNers will use it. Frankly I'm puzzled by attempts to do startups that are basically targeted at other geeks. However, there's potential for a lot of "abuse". The top suggestion now is: I wish there was an app where you could report a car whose alarm has been going on for hours, and car thieves will read it and steal the car I hope you don't try to ban that sort of thing, though.
- waterlesscloud 17y agoWhile the requested app isn't something you'd actually make, it's a useful request in that it's a real problem, and people voting it up indicates they want a solution to that problem. The essential trait in a startup founder is the ability to find workable solutions to problems people want solved. This is the public doing their part, now founders have to do theirs.
- rendezvouscp 17y agoIt’s a nice little app. Its purpose was fairly obvious to me once I read two tweets and the design is nice. Do things automatically get voted up on Wappr if someone retweets a tweet on Twitter? It’d be cool if you could subscribe to a particular want or desire; for example, I’d want to subscribe to anything related to personal finance because that’s the business I’m in. You could probably even monetize it by offering more advanced features like that.
- nathanh 17y agoThis is a great concept, but it might be more useful if it aggregated problems people have instead of apps people wish for. From a technical perspective it would be harder to pull off, but we all know that end users rarely know what they're looking for.
- necrecious 17y agoHave you heard of appswell? It is a voting system for iPhone app development.