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Lyra: a platform for deep, meaningful conversations with people you care about
- kvakvs 10y agoClick "Visit Lyra" Scroll. Click "View some conversations" A registration form pops up. There they lost me. Do they have nothing to show to a guest?
- markbnj 10y agoAgreed as well. I'd love to see a demo of it in action but I am not willing to create an account just to see if I might want to create an account. The idea of a conversation tree is intriguing, but I think the complexity and comprehensibility of it may degrade rapidly as the number of nodes and branches grows. I assume they must have put a lot of thought into tree viewing, searching, and filtering and it's that part I would love to see a demo of.
- llamataboot 10y agoAgreed, I was hoping for at least screenshots of the product. I'm also interested in what is fostering "meaningful conversations" beyond being able to manage your own groups and not having advertising...
- lyra_comms 10y agoIt refers to a respect for language and for the user's concentration and attentional resources.
- finid 10y agoYou need to make all that information available on the website. Is there a demo access somewhere?
- aaron-lebo 10y agoI feel like pages of stock photos is showing some blatant disregard for a guest's time.
- boardwaalk 10y agoA map in a book: no algorithms A book and some fruit: no advertising A book and some yarn: non-profit Even more than stock photos, maybe they should be somewhat, at all, related to anything. Yikes.
- highway_to_hell 10y agoYou could say that the map symbolises charting your own path rather than following that of an algorithm. And that a fruit symbolises growing a community organically rather than forcing it with ads. And that some yarn symbolises spinning something worthwhile rather than creating a non-sustainable beast to flog for profit.
- lyra_comms 10y agoThat's just the teaser. Please visit hellolyra.com for the real thing.
- crystalPalace 10y agoHonestly the interface is rather off-putting at first glance. There's too much text and nothing that grabs my attention. A smoother onboarding process and a better overview of features would improve the UX.
- lyra_comms 10y agoA nice FTUI is coming :)
- kentt 10y agoI created and account with the username & password bugmenot.
- lez 10y agoWe need the email to log in.
- desireco42 10y agoI can't comment on Lyra as I am looking at the site, but it seems to me, for discussion platform to work, it has to be non-profit. It should figure out how to make things work but also be non-profit in essence.
- highway_to_hell 10y agoWe very much agree. It needs to be sustainable too. Medium is going to have to adulterate its focus on language and writing in order to monetise in interesting ways. Lyra doesn't have that problem - it monetises in the age-old way, by charging a small fee. (Team member here)
- andrewclunn 10y agoSigned up. Appears to be very new. It seems the legibility is key, where discussions are meant to be longer form and searchable rather than promote easy of reply. Perhaps a conscious effort to make one think a bit harder about how one writes?
- highway_to_hell 10y agoPretty new but we've been through a couple of iterations of testing, and have a mature stack with a full spec. We believe the tools you use to communicate influence the way you communicate, and a respect for language and the attention you pay to a conversation will lead to better conversations.
- dullroar 10y ago"Perhaps a conscious effort to make one think a bit harder about how one writes?" Yes, this. That looks like one of their goals, and I would say it's a welcome addition. The world has enough platforms for short, terse meme wars already.
- new299 10y ago"We will never sell or give away any data concerning you. Not one single bit." and "Lyra Communications Ltd, UK reg. 10534260" are unfortunately not really compatible statements, particularly after the IP Bill passed.
- lyra_comms 10y agoWe won't sell. We won't give away. We will comply with our requirements under UK law (which is neither selling nor giving away).
- wbeckler 10y agoWhat about the Snooper Charter? The government counts.
- new299 10y agoYou can be compelled to give your users data to government agents. You can even be compelled to background encryption algorithms to make this easier. To say that's not "giving" seems like semantics.
- fusion_cow 10y agoSemantics is important! It means "meaning," and that's the core of language and life, really. I think that if you're compelled to submit information, you didn't give it - it's been taken from you. But we'll add a "within the realms of what is possible under UK law" section, I guess.
- jonathanstrange 10y agoI think it looks like a marvelous idea, but the question is, how do you intend to afford to run this with all this promises of zero advertising, never selling out to investors, and remaining nonprofit forever? Please don't misunderstand me, Wikipedia is also nonprofit and seems to work quite well, and it's a noble goal. I just happen to also remember my "eternal, irrevocable and always free" name@usa.com email address. They went bankrupt pretty rapidly. (I'm pretty sure that was the domain then, now it seems to be owned by some guide to US states and cities.)
- nine_k 10y agoI don't see why being a non-profit means being also a no-revenue. Add a paid layer, with premium features. Make premium features a gift option to other accounts, so that it could be a token of appreciation. Add a paid layer with the only paid feature being a "proud supporter" badge. Surprisingly many people take pride in that when it costs them a $5. Add a donation button, run donation campaigns. It works for Wikipedia :) There's no need to avoid being paid.
- highway_to_hell 10y agoThanks for your comments! We simply charge £2.99 per year. We won't block any features from unpaid users unless we're running at a loss.
- nine_k 10y agoI would try adding a "peace of mind" option: a 10-year subscription for e.g. £25. Another idea would be to somehow help me keep the important people on the service by paying for me and for them in one go, but I can't readily come up with something that sounds enticing.
- dullroar 10y agoYeah, I was thinking that, too. At the current price point I would gladly pay for about 10 people to get those important to me over to the service without having to count on them paying for it. That seems like one way to help build up the "network effect" yet get past the cheapskates among friends and family. :)
- maxpert 10y agoHuh another toy Slack? Why is page so random? Why do I have to register to view conversations. I made a similar toy in Golang few months ago, which does not require registration :D http://raspchat.com/ http://raspchat.com/
- opportune 10y agoBut is it deep and meaningful?
- sergiotapia 10y agoCan't tell if serious or HBO Silicon Valley joke.
- fusion_cow 10y agoThat's cool, but it's a one-dimensional chat platform, whereas Lyra is a hierarchical conversation platform with a complex access control system :) And we have paragraphs. Do you have paragraphs? :p
- pnathan 10y agoHow is this different than Dreamwidth?
- nine_k 10y agoDW is a replication of tech from 1999 (hey, Mr. Fitzpatrick, thank you!). It shows. DW is also more geared towards discovery and community-building, a somehow different offer.
- kcdev 10y agoUm, just use Facebook
- kentt 10y agoThat is some brutal scroll hijacking
- incanus77 10y agoTypo down the page a bit. > The only reason we exist is to enable deep, mearningful conversations.
- fusion_cow 10y agoThanks! :) Fixing now.
- AznHisoka 10y agoI don't think a lot of meaningful conversations can happen in a 1-to-many format. They mostly occur in 1-to-1 scenarios. And if they do occur, they quickly turn to ugly debates, not meaningful conversations.
- fusion_cow 10y agoHello! Lyra also supports 1 to 1 conversations (private conversations with just one person in the audience). These are just the same as private messages. Lyra also supports panel discussions (public read, but only a few people are allowed to comment) and blogging (private read AND private write).
- AznHisoka 10y agoWhy would I need to use this if I already have email?
- lyra_comms 10y agoHello! Email doesn't have hierarchical conversations, it's not efficient to add people and get them up to speed with the existing messages in a conversation, and number one: when you open your email, you're in work mode. This does not foster a relaxing chat.
- AznHisoka 10y agoi have personal email and work email. when i open the former i am not in work mode at all. plus meaningful conversations are offen uncomfortable and not relaxing. they dont start with "whats up? how are you?"
- lyra_comms 10y agoThat's great, but most people don't separate personal and work email, and even if they do, they still build up a work-related attitude to email that comes across in personal emails too. Plus, the main issue is that email isn't nicely formatted or hierarchical.
- cabalamat 10y agoAccording to the website: > Public conversations can be viewed by anyone So how do I view them without logging in?
- hereiam 10y agoagree, plus this wreaks of the "safe-space" culture pervading modern times
- fusion_cow 10y agoHello, team member here. Actually, it doesn't reek of safe spaces - it smells beautifully of controlled spaces. Select the world button on your conversations page, and there's no filtering at all. That's not a safe space!
- jasonyyun 10y agothis feels like the opposite of safe-space talk, actually - people who are considering this are actively finding their own spaces (vs. asking existing spaces to consider their needs).
- dang 10y agoPlease don't be generically dismissive in response to new work. There's a reflex to do this, and we all have it, but we need to inhibit it here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13428054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13428054 and marked it off-topic.
- lyra_comms 10y agoThank you dang :) - Lyra team
- nkoren 10y agoSomething weird is going on with the comment thread here. Messages from the Lyra creators are being downvoted with no conceivable justification that I can see; the fusion_cow account appears to have been hell-banned. Looking at the their comment history, I can't see anything to justify this. Has somebody really got it out for Lyra? What's going on?
- cixin 10y agoI think it possibly because they've created a few new accounts. New accounts on HN can only post so many comments before they start getting marked as [dead] automatically I guess this is to prevent spam. To be honest, creating multiple new accounts to promote your startup is slightly spammy behavior. Even if they are owned by different employees of that startup.
- lyra_comms 10y agoHello! We didn't mean any of this to happen - one account got rate limited (who knows why) so we made another to answer questions, and then I think HN's spam detection opened its glowing red eyes and nuked that one as well.
- cixin 10y agoYour website says your a non-profit, but you're incorporated as a private limited company. Just FYI, in the U.K. Non-profits are generally incorporated as companies limited by guarantee. If you are really not seeking profit for shareholders, this would be a better organization type.
- fusion_cow 10y agoHello! We are actually in the process of being accredited as a not-for-profit organisation. It's a bit more difficult than incorporating a PLC, so it will take a bit of time :)
- cixin 10y agoAgain, just FYI, you're not a PLC (which stands for public limited company, and means you can sell shares to the general public) you're incorporated as a private limited company.
- lyra_comms 10y agoYou're right, thanks for the clarification :)
- sergiotapia 10y agoYou should show a demo page of an example use case before asking users to sign up and give up their personal information.
- lyra_comms 10y agoPlease see https://www.hellolyra.com/about?page=how-lyra-works https://www.hellolyra.com/about?page=how-lyra-works :)
- detaro 10y agoThat's a text describing it, not a demo.
- finid 10y agoPhotos also open up a huge potential for nasty behaviour (using offensive images) and abuse (by the theft and publication of private images). Instead, Lyra focusses on designing the best possible system for text communication on the Web. It does one thing and it does it well. You mean no images? No videos, too? Even after we've known that a picture (or video) is worth more than a thousand words.
- lyra_comms 10y agoHello! That's right. Lyra is a service that does one thing and does it well. There are loads of services that handle images really well (Flickr, Imgur etc). Lyra is for word-based conversations. (We do inline links, so you can easily link to an external image. We MIGHT display thumbnails if there's enough demand.)
- jakerockland 10y agoA bit confused on how to get up and running with trying this out--is there a way to invite friends?
- lyra_comms 10y agoYes, please see hellolyra.com/invite! We'll add it to the menu shortly :)
- mrec 10y agoThis kind of looks like a mashup of Reddit with G+'s circles. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, although if that graphical tree view in "how-lyra-works" is the real UI it looks painful to navigate once it grows past a half-dozen comments. > As a result, subreddits need to be moderated, which mitigates - but does not always prevent - unpleasant behaviour. Many subreddits aren't moderated, and many of those work fine regardless. Downvoting is the first line of defence against unpleasantness. (Or the second, with the first being "stay well away from the default subs".) Moderation tends to be more about enforcing house rules over and above basic civility. > On Reddit, you have no privacy. Your entire post history is visible to anyone. Is that true of private subreddits too? (Genuine question, I've never had anything to do with them.)
- lyra_comms 10y agoThat's a good description of Lyra! Could you filter your news feed by circles on Google+? I don't remember... I'm not sure about post history on provate subreddits either.
- Deimorz 10y ago> Is that true of private subreddits too? (Genuine question, I've never had anything to do with them.) Posts in private subreddits are not visible in your history unless the viewer also has access to that private subreddit.
- lyra_comms 10y agoOK, thanks for clarifying :)
- colorincorrect 10y agowithout an algorithm that determines the order of presentation of content, the service risks putting too much strain on the user to filter content. (which basically undermines the whole point of such a service) alternatively, a thought provoking youtube video doesn't guarantee meaningful comments; and a meaningful comment doesn't guarantee a meaningful discussion
- lyra_comms 10y agoFor the past several million years, Nature has been working on a brilliant algorithm to determine the presentation of content: the social functions of the human brain. Lyra reestablishes people, rather than fora or subreddits, as the brokers of importance and validity.
- Deimorz 10y agoThere are some really neat ideas here, but a few quick thoughts about things that are pushing me away before I've even seen anything of the "actual site" yet (which I don't seem to be able to do without registering): * The http://hellolyra.org/ http://hellolyra.org/ page has that extremely generic "landing page" look, and doesn't actually show any of the unique things you say you're doing. I'd much rather see an example of a tree-based conversation than an unrelated stock photo or some gigantic icons in diamonds. The very start of the text on the page complains about words being replaced by images, but you're doing the same thing. * All of the buttons inside the landing page content ("DISCOVER", and the three "MORE"s at the bottom) are useless and just scroll the page down slightly. I was expecting to be able to read more about the "no advertising" statement specifically, and just ended up with the page moving a tiny bit. * https://hellolyra.com https://hellolyra.com doesn't display any content with javascript disabled. A site that's primarily text shouldn't require javascript just to view. * Your charter says "We will never sell or give away any data concerning you. Not one single bit.", but you're using Google Analytics. Using GA is giving away a lot of user data. * On the "How Lyra Works" page, the image of a tree-based conversation is definitely not showing a high-quality discussion. If the site emphasizes quality discussions, show one there. And is that the actual way that a discussion displays on the site? If not, replace it with an image of the real interface.
- lyra_comms 10y agoThanks, comments taken on board. - Will upgrade landing page shortly. I agree about those annoying "more" buttons. They are already gone. - Correct about Google Analytics. This is an interim measure and will be gone soon. - Good point re the sample discussion, we are changing this now.
- Deimorz 10y agoThanks for the quick response and updates. I want to emphasize that if you're serious about protecting user privacy (and by putting it as the #1 item on your charter, I believe that you want to be), you'll need to be far more careful. You absolutely can't use Google Analytics, even temporarily. You need to remove your usage of Google Fonts as well, and ideally every other third-party service/resource. This is not an easy thing to do, but truly protecting user privacy is difficult. If you have a small staff, you're going to have to make a choice about whether protecting privacy is worth all the additional effort that will be necessary. Regardless of your choice, make sure that your public statements (and especially your charter) reflect the reality of the situation. When I see your charter start with "We will never sell or give away any data concerning you. Not one single bit.", but a quick look shows me that you are, in fact, giving away data, that immediately makes me distrust all of your other statements and principles as well. User trust is easy to lose and extremely hard to gain back, do your best not to lose it in the first place.
- 1_2__3 10y agoThe title alone is so disgustingly marketing-speak as to make me not even want to click on it. How arrogant does a company have to be to think that they're the ones who are going to unlock "deep, meaningful conversations"?
- lyra_comms 10y agoDon't judge a book by its cover. ;)
- equalarrow 10y agoFirst off, this is great timing since I'm removing my facebook account (which I never use anymore). I still feel like it would be nice to have something like a feed for my close members of my family. I can use IM to send messages to my parents, but a feed wld be nicer maybe. I've played around with ideas like this in regards to non-profits, not having ads, keeping data private, and going long term. I'm not sure if the authors can post their tech stack, but I'm sorta scratching my head wondering what their stack requirements are and how $4/year will keep this going for a long time. And while we're at it, how long is the plan? Decades? I only ask because in the way corps operate now, everything is short term. Outside of the megaliths (Google, Apple, FB), how many companies with your data can claim to be multi-generational? I ask this seriously, thx.
- lyra_comms 10y agoHello equalarrow! Lyra can be exactly this - a feed for close friends and family. Just make a group with them in, and set your Conversations feed to show just that group. We have extensive experience with AWS (where Lyra runs) and we're confident that we can keep running at the price point we've set. Because we don't intend to take any investment, our plan is to become sustainable. We don't have an exit strategy and we don't intend to sell. As long as our users are willing to subscribe, so that we can pay our engineers and cover our running costs, then Lyra is here to stay.
- equalarrow 10y agoSounds good, thanks for the reply. I guess my only other question on this is how portable can/will/is the data if someone wants to leave?
- lyra_comms 10y agoWe will offer a friendly HTML export of all the conversations you own, and all the groups you've created. Apart from that, the only other data we store on you is your email/username/securely hashed password, and whatever you fill out on your profile. They will be available for download too.
- Dirlewanger 10y agoForget the Facebook-curated echo chamber, now you can choose who exactly is allowed in your echo chamber!
- lyra_comms 10y agoHuman society has always had a certain component of echo chamber, and always will. Which makes sense, because we ask the questions we understand how to ask, and we listen to the people whose ideas we get. Lyra's purpose is to take the control of your echo chamber out of the hands of an ad-revenue-maximisation algorithm, and return it to you.
- richard___ 10y agoI read the site and have no idea how t works. You should put up screenshots of actual convos