Frankly, this is already a better social experience than Facebook. Text as a medium may be less "expressive" so to speak, but it communicates with such sincerit

Frankly, this is already a better social experience than Facebook. Text as a medium may be less "expressive" so to speak, but it communicates with such sincerity in letter-form applications. The idea of listing "Help Needed" and "Can Help" is a good idea to facilitate conversations. Helps lubricate the otherwise awkward encounter with strangers. I think the issue onwards will be similar to those of any community-based websites. 1) maintaining the quality of the community members. The usage of HN is a better source of demarcation compared to the low-barrier registration requirement of just signing up in typical social networks. So long as HN keeps attracting engagement from good people and weeds out undesirable usage, Kismet is likely to continue benefiting from HN's demographics. 2) retention of active users. People can get tired of using social apps once the novelty wears off. It would be prudent to encourage each interaction to be interesting and inspired so that users are happy to open messages from Kismet, especially since the app will reside in the email inbox that is typically inundated with other messages. 3) recruiting new users. Looks like Kismet had just come into existence, when users who provide the interaction amongst each other are lacking. It would be worthwhile considering how Kismet will make itself known among HNers without relying on posting a "Show HN" periodically. Promotions can aim for wider awareness but should be aware of 1) and still keep a reasonable barrier of entry to maintain userbase quality. Perhaps referrals for organic growth, but how? Boy, I wish there were more ways to meet smart strangers. Congrats and thanks for the launch. P.S. Feature request: Location info (e.g. City) to find/match with users in proximity feasible for a coffee meetup Bug: Can't seem to update user info after initial registration