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Ask HN: Review my board game recommendation app

11 points by moconnor 16y ago

I made a little board game recommendation site in app engine: http://www.findanewgame.com/ - think netflix meets shelfluv for board games. I wrote a blog post about the making of the site a couple of weeks back, HN thread is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811024 I'm using amazon affiliate links on the game urls; with 6000 hits, it's made $40 - current traffic is around 100 hits a day. I'd love to hear suggestions for improving the site, measuring affiliate conversions for A/B testing, making it more social, sharable, or whether just to let it be. What would you do with it?

moconnor 16y ago
Clickable: http://www.findanewgame.com http://www.findanewgame.com for the app and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811024 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811024 for the HN thread on the 'making of' blog post.
revorad 16y ago
Instead of making me think about and type two names of games into blank text fields, show me a popular game and ask me if I like it. If I say yes, show me another one I might like even more. If I say no, ask me to tell you a better one.
- moconnor 16y ago
  There should be 5 popular games shown, with Like / Dislike buttons, for this very purpose. Is this not working, or just not obvious enough?
  - revorad 16y ago
    Oh yeah I missed those, but I see them now. I guess that means you have too many calls to action. Maybe you should put the text input below the five popular games?
wahnfrieden 16y ago
I know your hash tag trick is clever and you got around needing a data store that way, but you really need to remember my input next time I visit the site. Most users aren't going to understand they would need to bookmark their deepest visit to your site. The site seems broken or sloppy when it doesn't recall my answers. Can't you just keep it in a cookie instead?
- moconnor 16y ago
  Yeah, I should definitely put these in a cookie - it's amazing how many blind spots you have about your own work!
babeKnuth 16y ago
make it recommend anything else as well, not just board games a simple extension would be vid games
babeKnuth 16y ago
more details about the games. it feels like i'm trying to choose between romance novels based on their cover alone.

11 points by moconnor 16y ago

moconnor 16y ago

Clickable: http://www.findanewgame.com http://www.findanewgame.com for the app and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811024 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811024 for the HN thread on the 'making of' blog post.

revorad 16y ago

Instead of making me think about and type two names of games into blank text fields, show me a popular game and ask me if I like it. If I say yes, show me another one I might like even more. If I say no, ask me to tell you a better one.

moconnor 16y ago
There should be 5 popular games shown, with Like / Dislike buttons, for this very purpose. Is this not working, or just not obvious enough?
- revorad 16y ago
  Oh yeah I missed those, but I see them now. I guess that means you have too many calls to action. Maybe you should put the text input below the five popular games?

wahnfrieden 16y ago

I know your hash tag trick is clever and you got around needing a data store that way, but you really need to remember my input next time I visit the site. Most users aren't going to understand they would need to bookmark their deepest visit to your site. The site seems broken or sloppy when it doesn't recall my answers. Can't you just keep it in a cookie instead?

moconnor 16y ago
Yeah, I should definitely put these in a cookie - it's amazing how many blind spots you have about your own work!

babeKnuth 16y ago

make it recommend anything else as well, not just board games a simple extension would be vid games

babeKnuth 16y ago

more details about the games. it feels like i'm trying to choose between romance novels based on their cover alone.