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Show HN: Stuff – An Alternative to Facebook Events
- trebor 8y agoOne thing unanswered by your site (prior to signing up anyway) is what the cost is, or how you make money. Also, your about page is just a copy of your homepage content. Other than those 2 things, it looks very nice. :)
- stuffhq 8y agoThanks you so much for the feedback. - It is free; and I know we should be more vocal about that. - We will make money on the professional organisers at some point. Looking into different models with a bunch of different organisers.
- Perceptes 8y agoIt's probably worth making this clear up front. If I see that a service is free, I assume advertisements as a business model, which I believe is fundamentally at odds with any claims of privacy and transparency, which your service also claims. If the users are not paying you, your financial incentive to protect their privacy is not clear.
- stuffhq 8y agoAdded a bit more copy on the frontpage, to make it clear that it is free to use the platform :-)
- haberdasher 8y agoThat's totally Brooklyn Bridge Park in the photo, not Governor's island.
- stuffhq 8y agoI've managed to pull together the design team to change it. They were not proud. Screenshot is updated - might require a "fresh" browser. Simon, Stuff.
- haberdasher 8y agoHey Simon, nbd - just a nit. Keep at it!
- hiei 8y agoIs there an option to create an event without an account?
- stuffhq 8y agoNo, unfortunately not. Creating and managing an invitation requires a login. Guests are not required to create a profile, though. -Simon, Stuff.
- daureg 8y agoIt's look really slick! One thing that isn't clear to me though is whether it's possible to update an event and send update notifications/email/whatever to attendees?
- zshift 8y agoI'm unable to create an account. Tried on both Chrome and Firefox. Here's the console error from chrome when I click on "Create Profile" ``` generic.js?id=8ab332005e9019c3db72:1 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'checked' of null at hn.createUser (generic.js?id=8ab332005e9019c3db72:1) at submit (eval at Ea (generic.js?id=8ab332005e9019c3db72:1), <anonymous>:3:4149) at t (generic.js?id=8ab332005e9019c3db72:1) at HTMLFormElement.Fr.t._withTask.i._withTask (generic.js?id=8ab332005e9019c3db72:1) ```
- stuffhq 8y agoMeeeeh, Had a connection issue between services. Have been updated and changed, so should work properly now. Let me know if you are still experiencing problems. Simon, Stuff.
- zshift 8y agoIt's working now, though the flow is a little weird. I created the account on my desktop, but didn't have my personal email setup there, so I activated on my iPad. That activated my account, but it's missing any relevant info. Eg, instead of "Hi Peter, thanks for activating!" it just says, "Hi , thanks for activating!". I also can't login from my iPad. Tapping on "Log in" does nothing, won't even bring up the side bar. It works if I open an incognito tab, though. For reference, using the latest Chrome app on the iPad.
- marcodave 8y agoWish you the best! Events, at least for me, is still my main reason why I still stick on Facebook. Hope you manage to gain a big enough traction to erode that market.
- stuffhq 8y agoSo do we - we will be doing our best. One invitation at a time :-)
- prophesi 8y ago> Events, at least for me, is still my main reason why I still stick on Facebook. Same. And it'll likely have to remain that way until I live in a larger city where something like this can compete against FB's network effect; there is hope, however, as FB loses the younger audience.
- slashink 8y agoActually just yesterday i thought to myself: "How I wish someone built an alternative to FB Events" and here it is. Really sweet!
- dvt 8y agoHuge congrats on the release. Stuff looks great, and my only minor suggestion would probably be to try to reduce friction as much as possible. Show me how many people are attending an event, let me RSVP without signing up (even if RSVPing doesn't do anything), etc. There will 100% absolutely end up being a "winner" when it comes to events when FB dies, so good luck!
- stuffhq 8y agoThanks a bunch. And thank you very much for your feedback. RSVPs does not require you to sign up. We will add features like how many are attending and messaging on invitations over the next two weeks. Stay tuned. Simon, Stuff.
- huangc10 8y agoThe whole point of Facebook events is that it's already integrated with a social network so it's easy to invite people. I dislike the whole concept of Facebook but sorry, but I find this idea really counter intuitive? Creating social events online but not through a social network... *edit, so I can provide some constructive criticism. Maybe integrate this with social networks such as Facebook or Twitter (which I guess kind of defeats your purpose of going against Facebook)?
- taude 8y agoWhat about the people you want to invite who aren't on FB? Luckliy (or not) I still get Evites to thing that matter.
- smt88 8y agoMost of my social network (urban, educated, US) has abandoned FB, so the value for me is in the events themselves, which aren't published elsewhere.
- gav 8y agoI agree, there's so much friction trying to get a group of people to signup for and use another platform. A personal anecdote: people were willing to fly thousands of miles to come to my wedding, but (almost) nobody wanted to use the site/app we chose to avoid using Facebook to plan the event. I think the only option is to make it seamless for Facebook users--let them log in with FB, use FB Messenger to send them updates, etc.
- lucasverra 8y agoIt looks more of a eventbrite alternative than FB events. my 2 cts
- dblock 8y agoHuge fan of any effort that gets rid of FB events. My biggest feature request in this space is around address book and inviting new people to a larger event. I want something that can, for example, check my email or other contacts and surface anyone I've been connected with since the last party. Btw, I no longer have a facebook account and only held on to it for events, until I didn't. Now when I don't get invited to events personally I just think it wasn't worth it in the first place. Haven't tried the site for an invite yet, will do my next one on it. Been using paperlesspost. It's fine.
- stuffhq 8y agoThanks for the feedback. We are looking into different opportunities - and weighing pros vs. cons on functionality and privacy. But one thing is sure, we will do our best to create something you will rather use than Facebook, Evite, Paperless post etc :-) Simon, Stuff.
- ralusek 8y agoSocial network calendar in similar vein: https://dockitcalendar.com/discover https://dockitcalendar.com/discover Feel free to offer feedback, this is just a side project I tinker with that I'd be happy to check in on if people are finding it useful.
- ytjohn 8y agoThat looks cool. It would be neat if it provided a time range, basically a list of upcoming events. Clicking day after day for a week and not seeing anything is no fun. If there is a way to specify "upcoming" or "next 7 days", it's not obvious.
- cmancini 8y agoThis looks great! I like hosting small to medium events and even though it seems simple most platforms are not effective: -Most of my friends either don't use or don't regularly check Facebook -PaperlessPost simply didn't deliver 80% of my invitations for last holiday season and almost ruined the party. Will never use them again for anything. -Others just don't seem attractive/affordable/easy.
- stuffhq 8y agoAwesome. Glad you like it. Feel free to drop me an email on simon@stuff.li - happy to discuss further. - Simon
- dewski 8y agoI would recommend putting the "Are you coming?" above the fold, if not the very top of the page. I'm on a 27" monitor and had to scroll all the way to the bottom. If you want to increase conversion you'll probably find that by moving it above the image.
- stuffhq 8y agoThanks, tried to put it in a couple of different spots over the past weeks - with pros and cons. Will give it another spin based on your feedback. -Simon, Stuff.
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- newscracker 8y agoThe “Totally free” at the end of the second paragraph would be better placed at the end of the first paragraph. Right now the second paragraph is not very readable on the background image, and I completely missed it while skimming. I had to look at the “About” page and come back to realize it’s free. Since it’s free, what’s the business model? Please state that clearly on the homepage. I usually avoid anything that’s free and doesn’t seem to have a business model (however hazy or crazy the model might sound to some). Your privacy piece says “We are deleting data as soon as it is no longer relevant.” Please expand on this. I didn’t understand what “no longer relevant” means. Do you delete events after the date has passed? Or do you delete the RSVPs alone? When exactly do the deletions happen? It’s fine if you haven’t completely figured this out yet. But saying vague things isn’t a good idea in general.
- stuffhq 8y agoThank you so much for your feedback. Much appreciated. Will work on the copy and make it more clear. Especially on the privacy side. Also having a dashboard in pipeline showing what data is stored for how long etc. Future business model will be based on professional organisers paying for services. We are currently looking into different directions based on the conversations we have with different venues and companies. Hope this clear things up. -Simon, Stuff.
- kl_r 8y agoThe website defaults to Danish for me, coming from a Swedish IP.
- sleepyhead 8y agoIt probably shows Danish for all Scandinavian language headers. I’m Norwegian but currently in Paris so it’s not IP based.
- stuffhq 8y agoHeja Sverige. My wife is Swedish. She told me you guys were ok with Danish ;-) Language switch is in the footer. Alternatively hit https://stuff.li/en https://stuff.li/en directly. Simon, Stuff.
- rlv-dan 8y agoWe can mostly understand it when reading but it really is not a good idea to default to danish for a multitude of reasons.
- below43 8y agoI recommend testing your responsive site on smaller mobiles (I’m on an iPhone SE and your site is too wide for the screen) Edit: it’s the “Create Invitation Now” button pushing the width out too much.
- stuffhq 8y agoThank you. I've spotted a few views that needs some love. Will have it fixed by Friday. Thank you for the heads-up. -Simon, Stuff.
- bruhbruhbruh 8y agoI'm confused by your event time fields, are they 24hr? I tried to enter in 2:33pm to 2:33pm and got validation errors.
- stuffhq 8y agoTime fields are 24hr. I don't have any issues entering 2:33pm/2:33pm in Chrome/Safari. Could you please try again and send me a screenshot on simon@stuff.li so we could have it resolved. Thank you. Simon, Stuff.
- wuliwong 8y agoI'm quite interested in this space, I have been for a while. In my experience, one problem with Facebook events is that when people aren't on Facebook they often just don't get invited. Would be great to see an alternative that got traction. I wish suffhq luck!
- kaycebasques 8y agoI like where you’re thinking is at. I see the opportunity. Best of luck!
- KerryJones 8y agoThis is a great idea and events are one of the things holding me on to FB, but the friction to signing up by not offering an option to OAuth (even for event creators). I don't want another email/account and potential leak in the future -- just let me oauth with Google/FB/LinkedIn, etc.
- stuffhq 8y agoWe are looking into Google/Linkedin Oauth. Not fans of Facebook, though... -Simon, Stuff.li
- TheShrug 8y agoI understand that you are not fans of Facebook. But couldn't this be a good opportunity to show Facebook users that there is an alternative out there? I'm just not sure that restricting users who primarily use Facebook oauth does any good, to me it feels like a wasted opportunity!
- prophesi 8y agoI think the only reason to include FB OAuth is if it allowed such users to integrate the service with FB Events (which, AFAIK, isn't possible with their current API). I'd say it's a given that FB users also use Google, and would be just as likely to use either service's OAuth.
- TheShrug 8y agoI think that's a safe assumption. Anecdotally though, I prefer to stick with one service and if I was offered options that didn't include my primary choice I might be reluctant to sign up. I just don't think that intentionally walling out a group of potential users is a great idea if you're trying to expand your audience. I tried to quickly find some numbers on distribution between them. Although I didn't find anything concrete, it seems to be Facebook > Google > LinkedIn. I would actually love to know more about this. Maybe someone with more experience has some more data?
- wyre 8y agoI realized 3 years ago Events is one of the strongest features keeping people on their Facebook accounts (besides Messenger). At least in towns with strong music scenes and going to shows is important to individuals. I started brainstorming features a competing service would have but unfortunately due to my lack of web development experience it never came to fruition. I might still have my notes somewhere. If I remember Ill look for them when I get home later. I think you have way to many words on your home page. This is a service catering towards events so that is what I want to see when I first come to your site. If I wanted words I would look them on your site, the service should be able to speak for itself. Also, someone already mentioned it, but your domain and your name aren‘t very good. Stuff makes me think im about to be sold something. "How did you hear about this event?" "I found it on Stuff" doesn't work very well imo. Being able to follow event creators and venues to learn about uncoming shows, and to follor my friends to know what events they are interested or going to. Opt-in notifications based on GeoIP to find out "Hey, my neighbor is having a yard sale!" Obviously, having the option to create private events that don‘t notify the neighborhood as well. Being able to post on the events to ask questions would also be an important feature. Ill double check my notes later to see if there's anything I didnt mention.
- stuffhq 8y agoHi, thanks a lot for your feedback and time. Much appreciated. We have had bunch of conversations re. call-to-actions vs. words vs. events. Initially we had loads of events on the frontpage - and everyone just thought we were a new version of Timeout without the option of creating your own private invitations. Feel free to drop me an email on simon@stuff.li if you want to chat further or share notes. Simon, Stuff.
- EGreg 8y agoI was going to show something similar, I think there is a huge space for it. But been done a lot of times. Google “The uphill battle of social event sharing” published by one of our advisors in 2009 or so. Maybe make it and sell it to festivals, like this: https://davosapp.com https://davosapp.com
- alphagrep12345 8y agoWhat's the difference between this and Eventbrite?
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- hernantz 8y agoEventbrite or meetup.com
- lquist 8y agoGenuine question: Did customers ask you to make this? I ask because to me (and it appears others in this thread) Events is one of FB’s best features because they own the social graph and I have no interest in a competing product unless if you own a better or equivalent graph.
- jamestimmins 8y agoVery cool! I like seeing people find ways to innovate in areas of social that are often just surrendered to FB. Also, just an encouragement to take the strong opinions here with a grain of salt. Obviously, you have a list of features you'd like to build at some point, many of which are likely mentioned in the comments. But HN may not overlap with your actual users very much, and is likely to have a different list of "must haves" than most folks. Make sure you talk to non-techies!
- ken 8y agoInteresting. I like the idea of splitting events away from the rest of the social network. Personally, I'd include surveys in that, like Doodle. Then I can start with a group of people, figure out what time works for us all, and then organize the event itself, all in the same place. It's odd to me that Facebook and others don't really support this. Facebook does have groups and surveys, but they don't work well at all for picking a date.
- yellow-gold 8y agoThe link to your privacy page is broken on the about page. https://stuff.li/en/about https://stuff.li/en/about
- stuffhq 8y agoThank you for the heads-up. Link has been changed. Simon, Stuff.
- bojanbabic 8y agoI love Events/Local, but would get off it in a heartbeat. I've looked at your app. Only Copenhagen and New York events are available. Do you plan to extend to other cities soon?
- stuffhq 8y agoCopenhagen and New York are just the very first cities we are covering. We will slowly extend over the next months. Just remember that public events can still be created outside these cities. -Simon, Stuff.
- exolymph 8y agoBookmarked for the next time I plan a get-together!
- nikolay 8y agoThere already a bunch of event management services such as evite, etc. Why is evite not a thing anymore? Because is not on Facebook. Even if people flee Facebook, it's still the best platform. Most of our events are on Facebook and are the most successful. It's not just about the contacts, it's also that once a confirm I'm attending an event, my friends see it, and learn about that event. You can't simulate this via email.