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Thanks for your thoughts. > 1. Even assuming both person A and person B use the service within a week of each other, the odds that they both use the same hasta
by dougk16 8y ago
Thanks for your thoughts.
> 1. Even assuming both person A and person B use the service within a week of each other, the odds that they both use the same hastag are astronomically low. Person A says '#wannaGoOut', but person B says '#IWantToGoOut'. There are way too many possible permutations of a single thought.
My hope is that hashtags would become standardized, and hints (https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints https://aytwit.com/thoughter#hints) will also help with this.
> 3. Without an app, I think you'll have a hard time gaining critical mass. If someone has a thought and all it takes to get it out onto Thoughter is to (i) open the app, (ii) type, (iii) and send, then it will be way more likely to be used.
Totally agree. An app would also allow the service to avoid email, and allow encryption on the client-side without the server seeing any plain text at all. Definitely a goal.
> 5. What if I see a cute girl at a coffee store, we hit it off, but I don't have her email address - or even her name? What then?
Good question! I don't have an answer unfortunately. Guess you gotta do things the old-fashioned way. :)
- Karrot_Kream 8y agoWould you be open to piggybacking on existing encrypted messengers, like Telegram and Signal? Maybe even WhatsApp (not sure how their API works). You could also build bots on Matrix.
- dougk16 8y agoYes! This is in the future plans section: https://aytwit.com/about#technical_details__future_plans https://aytwit.com/about#technical_details__future_plans I agree email is so five minutes ago, but it was the easiest path to get started.
- ducttapecrown 8y agoSell this to Snapchat
- vermilingua 8y agoThis really does fit perfectly with Snapchat’s MO of plausible deniability in messaging; and could be exactly what they need to gain an edge against Instagram. Seconding talking to Snap.
- dougk16 8y agoHow would I go about that? I'm just a clueless engineer. What little I know of how the world works, is that they would just steal the idea if it were really attractive to them, and maybe give me a free T-shirt. Am I too jaded?
- snazz 8y agoA Snap engineer could theoretically see this post and steal the idea. It’s usually useless to go around trying to guard an idea. However, if you develop the service enough so that it would be inefficient to rebuild it completely from scratch, then they might pay you for the concept and the technology, which is real IP and can’t be ripped off quite so easily.
- tendencydriven 8y agoI'm fairly certain you'd need a user base before Snap were even remotely interested, or at least prove the idea. Build an app, get it out there, see whats up
- anbop 8y agoThe alternative is they do that and don’t give you the T-shirt.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoYou should consider a Progressive Web Application: requires SSL, and you can place this on the Apple and Google app stores. You just have to do a small and fair amount of JS witchcraft.
- dougk16 8y agoTo get the most out of a native app, I would want to do client-side encryption/hashing (right now the server sees plaintext for a millisecond, just like most servers treat passwords), and use mobile notifications instead of email, for the communication mechanism. Not saying a PWA wouldn't fit the bill, but unfortunately it's a bit beyond just wrapping it in a WebView and packaging as an app. I suppose as an MVP maybe? Just go get on the stores?
- dual_basis 8y agoYou can do client side encryption with javacript. Not sure if a PWA can do native notifications though.