5 ms·

Seems like YC will take anything with a few good people and buzzwords this day - ignoring the fact that there are 500 million social networks already... Seems b

by suking 15y ago

Seems like YC will take anything with a few good people and buzzwords this day - ignoring the fact that there are 500 million social networks already... Seems better suited as a fb app or something. Either way I personally have little use for this, it's called a calendar...

useflyer 15y ago
what differentiates whereberry from a calendar is that you can see all of your friends calendars, too. If you want your friends to see that you're going to the beerfest, it saves a conversation/invitation the trick will be curating or culling the feed, we all have a lot of FB friends
- suking 15y ago
  I'm not sold... If I want to see if my friend is going I'll IM or call or email them, this is almost an inconvenience.
  - kapilkale 15y ago
    If you want to see who out of your group of friends wants to watch a movie, are you really going to IM / call / email 25 people? Organizing stuff is a huge pain in the ass. Whereberry gets you doing stuff with people you wouldn't ordinarily have even contacted.
    - suking 15y ago
      I don't ever want to do something with 25 friends, that's more of a meetup.com type thing. I would usually have a few people in mind...
      - thomasgerbe 15y ago
        Agreed. If I want to see a movie, I already have a few friends who I know I could contact directly to see if they'd want to go. Same with going to restaurants or hiking. I might have 300+ friends on Facebook, but really, I like to spend time with maybe 10% of them on a weekly basis doing these type of activities.
        Marvin_Kennis 15y ago
        So I guess you share your photo's via email still? Really, theres only a few you know would be interested in seeing those, but you share them with all.
        thomasgerbe 15y ago
        There's a pretty big difference between sharing photos and going to an event with someone. I'm willing to share all my concert photos but I have a shortlist of people I'd be willing to spend hours at a concert with.
        Marvin_Kennis 15y ago
        @thomasgerbe You're correct and I get your point. My first statement didn't get out as intended. I think that with those services in its current form it's not so much about where it is now, but where it can get. Ofcourse you don't go out with the 300 friends you have on facebook. But those services aren't focused on such big networks; they are focused on the 25 people you do and can go out with and it is about sharing valuable information and having fun with those. Facebook is great for the 275 other ,,friends''. The network is smaller, but it's really more social.
- nickbaum 15y ago
  Hi, I'm the other cofounder of WhereBerry. Thanks for the feedback! dodo53 and useflyer's comments do a good job at explaining how WhereBerry is different from a calendar. WhereBerry is helpful for capturing ideas that aren't fully formed events yet – simply things you'd like to do. In fact, a lot of our items don't have a set date (movies, hikes, restaurants...). Once you know who's interested, it's easier to pick a date and organize it. Re:curation, for now you can unfollow people who post activities you're not interested in. As we get better data, we plan to add relevance ranking so manual trimming becomes less necessary.
dodo53 15y ago
I think social scheduling is not properly solved yet - mostly for me, this is either via facebook events (which is, I'm doing this, please show up) or email conversations (which get messy with lots of people). Like, I'd like to go out to the theatre with a good number of this group of friends - here are shows I'm interested in. This is when they're on (ideally event listing is provided via companies) Here's when I'm free. Here's what I'd pay. Collect that information from my friends and find a solution within constraints. Also - could lead to a targeted-groupon like business model (in your circle of friends, 2 people have said they really want to come to our restaurant. Convince 10 people and get 20% off! Someone's friends that already like a product are probably the best word of mouth you can get). Or advertising could be much better targeted if you say what you're planning on doing instead of what you have done. I had an idea like this once (and gave up cos I thought it was unlikely I'd pull it off - and I think I have a more reasonable idea to execute on) for a social-network travel agent. If you have hundreds of people giving you advance notification of their desires (I'd like to go skiing, for < £800, anywhere in the alps, with this group of people), travel agents could do collective purchases like booking entire chalets / chartering flights (a la Social Flights which also just hit HN headlines).
kmfrk 15y ago
Calendars are a model, not a specific realization. Facebook does it one way, Google another, and so forth. A lot of people have probably looked into social planning, but no one has done it very well so far. The execution is going to be all that matters with this, not the fluffy pitch about "social" and all that gunk.
alexsherrick 15y ago
I agree with suking, this would be much better as a FB app, something that could be part of your actual profile. It would be nice to see Wall, Info, Photos, Plans

by suking 15y ago

useflyer 15y ago

what differentiates whereberry from a calendar is that you can see all of your friends calendars, too. If you want your friends to see that you're going to the beerfest, it saves a conversation/invitation the trick will be curating or culling the feed, we all have a lot of FB friends

suking 15y ago
I'm not sold... If I want to see if my friend is going I'll IM or call or email them, this is almost an inconvenience.
- kapilkale 15y ago
  If you want to see who out of your group of friends wants to watch a movie, are you really going to IM / call / email 25 people? Organizing stuff is a huge pain in the ass. Whereberry gets you doing stuff with people you wouldn't ordinarily have even contacted.
  - suking 15y ago
    I don't ever want to do something with 25 friends, that's more of a meetup.com type thing. I would usually have a few people in mind...
    - thomasgerbe 15y ago
      Agreed. If I want to see a movie, I already have a few friends who I know I could contact directly to see if they'd want to go. Same with going to restaurants or hiking. I might have 300+ friends on Facebook, but really, I like to spend time with maybe 10% of them on a weekly basis doing these type of activities.
      - Marvin_Kennis 15y ago
        So I guess you share your photo's via email still? Really, theres only a few you know would be interested in seeing those, but you share them with all.
        thomasgerbe 15y ago
        There's a pretty big difference between sharing photos and going to an event with someone. I'm willing to share all my concert photos but I have a shortlist of people I'd be willing to spend hours at a concert with.
        Marvin_Kennis 15y ago
        @thomasgerbe You're correct and I get your point. My first statement didn't get out as intended. I think that with those services in its current form it's not so much about where it is now, but where it can get. Ofcourse you don't go out with the 300 friends you have on facebook. But those services aren't focused on such big networks; they are focused on the 25 people you do and can go out with and it is about sharing valuable information and having fun with those. Facebook is great for the 275 other ,,friends''. The network is smaller, but it's really more social.
nickbaum 15y ago
Hi, I'm the other cofounder of WhereBerry. Thanks for the feedback! dodo53 and useflyer's comments do a good job at explaining how WhereBerry is different from a calendar. WhereBerry is helpful for capturing ideas that aren't fully formed events yet – simply things you'd like to do. In fact, a lot of our items don't have a set date (movies, hikes, restaurants...). Once you know who's interested, it's easier to pick a date and organize it. Re:curation, for now you can unfollow people who post activities you're not interested in. As we get better data, we plan to add relevance ranking so manual trimming becomes less necessary.

dodo53 15y ago

I think social scheduling is not properly solved yet - mostly for me, this is either via facebook events (which is, I'm doing this, please show up) or email conversations (which get messy with lots of people). Like, I'd like to go out to the theatre with a good number of this group of friends - here are shows I'm interested in. This is when they're on (ideally event listing is provided via companies) Here's when I'm free. Here's what I'd pay. Collect that information from my friends and find a solution within constraints. Also - could lead to a targeted-groupon like business model (in your circle of friends, 2 people have said they really want to come to our restaurant. Convince 10 people and get 20% off! Someone's friends that already like a product are probably the best word of mouth you can get). Or advertising could be much better targeted if you say what you're planning on doing instead of what you have done. I had an idea like this once (and gave up cos I thought it was unlikely I'd pull it off - and I think I have a more reasonable idea to execute on) for a social-network travel agent. If you have hundreds of people giving you advance notification of their desires (I'd like to go skiing, for < £800, anywhere in the alps, with this group of people), travel agents could do collective purchases like booking entire chalets / chartering flights (a la Social Flights which also just hit HN headlines).

kmfrk 15y ago

Calendars are a model, not a specific realization. Facebook does it one way, Google another, and so forth. A lot of people have probably looked into social planning, but no one has done it very well so far. The execution is going to be all that matters with this, not the fluffy pitch about "social" and all that gunk.

alexsherrick 15y ago

I agree with suking, this would be much better as a FB app, something that could be part of your actual profile. It would be nice to see Wall, Info, Photos, Plans