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It has no purpose. Once again, let me be the bad guy because nobody else will: it's not useful! The idea you have behind it is good, but you have done a shoddy
by maxklein 18y ago
It has no purpose. Once again, let me be the bad guy because nobody else will: it's not useful!
The idea you have behind it is good, but you have done a shoddy work of communicating it.
Think of it from the perspective of someone external to the page. I open it and see a bunch of pictures of beaches. I could go to google images and type beaches and I'd see the same thing. I'm never going to go to Turtle Island, I never heard of it, and I'm not interested in it.
So, what would be useful to me then? Imagine I could go there, and then click on my own city. Then I see a bunch of photos of obscure bars and fun places (and not the monument in the center of the city) then it would be useful. If I knew I was going to New Zealand in december, I could click on christchurch or something, and I'd instantly see the cool places to go to, then that would be useful.
I know you've had these ideas, the problem is that you presented the actual way to get to the useful stuff as very cumbersome and unclear. Instead, you're putting technical stuff on the front page like "tags", "tools", "KML feeds".
I have no idea what a KML feed is even though I'm a technical guy. And why in heavens name is OpenID the most important "feature" you support? Is that not a bit of a wrong setting of priorities?
"Cool Bookmarklet"? A bookmarklet that has a low temperature, or does this bookmarklet wear dark glasses and doesn't dance in the club?
Yes, I know I'm being rough on you here, but it's better to hear this stuff now before it becomes impossible to change.
You have had a great idea, but you need to communicate clearer. You're communicating too technically and you need to do it different. How you do it is up to you, I'm just making you aware of the fact.
- dcurtis 18y agoYou should mentally add "you idiot!" to the end of all your sentences. If the resulting sentence makes sense, rewrite it until it's so polite that adding those words doesn't make sense. Your points here are somewhat valid, though. I'm just irritated at reading your rants, thinking "wow, this guy is kind of mean," and then looking up and seeing "maxklein" as the username.
- maxklein 18y agoI know I'm a bit mean, but someone has to be the mean guy. Personally, I dislike this fake politeness and niceness that people hide behind all the time. It makes life boring. I'm just saying things the way I see them without sugercoating them at all, I'm not being mean for the sake of being mean. I'm just saying what's in my mind without trying to reformulate it such that the other guy does not get hurt. When I demo my own project, I hope others do the same. Because that will make me improve and change till I can hopefully finally make something that is just frickin great. I care about this stuff here, this is not my job, it's my art. Art has to be aesthetically pleasing, and you would not criticize someone for saying his honest opinion about a crap piece of art, would you? And I'm not saying that the project above is crap, it's actually quite good, but there are some things that are not right in my opinion. Niceness is overrated. If you're trying to make something great, then you need to feel the flames when you're small. That's what will mould you and make you into a hard mean money making machine. If everyone just pats you on the back and encourages you to "follow your dreams", then you'll end up making something that nobody wants. When people tell you straight to your face what they don't like about your project without trying to be all diplomatic and sparing your feelings, you have an opportunity to look at other peoples perspectives and improve and change things.
- iamdave 18y agoI think that was the most objective critique one could ask for a startup like this. He got right to the point of each topic and didn't beat around the bush just too say something.
- mechanical_fish 18y agoOnce there was a man who went on vacation and left his neighbor to take care of his house while he was away. One week into the vacation, the man phoned his neighbor. "How's it going?" he asked. "Well," said the neighbor, "I'm afraid your cat is dead." The man was, naturally, shocked and horrified. "That's terrible!" he said. "You shouldn't have just told me flat out like that. Couldn't you have broken it to me gently? You could have said something like, 'Well, your cat got stuck on the roof. We called the fire department to get him down, but the cat slipped and fell. He landed badly and was knocked unconscious. We rushed him to the vet, but there was nothing to be done, so I'm afraid we had to put him to sleep, and he went blissfully to heaven.'" Two weeks later the man called the neighbor again. "How's it going?" he asked. There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Then the neighbor said, "well, your mother-in-law got stuck on the roof..." --- Anyway, enough with the old jokes. What I'm trying to say is that I don't see anything wrong with maxklein's critique. It's not mean. It's just blunt. And it's barely even "Linus Torvalds blunt" -- it's certainly not "Philip Greenspun blunt", and it isn't even visible on the Steve Jobs bluntness scale. Maybe it could have been more elegantly blunt. I certainly aspire to that, but it's still better to be inelegantly blunt -- it's better to be inelegantly blunt and completely wrong, so long as you're being honest -- than it is to just say "gosh, it sure is a website! great job, guys!" and let the poor folks run the risk of being schooled, quietly and politely, by the market as they bleed to death over the course of two or three years.
- bnolan 18y agoawesome feedback thanks. i dont agree with everything but just saying i appreciate it.