6 ms·

From Idea (Saturday) to Build (Sunday) to TechCrunch (Tuesday). And Now?

65 points by mschenk 14y ago

jordn 14y ago
Neat! Feel a bit awkward tweeting at strangers though.
- Evbn 14y ago
  It is just like HN posting at strangers.
hmexx 14y ago
Both the idea, and how fast it all came together, is awesome. Great job! I wonder what twitter's reaction will be if this keeps growing, considering all the recent talk about them being hostile towards people making the most out of their API.
pkhamre 14y ago
Great idea! Keyboard shortcuts for the interface would be really nice, since I end up "nexting" a lot of questions before I tend to find one I want to answer.
relix 14y ago
Very impressive Maarten. I especially like your localisation efforts! The unique URL's fitting for each language are amazing. Do you feel this is a big boon to spread fast? Are you yourself a good speaker of those languages, or did you ask external help for the translations/domain name suggestions?
- mschenk 14y ago
  I speak Dutch, English and reasonable French. For German and Spanish: Google translate to the rescue :-)
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    It's probably not going to be very good then. :)
  - kleiba 14y ago
    To be honest, the German site (dufragst.es) reads exactly like that ;-) You might want to look into getting some translation help, some parts of the site sound quite unnatural.
mbenjaminsmith 14y ago
I punched through a dozen or so and 100% of those were rhetorical. You need to combine it with some NLP like Kevin's doing here: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/ http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/
- dutchbrit 14y ago
  I had a lot of rhetorical questions too. Also, Kevin's solution is not 100% waterproof - just looked through some "negative reviews" for ServInt and they weren't exactly negative. Maybe you could build a bayesian filter of some kind? (I'm not sure how Kevin filtered his reviews exactly?)
  - nadaviv 14y ago
    Maybe he could add a third button, "Not a question", classify each question into "answerable question" and "not a question" categories (according to which button the user clicks) and see which category new questions are classified into using a naive bayes classifier? I think it could work quite well
  - ohashi 14y ago
    Kevin here. No, it's not perfect and never will be. I definitely use a bayesian classifier in our process among other things. That said, if you see mistakes, please flag them! My system does get smarter with more data, so when people flag mistakes for us to correct, it makes a difference both immediately and in the long run. If you have any other thoughts/critiques/ideas please feel free to let me know :)
    - dutchbrit 14y ago
      No, thats perfect, it'll get better by time if it learns :)
thomasadavis 14y ago
Lady luck herself has bestowed this opportunity upon you. I concur the localisation efforts are fantastic. To keep traffic up, I would investigate turning each question and answer into a index-able page. So other people who Google the same questions might find luck in the twitter dialogue. Good luck!
dutchbrit 14y ago
Goed gedaan Maarten! Building a product in a weekend is always very cool, but to get on TechCrunch too is even better!!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
nurik 14y ago
I love it
ishener 14y ago
really liked it. just one thing: i'm not a native english speaker, so it takes me a little more time to tweet an answer. would be nice to have the timer to halt when typing...
alt_f4 14y ago
to bragging to HN (Friday)
tucson 14y ago
I got 5 questions in a row like 'Do you want to meet there at that time?' which were direct twitter messages to specific people. This needs more filtering as others have commented. It bugs me to see this on TechCrunch and HN when there are great submissions that did not get such opportunity (example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4804373 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4804373).
jcfrei 14y ago
nice to see this idea being picked up again. I had a similar idea quite a while ago (early 2010), although I didn't build it on top of the twitter API (which in retrospect might have been better). http://askcue.com http://askcue.com is still online and you can anonymously ask questions. btw. it seems that the site doesn't work atm.
smogzer 14y ago
you should define some filters for the target repliers and to notice that is a real question. e.g. #q.code.java . Listeners/repliers would subscribe those.
level09 14y ago
I wonder how they are not hitting the twitter API limits, probably fetching a whole bunch of questions and caching them ..
wilfra 14y ago
pretty fun for trolling strangers tbh i didn't come across one serious question though. just a bunch of random nonsense 'where do we go when we die??' 'should i go to sleep???' etc
cocoflunchy 14y ago
Did the app hit the Twitter API limits? I can't see any questions...
8ig8 14y ago
Direct link to subject site: http://youasked.it/ http://youasked.it/
crucio 14y ago
It would be good if you let us see what others have posted as responses - especially if they're funny!
- wilfra 14y ago
  you can see replies on twitter... i have gotten two so far: 'shut up' and 'thank you!'
meaty 14y ago
To shuttering next Friday if the current trend on here is adhered to.
- neurotech1 14y ago
  That is pessimistic to say the least. Time will tell how much traction it receives, and next steps for the project.
weisser 14y ago
I really like the idea. 30 seconds is intense and turns it into a game. A way to "cheat" is to hit reply and if you aren't signed into Twitter a window pops up with whatever you have typed in so far and gives you an infinite amount of time to finish your response. I answered 1/1 questions and it was about vibrato when singing. Now I'm having a discussion about it. Happy to help this person learn to improve their technique.
kami8845 14y ago
nice idea but right now the implementation is full of fail. I got 5 questions, none of which I could answer (directed at their friends / rhetorical) and then I got asked if "this was fun" and to tweet about youasked.it Please make sure that the user actually answers a single question before asking them to tell their friends how much fun they're having.
ccleve 14y ago
So how did you build it? What programming language, what tools? Where hosted? This is a very impressive project for only one day of work, so give us the details.
MicahWedemeyer 14y ago
Great idea and execution. Still, I'd really recommend ditching the ad at the bottom and focusing on perhaps a single call-to-action, like following on Twitter or liking on Facebook. I know it's tempting to try and monetize something like this but overall the ads and share buttons just kind of junk it up.
jeromegv 14y ago
The link to the French question page is not working http://repon.se http://repon.se
bravoyankee 14y ago
Monetize, improve, rinse and repeat.
polynomial 14y ago
My question: "What do they call turkeys in Turkey? #hmmm" (You have 30 seconds to answer.)

65 points by mschenk 14y ago

jordn 14y ago

Neat! Feel a bit awkward tweeting at strangers though.

Evbn 14y ago
It is just like HN posting at strangers.

hmexx 14y ago

Both the idea, and how fast it all came together, is awesome. Great job! I wonder what twitter's reaction will be if this keeps growing, considering all the recent talk about them being hostile towards people making the most out of their API.

pkhamre 14y ago

Great idea! Keyboard shortcuts for the interface would be really nice, since I end up "nexting" a lot of questions before I tend to find one I want to answer.

relix 14y ago

Very impressive Maarten. I especially like your localisation efforts! The unique URL's fitting for each language are amazing. Do you feel this is a big boon to spread fast? Are you yourself a good speaker of those languages, or did you ask external help for the translations/domain name suggestions?

mschenk 14y ago
I speak Dutch, English and reasonable French. For German and Spanish: Google translate to the rescue :-)
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  It's probably not going to be very good then. :)
- kleiba 14y ago
  To be honest, the German site (dufragst.es) reads exactly like that ;-) You might want to look into getting some translation help, some parts of the site sound quite unnatural.

mbenjaminsmith 14y ago

I punched through a dozen or so and 100% of those were rhetorical. You need to combine it with some NLP like Kevin's doing here: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/ http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/

dutchbrit 14y ago
I had a lot of rhetorical questions too. Also, Kevin's solution is not 100% waterproof - just looked through some "negative reviews" for ServInt and they weren't exactly negative. Maybe you could build a bayesian filter of some kind? (I'm not sure how Kevin filtered his reviews exactly?)
- nadaviv 14y ago
  Maybe he could add a third button, "Not a question", classify each question into "answerable question" and "not a question" categories (according to which button the user clicks) and see which category new questions are classified into using a naive bayes classifier? I think it could work quite well
- ohashi 14y ago
  Kevin here. No, it's not perfect and never will be. I definitely use a bayesian classifier in our process among other things. That said, if you see mistakes, please flag them! My system does get smarter with more data, so when people flag mistakes for us to correct, it makes a difference both immediately and in the long run. If you have any other thoughts/critiques/ideas please feel free to let me know :)
  - dutchbrit 14y ago
    No, thats perfect, it'll get better by time if it learns :)

thomasadavis 14y ago

Lady luck herself has bestowed this opportunity upon you. I concur the localisation efforts are fantastic. To keep traffic up, I would investigate turning each question and answer into a index-able page. So other people who Google the same questions might find luck in the twitter dialogue. Good luck!

dutchbrit 14y ago

Goed gedaan Maarten! Building a product in a weekend is always very cool, but to get on TechCrunch too is even better!!

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

nurik 14y ago

I love it

ishener 14y ago

really liked it. just one thing: i'm not a native english speaker, so it takes me a little more time to tweet an answer. would be nice to have the timer to halt when typing...

alt_f4 14y ago

to bragging to HN (Friday)

tucson 14y ago

I got 5 questions in a row like 'Do you want to meet there at that time?' which were direct twitter messages to specific people. This needs more filtering as others have commented. It bugs me to see this on TechCrunch and HN when there are great submissions that did not get such opportunity (example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4804373 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4804373).

jcfrei 14y ago

nice to see this idea being picked up again. I had a similar idea quite a while ago (early 2010), although I didn't build it on top of the twitter API (which in retrospect might have been better). http://askcue.com http://askcue.com is still online and you can anonymously ask questions. btw. it seems that the site doesn't work atm.

smogzer 14y ago

you should define some filters for the target repliers and to notice that is a real question. e.g. #q.code.java . Listeners/repliers would subscribe those.

level09 14y ago

I wonder how they are not hitting the twitter API limits, probably fetching a whole bunch of questions and caching them ..

wilfra 14y ago

pretty fun for trolling strangers tbh i didn't come across one serious question though. just a bunch of random nonsense 'where do we go when we die??' 'should i go to sleep???' etc

cocoflunchy 14y ago

Did the app hit the Twitter API limits? I can't see any questions...

8ig8 14y ago

Direct link to subject site: http://youasked.it/ http://youasked.it/

crucio 14y ago

It would be good if you let us see what others have posted as responses - especially if they're funny!

wilfra 14y ago
you can see replies on twitter... i have gotten two so far: 'shut up' and 'thank you!'

meaty 14y ago

To shuttering next Friday if the current trend on here is adhered to.

neurotech1 14y ago
That is pessimistic to say the least. Time will tell how much traction it receives, and next steps for the project.

weisser 14y ago

I really like the idea. 30 seconds is intense and turns it into a game. A way to "cheat" is to hit reply and if you aren't signed into Twitter a window pops up with whatever you have typed in so far and gives you an infinite amount of time to finish your response. I answered 1/1 questions and it was about vibrato when singing. Now I'm having a discussion about it. Happy to help this person learn to improve their technique.

kami8845 14y ago

nice idea but right now the implementation is full of fail. I got 5 questions, none of which I could answer (directed at their friends / rhetorical) and then I got asked if "this was fun" and to tweet about youasked.it Please make sure that the user actually answers a single question before asking them to tell their friends how much fun they're having.

ccleve 14y ago

So how did you build it? What programming language, what tools? Where hosted? This is a very impressive project for only one day of work, so give us the details.

MicahWedemeyer 14y ago

Great idea and execution. Still, I'd really recommend ditching the ad at the bottom and focusing on perhaps a single call-to-action, like following on Twitter or liking on Facebook. I know it's tempting to try and monetize something like this but overall the ads and share buttons just kind of junk it up.

jeromegv 14y ago

The link to the French question page is not working http://repon.se http://repon.se

bravoyankee 14y ago

Monetize, improve, rinse and repeat.

polynomial 14y ago

My question: "What do they call turkeys in Turkey? #hmmm" (You have 30 seconds to answer.)