5 ms·

Ask HN: Review my startup, circcle.com

6 points by Circcle 14y ago

Hi, we are looking for feedback on circcle.com, a site focusing on news videos. We monitor world's major news agencies for videos on the latest stories, and sort them out by channels and events. Users can also personalize news feed. Thanks for your help.

caffeinewriter 14y ago
Hmm, nice looking site. There are a few things that irk me with the layout though. 1. The header layout bugs the hell out of me. The logo, tagline, then the login button feel more like a blog post than a header. A little more emphasis on the logo, a little less on the tagline. Shorten it up, make it concise. Something short enough to be interesting, yet long enough to make a point. I know that's kind of general, but that's just my thought. 2. Make it responsive! If I resize my window, it should resize with it. 3. Utilize the space! You have a whole window to work with, use it! Whitespace is dead space. That kind of goes with the responsiveness of the site, because if you had a grid layout that would expand and contract with the view, you'd have a lot more of an effective use of space. Overall, great site.
- pedalpete 14y ago
  I'm going to disagree with caffeinewriter while I sip my coffee. 1) I agree the header could use some work. Having the facebook login below and your full tagline description in a fairly boring font and colors just doesn't to it for me. I'd work on this area, as it is a glaring issue with the design of your site. 2)You could make it responsive, but only to a certain point. Is 3 columns of videos too much? 4? 5? do some a/b testing and see if a certain column size results in more videos watched. Also, where you have a single video per line, if you did make it responsive, would all the text end up on one line, and therefore leave empty space next to the video? 3) I completely disagree here. Whites pace is an important design element. I think you've used it well. Now for my further comments. 1) the share buttons are awkward as you have them spread out across one long line. I'd keep them close together, and play with the positioning. You'd likely automatically assume that the left hand side is the best spot, but that may not be the case. I think the far-right, and offset from the video might work, or inline with the video player. I suspect the more these are squeezed together, the more impact they'll have. They just seem to be floating around disconnected from the content at this time. 2) I like how your top two items show how many videos are related to that story. It is a signal in some ways of the importance/popularity of that story. But why don't the other videos on the page have the same display? I'd like to see some consistency in that.
  - caffeinewriter 14y ago
    I'm also rethinking my whitespace comment. And quite insightful.
  - Circcle 14y ago
    Pedalpete, we think notes next to videos are very important, as they help users decide whether they want to spend time to watch videos. They also serve as news headlines, so people can get the basic info right from them. This is why we decide to pay it safe by showing one video per line, so we are sure we will have enough room for the title and note. Regarding those buttons, if we move them closer to the content above, will it make them less "disconnected"? We put the comment button on the left side because it is closer to where users start to write comments. To your last point, the two pictures represent stories, which are collections of videos of the same events, like "US gun control debate". The video boxes below are the latest videos of each channel, which are much broader by definition, like "US news". Channels help people navigate through content and subscribe, and stories provides in-depth and consistent info. Together they create a 2-dimension matrix of content at Circcle. We currently have 9 channels, and 20 stories. The number of channels will be stable, but we will create new stories quite frequently. There needs a way to convey the difference between "story" and "channel" on the sign-in people, so users are not confused because of inconsistency. Very good feedback. Thanks.
- Circcle 14y ago
  caffeinewriter, thinks for your feedback. At this point, we haven't really put too many thoughts on header design yet - the idea is to get something out acap to show our core concept, which is a channel-story matrix of news videos from professional agencies, supported by an auto-human process. That said, we agree it is important and needs to be addressed. Responsive page design is on our to-do list, but may not come very soon, as our current top priority is - expand news video supply through automation, and - enhance personalization capabilities I hope you like our mobile site, which works well on IPHONE, but has some issues with some Androids.
damian2000 14y ago
My two cents, nothing major... - I don't 'get' your logo. What is the round thing - a balloon or a speech bubble? The colour is a poor choice. Why the two CCs. - Have you tried having the logo outlined in black or something, to make it stand out a bit. - Other than the logo, I like the layout - simple and easy to use.
- Circcle 14y ago
  The logo is really a home-made product by our developer, which has no design degree. We are not satisfied with it, and hope it won't drive people away. At some point, we will definitely re-visit this issue.
wingerlang 14y ago
Serious question here. How is this a startup? I thought "startups" were some form of business that has just been started. This seems to me just like any other little website.
- pedalpete 14y ago
  By your qualification, youtube, facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, pinterest, skype, tumblr, google and more, would not have been considered 'startups' because none of them had a business model at the time they were created.
- Circcle 14y ago
  The idea behind Circcle is to create a new way for people to get news. - with due respect to citizen journalists, we focus exclusively on news videos from professional agencies. - we think a balanced/unbiased view is important, so we collect videos from multiple sources and put them next to each other for viewers to decide what to believe, which also saves people's time to go to different websites or keep switching TV channels. Diversity is valuable when it comes to information business. - we think mobile is the future, so we focus on getting the basic operations right and keep things as simple as possible. Circcle's mobile site allows people to browse and watch videos on the same page, instead of opening up a new page for video playing.
slajax 14y ago
Link or it didn't happen.
- Circcle 14y ago
  ???
  - slajax 14y ago
    There is no link bro.
    - Circcle 14y ago
      www.circcle.com
dobbsbob 14y ago
Too American-centric. Also didn't the news corps get all uppity with google because they weren't sending traffic to their pages, since google was summarizing most of the article on google news for free thus denying them traffic? Your site also does this I suspect you will be receiving lot's of letters from newscorp and cnn saying stop, though am thankful for youtube videos instead of being greeted by 'not available in your geographical location'
- Circcle 14y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. 1. In fact there are 391 US news videos and 727 world news videos. We are also evaluting the idea to break"World news" into several buckets like EU news, Asia news, etc. 2. Those websites laready loss the traffic to youtube, not us.

6 points by Circcle 14y ago

caffeinewriter 14y ago

Hmm, nice looking site. There are a few things that irk me with the layout though. 1. The header layout bugs the hell out of me. The logo, tagline, then the login button feel more like a blog post than a header. A little more emphasis on the logo, a little less on the tagline. Shorten it up, make it concise. Something short enough to be interesting, yet long enough to make a point. I know that's kind of general, but that's just my thought. 2. Make it responsive! If I resize my window, it should resize with it. 3. Utilize the space! You have a whole window to work with, use it! Whitespace is dead space. That kind of goes with the responsiveness of the site, because if you had a grid layout that would expand and contract with the view, you'd have a lot more of an effective use of space. Overall, great site.

pedalpete 14y ago
I'm going to disagree with caffeinewriter while I sip my coffee. 1) I agree the header could use some work. Having the facebook login below and your full tagline description in a fairly boring font and colors just doesn't to it for me. I'd work on this area, as it is a glaring issue with the design of your site. 2)You could make it responsive, but only to a certain point. Is 3 columns of videos too much? 4? 5? do some a/b testing and see if a certain column size results in more videos watched. Also, where you have a single video per line, if you did make it responsive, would all the text end up on one line, and therefore leave empty space next to the video? 3) I completely disagree here. Whites pace is an important design element. I think you've used it well. Now for my further comments. 1) the share buttons are awkward as you have them spread out across one long line. I'd keep them close together, and play with the positioning. You'd likely automatically assume that the left hand side is the best spot, but that may not be the case. I think the far-right, and offset from the video might work, or inline with the video player. I suspect the more these are squeezed together, the more impact they'll have. They just seem to be floating around disconnected from the content at this time. 2) I like how your top two items show how many videos are related to that story. It is a signal in some ways of the importance/popularity of that story. But why don't the other videos on the page have the same display? I'd like to see some consistency in that.
- caffeinewriter 14y ago
  I'm also rethinking my whitespace comment. And quite insightful.
- Circcle 14y ago
  Pedalpete, we think notes next to videos are very important, as they help users decide whether they want to spend time to watch videos. They also serve as news headlines, so people can get the basic info right from them. This is why we decide to pay it safe by showing one video per line, so we are sure we will have enough room for the title and note. Regarding those buttons, if we move them closer to the content above, will it make them less "disconnected"? We put the comment button on the left side because it is closer to where users start to write comments. To your last point, the two pictures represent stories, which are collections of videos of the same events, like "US gun control debate". The video boxes below are the latest videos of each channel, which are much broader by definition, like "US news". Channels help people navigate through content and subscribe, and stories provides in-depth and consistent info. Together they create a 2-dimension matrix of content at Circcle. We currently have 9 channels, and 20 stories. The number of channels will be stable, but we will create new stories quite frequently. There needs a way to convey the difference between "story" and "channel" on the sign-in people, so users are not confused because of inconsistency. Very good feedback. Thanks.
Circcle 14y ago
caffeinewriter, thinks for your feedback. At this point, we haven't really put too many thoughts on header design yet - the idea is to get something out acap to show our core concept, which is a channel-story matrix of news videos from professional agencies, supported by an auto-human process. That said, we agree it is important and needs to be addressed. Responsive page design is on our to-do list, but may not come very soon, as our current top priority is - expand news video supply through automation, and - enhance personalization capabilities I hope you like our mobile site, which works well on IPHONE, but has some issues with some Androids.

damian2000 14y ago

My two cents, nothing major... - I don't 'get' your logo. What is the round thing - a balloon or a speech bubble? The colour is a poor choice. Why the two CCs. - Have you tried having the logo outlined in black or something, to make it stand out a bit. - Other than the logo, I like the layout - simple and easy to use.

Circcle 14y ago
The logo is really a home-made product by our developer, which has no design degree. We are not satisfied with it, and hope it won't drive people away. At some point, we will definitely re-visit this issue.

wingerlang 14y ago

Serious question here. How is this a startup? I thought "startups" were some form of business that has just been started. This seems to me just like any other little website.

pedalpete 14y ago
By your qualification, youtube, facebook, twitter, instagram, yahoo, pinterest, skype, tumblr, google and more, would not have been considered 'startups' because none of them had a business model at the time they were created.
Circcle 14y ago
The idea behind Circcle is to create a new way for people to get news. - with due respect to citizen journalists, we focus exclusively on news videos from professional agencies. - we think a balanced/unbiased view is important, so we collect videos from multiple sources and put them next to each other for viewers to decide what to believe, which also saves people's time to go to different websites or keep switching TV channels. Diversity is valuable when it comes to information business. - we think mobile is the future, so we focus on getting the basic operations right and keep things as simple as possible. Circcle's mobile site allows people to browse and watch videos on the same page, instead of opening up a new page for video playing.

slajax 14y ago

Link or it didn't happen.

Circcle 14y ago
???
- slajax 14y ago
  There is no link bro.
  - Circcle 14y ago
    www.circcle.com

dobbsbob 14y ago

Too American-centric. Also didn't the news corps get all uppity with google because they weren't sending traffic to their pages, since google was summarizing most of the article on google news for free thus denying them traffic? Your site also does this I suspect you will be receiving lot's of letters from newscorp and cnn saying stop, though am thankful for youtube videos instead of being greeted by 'not available in your geographical location'

Circcle 14y ago
Thanks for the feedback. 1. In fact there are 391 US news videos and 727 world news videos. We are also evaluting the idea to break"World news" into several buckets like EU news, Asia news, etc. 2. Those websites laready loss the traffic to youtube, not us.