11 ms·

Show HN: It's hard to make friends offline, so we built a solution

104 points by njoglekar 13y ago

willchilcutt 13y ago
Clicking the "Get started with Facebook" quickly opens and then closes a popup. I'm guessing this is the "authenticate with your account" popup, but it closes too quickly to even do anything. EDIT: Thanks for the support, this issue was quickly fixed.
- njoglekar 13y ago
  Whoops, fixed. Thanks!
  - intellegacy 13y ago
    still not working. Signed up, answered your questions, back at the main page
    - willchilcutt 13y ago
      I just talked to help: letsbeamigos: we got it letsbeamigos: when we have matches we'll email you letsbeamigos: with an activity
- guptaneil 13y ago
  Similar problem for me, except it doesn't even open the popup. The page just scrolls to the top and a # gets appended to the URL. Looks like some Javescript listener is failing to fire. I'm using Safari 6 on Mac OS 10.8 if that helps.
  - njoglekar 13y ago
    Think we fixed this too, can you try again?
    - guptaneil 13y ago
      It's still not working for me. I even tried emptying cache, but no luck.
bitwize 13y ago
AIMED AT PEOPLE LOOKING TO MEET OTHER REAL ACTUAL HUMANS OFFLINE [Scumbag LetsBeAmigos] PRESUMES THE USER HAS A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT
- whatshisface 13y ago
  Just a tip, HN frowns on memes and other low-density information formats. (treating it like reddit will result in lots of downvotes)
  - scott_s 13y ago
    Indeed, but to my surprise, the poster has been here longer than I have (over 5 years).
- guptaneil 13y ago
  I see this comment every time somebody posts a social product on HN, and I'm not sure why. It adds no value to the discussion, and isn't even good feedback. The number of people looking to socialize but don't have a FB account is small enough that requiring FB for an MVP is perfectly reasonable. If the platform takes off, the OP can add their own login system as well. By refusing to have a Facebook account, you have willingly chosen to avoid a large portion of the web's social layer. Don't complain when you can't use a social product then.
  - josephhardin 13y ago
    It's not that we don't have a facebook account, but rather that we don't want to have another app tangled in with all of our facebook data.
    - guptaneil 13y ago
      That is a different concern, and is expressed in the current top comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5781522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5781522), which I upvoted. The comment that I replied to only bemoaned the assumption that they have a FB account. I think that is a perfectly reasonable assumption. Now, whether the product provides enough value for me to want to give them my Facebook details is a different question.
27182818284 13y ago
Don't offer one way to log in. At least give the standard Facebook/Twitter choice. It doesn't make any sense to have a site to help people be more social but then only offer it to people who are social...
- njoglekar 13y ago
  Coming soon...
jcomis 13y ago
What if you don't keep track of your interests on Facebook? Or you don't have one, or want to use your FB account? No other option?
- njoglekar 13y ago
  So at this point, FB is a huge help to help gauge your interests. We do also let you enter a few activities you like to do after signup. Lastly, for now wanted to dodge anonymous signups. Won't be much fun to set you up with people that are not real.
trevmckendrick 13y ago
I filled out all the info, clicked submit, and then it just took me back to the homepage. :( Looks interesting though. I was just talking to my wife about this problem the other day.
- njoglekar 13y ago
  hmm small glitch we are fixing, it should say: Thanks our matchmakers and algorithms are hard at work to find the perfect matches for you. We will email you soon.
  - njoglekar 13y ago
    We should have just fixed this, can someone try and let us know?
    - abstractbill 13y ago
      Worked for me just now.
adambard 13y ago
Whenever I see a button that says "sign in with Facebook," I just close the tab immediately. Am I the only one who does this? What's wrong with just having me fill out a survey of my interests if that's what you want? Facebook is the only account that I keep to myself and people who know me. My Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Github and all the other stuff I can't remember, all exist to connect me to people I've never met. I'd way rather use one of those than Facebook.
- sophacles 13y ago
  I do that too. I find it absurd, because no matter how cool the founders claim to be, or how much they promise not to spam my friends or write all over my fb page, they will, and they will do so without the slightest understanding of why I might not want it. So yeah, I get you. To the "lets be amigos" people: stop it please. I might think you had a good idea, had you not followed a path so closely associated with the scum of the internet.
  - subpixel 13y ago
    I also stopped dead in my tracks when I saw FB signup. But I'd appreciate the choice of using FB or filling out a quick survey. I'm also willing to bet money that, faced with actually filling out a survey, many people otherwise reluctant to sign in with FB will just do it.
    - njoglekar 13y ago
      I like your thinking the problem is that we really need both: 1. identity + likes / interests 2. filling out activities as a backup in case they don't have interests on FB
      - paglia_s 13y ago
        My likes on facebook doesn't reflect my interests, I don't care much to them and I think it's the same for many other people.
    - 13y ago
abuiles 13y ago
I really like the concept, I was thinking on something like this a while ago, but it was around the concept of going out to dinner with someone, sometimes you want to try a new restaurant but your friends are maybe busy or they don't fancy the food, even though you could go on your own, eating alone is not always fun.
- njoglekar 13y ago
  Thanks, we think dinner is a good idea but so are other activities (playing a sport, computer game, or whatever)
iterationx 13y ago
I think its hard to make friends, because people only feel fulfilled when they are working. This is demonstrated by the fact all these billionaires are still working and they are not content to just be leisurely. Therefore, the premise that you like baseball and I like baseball, so we should just hang out, will feel kind of pointless. That's why I don't think anyone has really nailed this market. I think a better take on this would be, you want to publish a comic book, and I want to publish a comic book, so we should work on our projects and hang out. Or you want to run a 5K and I want to run a 5K so lets meetup and practice this together.
- njoglekar 13y ago
  You nailed it, this is where we are headed. Love to chat more about how you think we can get there.
  - ckozlowski 13y ago
    May want to take a look at "atthepool.com" then.
    - alexcaps 13y ago
      My thoughts exactly.
  - iterationx 13y ago
    I think something like, "I am going to be working on my comic from 7-9 at this coffee shop, broadcast this "ad" to people like comics that have the following characteristics [male | female | doesn't matter], politics [ x,y,doesn't matter]" You sometimes could have an open ended invite, and sometimes you would have to have both parties agree to meeting before hand, like in the case of restaurant reservations.
    - njoglekar 13y ago
      I think that open ended invitations leave too much room for cancellation / a poor experience. But, perhaps other people might feel this is not an issue. Any feedback?
mongol 13y ago
This is nothing against you, but I don't trust websites that request personal info but where it is unclear who is behind. © Let's Be Amigos 2013 What is Let's Be Amigos? Who is behind? A company or a person? Please give some more details.
CJefferson 13y ago
I really you might be interested in 'Minimal Viable Product', but really, I think this is below Viable. Why ask for my Facebook if you are then going to ask where I love, and my interests, afterwards? Do you realise how limiting it seems to ask if I live in: Palo Alto, CA San Franciso, CA Somewhere else
- vec 13y ago
  Yeah, feels like it's targeting the people who need this service least. Bay area is geek central, or so it's reputation suggests. I just moved to Albuquerque, which is beautiful and scenic and has no existing nerd scene. A tool like this would be incredible for finding or building one, though. I don't mean to be the "but what about my edge case" guy, but it really does seem like your target audience is going to be denser when you get into cities that don't have thoroughly saturated tech scenes already. p.s. If there are any HN types in the ABQ/Santa Fe area, please reply and we can grab lunch sometime.
  - njoglekar 13y ago
    We have some ABQ signups, you should be amigos with them :)
  - greghinch 13y ago
    > Yeah, feels like it's targeting the people who need this service least. Bay area is geek central, or so it's reputation suggests Just because there are lots of similarly-minded people in the same area as you doesn't mean it's easy to make friends with them. A lot of people relocated to the bay area every month, a service like this would be great for them. Certainly falls under the category of "solving problems of SV 20 somethings" though :P
  - ByronT 13y ago
    Los Alamos here!
grannyg00se 13y ago
Facebook required so you know my interests? Facebook doesn't know my interests. Or...unfortunately maybe facebook does know my interests but not because I've deliberately divulged them. In any case, it would be much better to ask me directly. For friend-making through common interests I use meetup.com
- njoglekar 13y ago
  Has it worked well for you? Do you like going to activities already scheduled or do you think there is value in having people found for specifically you?
  - lmm 13y ago
    I think the big advantage of meetup is a lower "creepy factor". If I'm going to a scheduled, planned event to do something specific then that has natural boundaries - and then often a subset will go to the pub afterwards where things get a bit more informal, but you're under no pressure if you don't want to. I do like this idea because making new friends is hard, but I'm worried meeting people who have been "matched" with me would turn awkward.
    - njoglekar 13y ago
      Love to get your thoughts on our about page. Does this make it seem less creepy? We want to de-creepyify this as much as possible!
sukuriant 13y ago
What does this offer that Meetup.com doesn't?
- njoglekar 13y ago
  Our goal is to actually find people that we think would be a good match for you. With meetup.com you are signing up for an activity. Here we are finding people that you should be friends with and setting up an activity. Like a friend matchmaker.
  - hawkharris 13y ago
    Every friendship I've ever established has been based on some activity: sharing an office, playing sports, watching a movie, etc. And I don't think I'm unique in this respect. Meeting a person solely for the person of selecting him or her sounds very specific to dating. I think your project is interesting and has a lot of potential — I'm just pointing out that, by downplaying activities, you may be expecting a type of socializing that's unnatural to many people, especially if you hope to differentiate yourself from dating sites.
    - njoglekar 13y ago
      We totally agree. When we make a match of 4 people we send them on an activity. Perhaps we need to make that clearer in the messaging - where would you like us to say something like that?
DanBC 13y ago
Hello! I like the idea! I hope this is constructive. I signed up with facebook. The next page asked me what my location was. I thought that was a bit odd, because what's the point of giving you access to all my FB stuff? So, I drop down the thingy and there are 2 towns, both in California. Well, it's brand new so I kind of expected that. But I have no idea how to enter my location. Do I just put my town name? Or town name, county? Or town name, UK? Or what? So, I guess at town and UK. The next three boxes ask me for some things I've done recently. Eh, I really don't do much. It might be worth giving people a grid of ideas as suggestions?
- njoglekar 13y ago
  Hi Dan, Well one issue is that you can work in one city and live in another. That may not be reflected in Facebook. We didn't think about town vs. county vs. city. Suggestions are a great idea. Thanks.
Dewie 13y ago
I'm from Northern Europe and the problem with making friends is that you have to have an excuse to make friends - there has to be a pretense. Sure, a lot of sports, volunteer work, hobbies and so on and so forth emphasize that you will get to socialize, but you don't get away from the fact that you have to have some kind of pretext to meet new people.
- njoglekar 13y ago
  hopefully we can help with that!
  - solnyshok 13y ago
    I doubt it. Working against social habits is an uphill battle that even facebook cannot afford.
- aneth4 13y ago
  How is that a problem? Go out and do something.
  - Dewie 13y ago
    It is a problem because you necessarily need to take the whole pretext as well - which is fine if you really like that pretext, less so if you don't. Maybe someone just wanted to meet new people and so she got a volunteer job for some organization. Now she has the job and has made some friends, but the job is weighing her down, because it turns out that she didn't care for that job in itself. "But", you say, "she could just find something she likes", but that might not be so easy. In her case, she needed to commit to a job, and it is often something of an investment like that when it comes to these pretexts - it's not merely a question of "casually drop by that thing I do whenever I feel like it, but I've committed to noone about doing with any regularity". Hopefully she can quit her job and still maintain her friendships - but people also tend to compartmentalize, and without something like a common job, there isn't necessarily a compartment for her anymore. I am not talking about merely needing to do something together to meet new people. I'm not talking about going down to the court and asking random people to shoot some hoops, and basketball being the pretext. I'm talking about "we need to work together or have met in some context where it was clear that we had stuff to do other than make friends with each other". There might not need to be a pretext after a friendship is established, but you sometimes need to get over that hurdle.
dm2 13y ago
1st: the Facebook only login is a HUGE turnoff for many people. 2nd: Videos need HTML5 support. If the Facebook issue is that you are wanting real people, then maybe you could create a "confidence" score for people to identify their trustworthiness, or maybe some kind of ratings system. Confirming a phone number or school email would also be a good alternative to the facebook requirement.
- davidw 13y ago
  > Facebook only login is a HUGE turnoff for many people. ... on hacker news. And in the rest of the populace? Not so sure.
  - dm2 13y ago
    You might be right, but the site being displayed seems to be primarily for more introverted people, which are already likely to be shy/cautious. I've never offered facebook exclusively on a site because of the fear that a smaller percentage of people will signup. After building facebook, mobile, and web apps for a long time, I'm extremely cautious about the internet. I recommend to friends and family "don't add or download any apps, don't use IE7, and don't put anything on the internet that you wouldn't want in your biography." Until you've built a facebook app you'd never think that your friends added apps have extended permissions to your profile.
    - ambrop7 13y ago
      And shy people may not even have a FB account (like me).
  - callahad 13y ago
    I should really keep these links handy, but real-world user testing generally shows a pretty strong aversion to Facebook Connect. Here's at least one paper that studied informed consent with Facebook auth: http://www.guanotronic.com/~serge/papers/chi13a.pdf http://www.guanotronic.com/~serge/papers/chi13a.pdf
    - 13y ago
mindcrime 13y ago
I'm not as opposed to the Facebook signin thing as a lot of people here seem to be, in that I don't consider Facebook "private". My default assumption is "if it's actually private, it doesn't get posted on Facebook". IOW, Facebook is mostly just a big online Rolodex to me. BUT... I am opposed to having only Facebook login, just because it's not an open standard, and it isn't part of the Open Web. I'd argue for supporting, at a minimum, OpenID as an alternative.
drum 13y ago
In defense of the Facebook sign up, how about issues of safety? Meeting a stranger online can be risky. Forcing signup via Facebook helps provide data that users can use to perform a due diligence on the strangers they might be meeting. It helps hold people accountable if they do decide to do something malicious offline. Perhaps LinkedIn might be better, but I don't see a problem with utilizing some sort of identity related social sign up for this idea.
robertwalsh0 13y ago
The 'new to the area' headline has a white text shadow on the already white text that makes the content blurry and hard to read. You probably want to turn off the text shadow there.
grrrando 13y ago
Hey njoglekar - your window-fixed "Contact Us" bug is covering up your copyright in the bottom right. And the white text shadow on your main headline and some buttons is rendering poorly in Chrome 27 on a MBPr.
orangethirty 13y ago
I immediately thought about the old sega game called samba de amigo. Cool name.
wellboy 13y ago
This is a great idea, however probably the 5th time this has been on Hackernews this year. Again, there are 100 startups all trying the same thing and it just doesn't work, because you have incredibly high critical mass and no marketing channel. Examples: Spontacts, Woofound, Matewire, Activepepper Hope that helped.
eyeareque 13y ago
I don't have a facebook. I guess this site isn't for people like me.
bluetidepro 13y ago
> REAL-LIFE FRIENDS, NOT FACEBOOK FRIENDS OR LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS. ..."GET STARTED WITH FACEBOOK" button on the same page. Do you not see the irony in your tagline?
- raymondduke 13y ago
  My thoughts exactly.
  - njoglekar 13y ago
    Well we aren't introducing you to your Facebook friends so I'm not sure I see it.
wallacrw 13y ago
You need to move that Facebook button much higher on the page. I had to scroll to see it, and I have a larger than average screen.
njloof 13y ago
Can't I just make friends on Facebook? This is silly.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
petersouth 13y ago
Don't mind all the negative comments. The idea and website are cool!
alexcaps 13y ago
Sounds like At The Pool -- http://atthepool.com http://atthepool.com
raymondduke 13y ago
It's not that I am against signing up with Facebook, it's just that every service I've used with a FB login claims to help make oneself more social; however, that is hardly ever the case. As for wanting to meet people in my area with similar interests, I'll stick to using Meetup. Additionally, here is some advice from someone who runs their own Meetup group. My coffee and conversation group is over a month old and has over 50 members. Only about 20% sign up for a Meetup and about 75% actually show. These are rough estimates, but from people I talk to that host events, they have similar results. I think you'll find that once you set up these "meets" with 4 people, usually not all 4 will show up. I guess if you had them prepay, they would be more inclined to... but anyway, good luck!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kyro 13y ago
Welcome to HN, where showing your work gets you a "fuck off", "scumbag", and "scum of the earth", all without an iota of positive feedback or constructive criticism! What a brilliant community, indeed!
- shortstuffsushi 13y ago
  This is exactly what I was feeling. Hey, you have a cool idea, and you don't necessarily want to create an additional login account (which would add yet another security risk to each user)? Don't use facebook, because clearly NO ONE uses that </sarcasm>. Really though, I think that the target market for ... social people... who want to have social gatherings... would likely be people on Facebook. Just because HN in large hates Facebook for XYZ reasons, not all of which are unjustified, I really don't think it's fair to shout at the developers for choosing to use it.
- Kiro 13y ago
  This whole comment thread is a disgrace.
Sealy 13y ago
On a more positive note: I'm lovin the name, it made me laugh so much. Great idea too. I move around a lot so am always looking for ways to build a solid network of new friends. If you have a vision, pursue it with relentless ambition. Don't let these criticisms put you off.
chewxy 13y ago
We've created one like that in the past (strangers for dinner). Similar ideas - use Facebook info to matchmake for dinner parties. The project failed. I am quite curious to see how this one goes
gfodor 13y ago
FWIW in my own app, on iPhone, Facebook connect with native dialog has a near-100% login rate. (The non-native dialog is much worse unfortunately.) So, fuck the haters, Facebook connect is a very low-impact way to get users to sign up to your service, particularly if you assume in the long run that it will be deeply integrated with phones as it is on iOS. Yes, a few nerds will opt-out, but most of them will be pulled in eventually if your service turns out to be useful and trustworthy.
gfodor 13y ago
Do yourself a favor and ignore the comments here screaming for alternative login options. Look at the data and see what the conversion rate is for people, and only change it if the conversion rate is below what you consider acceptable. (Filtering out "Referer: news.ycombinator.org" of course.) Most people here complaining about Facebook Connect are basically ignorant as to what it actually allows you to do, and are also in the minority of people who have not populated their Facebook profile with interests.
gfodor 13y ago
I went through the signup process. Was pretty fast and easy. A few suggestions: - I live in Redwood City, CA. Would be nice if this autocompleted. - Include more suggestions for the types of things to include in things I've done in the last month. - You should include the "How It Works" info on the landing page after I finish. - There should be other ways for me to find people, I shouldn't have to rely upon algorithms to do all the work.
jayferd 13y ago
Let's beam! ...igos
Hydraulix989 13y ago
Can you add Seattle, WA as a city?
- njoglekar 13y ago
  We are planning the first few groups in the bay area but we have gotten so many inquiries from Seattle that we can organize something soon
charleslmunger 13y ago
Do most people actually like things that are useful? Most of my friends "like" stuff like Starbucks and Wal-Mart.
Kiro 13y ago
So I have done plenty of A/B testing with Facebook login and I can tell you one thing: having just Facebook login converts multiple times better than having either email sign up or both. The quality of signups are also much better. Sure, you lose out on the hackers but they're a minority and from reading this thread a pretty rude crowd as well.
- devcpp 13y ago
  The hackers are an efficient way to advertise a product for free. They are continually online and like to go from website to website and talk about stuff they just learned about.
  - precisioncoder 13y ago
    Not to mention they will tell their friends and family constantly about the cool new thing they found. Also when people consider a new service who do they ask? Usually the hacker in the social group/family
schulte257 13y ago
I want this but anonymous. I like meetup but its the same drag, digital me showing up to an event feeling akward. I'd use the digital equivalent of picking up a flyer from a coffeeshop.
mmvvaa 13y ago
So a vanilla version of bangwithfriends?
jgeerts 13y ago
Who the hell is igos? My level of jokes will probably never increase.

104 points by njoglekar 13y ago

Clicking the "Get started with Facebook" quickly opens and then closes a popup. I'm guessing this is the "authenticate with your account" popup, but it closes too quickly to even do anything. EDIT: Thanks for the support, this issue was quickly fixed.

njoglekar 13y ago
Whoops, fixed. Thanks!
- intellegacy 13y ago
  still not working. Signed up, answered your questions, back at the main page
  - willchilcutt 13y ago
    I just talked to help: letsbeamigos: we got it letsbeamigos: when we have matches we'll email you letsbeamigos: with an activity
guptaneil 13y ago
Similar problem for me, except it doesn't even open the popup. The page just scrolls to the top and a # gets appended to the URL. Looks like some Javescript listener is failing to fire. I'm using Safari 6 on Mac OS 10.8 if that helps.
- njoglekar 13y ago
  Think we fixed this too, can you try again?
  - guptaneil 13y ago
    It's still not working for me. I even tried emptying cache, but no luck.

bitwize 13y ago

AIMED AT PEOPLE LOOKING TO MEET OTHER REAL ACTUAL HUMANS OFFLINE [Scumbag LetsBeAmigos] PRESUMES THE USER HAS A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT

whatshisface 13y ago
Just a tip, HN frowns on memes and other low-density information formats. (treating it like reddit will result in lots of downvotes)
- scott_s 13y ago
  Indeed, but to my surprise, the poster has been here longer than I have (over 5 years).
guptaneil 13y ago
I see this comment every time somebody posts a social product on HN, and I'm not sure why. It adds no value to the discussion, and isn't even good feedback. The number of people looking to socialize but don't have a FB account is small enough that requiring FB for an MVP is perfectly reasonable. If the platform takes off, the OP can add their own login system as well. By refusing to have a Facebook account, you have willingly chosen to avoid a large portion of the web's social layer. Don't complain when you can't use a social product then.
- josephhardin 13y ago
  It's not that we don't have a facebook account, but rather that we don't want to have another app tangled in with all of our facebook data.
  - guptaneil 13y ago
    That is a different concern, and is expressed in the current top comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5781522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5781522), which I upvoted. The comment that I replied to only bemoaned the assumption that they have a FB account. I think that is a perfectly reasonable assumption. Now, whether the product provides enough value for me to want to give them my Facebook details is a different question.

27182818284 13y ago

Don't offer one way to log in. At least give the standard Facebook/Twitter choice. It doesn't make any sense to have a site to help people be more social but then only offer it to people who are social...

njoglekar 13y ago
Coming soon...

jcomis 13y ago

What if you don't keep track of your interests on Facebook? Or you don't have one, or want to use your FB account? No other option?

njoglekar 13y ago
So at this point, FB is a huge help to help gauge your interests. We do also let you enter a few activities you like to do after signup. Lastly, for now wanted to dodge anonymous signups. Won't be much fun to set you up with people that are not real.

trevmckendrick 13y ago

I filled out all the info, clicked submit, and then it just took me back to the homepage. :( Looks interesting though. I was just talking to my wife about this problem the other day.

njoglekar 13y ago
hmm small glitch we are fixing, it should say: Thanks our matchmakers and algorithms are hard at work to find the perfect matches for you. We will email you soon.
- njoglekar 13y ago
  We should have just fixed this, can someone try and let us know?
  - abstractbill 13y ago
    Worked for me just now.

adambard 13y ago

Whenever I see a button that says "sign in with Facebook," I just close the tab immediately. Am I the only one who does this? What's wrong with just having me fill out a survey of my interests if that's what you want? Facebook is the only account that I keep to myself and people who know me. My Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Github and all the other stuff I can't remember, all exist to connect me to people I've never met. I'd way rather use one of those than Facebook.

sophacles 13y ago
I do that too. I find it absurd, because no matter how cool the founders claim to be, or how much they promise not to spam my friends or write all over my fb page, they will, and they will do so without the slightest understanding of why I might not want it. So yeah, I get you. To the "lets be amigos" people: stop it please. I might think you had a good idea, had you not followed a path so closely associated with the scum of the internet.
- subpixel 13y ago
  I also stopped dead in my tracks when I saw FB signup. But I'd appreciate the choice of using FB or filling out a quick survey. I'm also willing to bet money that, faced with actually filling out a survey, many people otherwise reluctant to sign in with FB will just do it.
  - njoglekar 13y ago
    I like your thinking the problem is that we really need both: 1. identity + likes / interests 2. filling out activities as a backup in case they don't have interests on FB
    - paglia_s 13y ago
      My likes on facebook doesn't reflect my interests, I don't care much to them and I think it's the same for many other people.
  - 13y ago

abuiles 13y ago

I really like the concept, I was thinking on something like this a while ago, but it was around the concept of going out to dinner with someone, sometimes you want to try a new restaurant but your friends are maybe busy or they don't fancy the food, even though you could go on your own, eating alone is not always fun.

njoglekar 13y ago
Thanks, we think dinner is a good idea but so are other activities (playing a sport, computer game, or whatever)

iterationx 13y ago

I think its hard to make friends, because people only feel fulfilled when they are working. This is demonstrated by the fact all these billionaires are still working and they are not content to just be leisurely. Therefore, the premise that you like baseball and I like baseball, so we should just hang out, will feel kind of pointless. That's why I don't think anyone has really nailed this market. I think a better take on this would be, you want to publish a comic book, and I want to publish a comic book, so we should work on our projects and hang out. Or you want to run a 5K and I want to run a 5K so lets meetup and practice this together.

njoglekar 13y ago
You nailed it, this is where we are headed. Love to chat more about how you think we can get there.
- ckozlowski 13y ago
  May want to take a look at "atthepool.com" then.
  - alexcaps 13y ago
    My thoughts exactly.
- iterationx 13y ago
  I think something like, "I am going to be working on my comic from 7-9 at this coffee shop, broadcast this "ad" to people like comics that have the following characteristics [male | female | doesn't matter], politics [ x,y,doesn't matter]" You sometimes could have an open ended invite, and sometimes you would have to have both parties agree to meeting before hand, like in the case of restaurant reservations.
  - njoglekar 13y ago
    I think that open ended invitations leave too much room for cancellation / a poor experience. But, perhaps other people might feel this is not an issue. Any feedback?

mongol 13y ago

This is nothing against you, but I don't trust websites that request personal info but where it is unclear who is behind. © Let's Be Amigos 2013 What is Let's Be Amigos? Who is behind? A company or a person? Please give some more details.

CJefferson 13y ago

I really you might be interested in 'Minimal Viable Product', but really, I think this is below Viable. Why ask for my Facebook if you are then going to ask where I love, and my interests, afterwards? Do you realise how limiting it seems to ask if I live in: Palo Alto, CA San Franciso, CA Somewhere else

vec 13y ago
Yeah, feels like it's targeting the people who need this service least. Bay area is geek central, or so it's reputation suggests. I just moved to Albuquerque, which is beautiful and scenic and has no existing nerd scene. A tool like this would be incredible for finding or building one, though. I don't mean to be the "but what about my edge case" guy, but it really does seem like your target audience is going to be denser when you get into cities that don't have thoroughly saturated tech scenes already. p.s. If there are any HN types in the ABQ/Santa Fe area, please reply and we can grab lunch sometime.
- njoglekar 13y ago
  We have some ABQ signups, you should be amigos with them :)
- greghinch 13y ago
  > Yeah, feels like it's targeting the people who need this service least. Bay area is geek central, or so it's reputation suggests Just because there are lots of similarly-minded people in the same area as you doesn't mean it's easy to make friends with them. A lot of people relocated to the bay area every month, a service like this would be great for them. Certainly falls under the category of "solving problems of SV 20 somethings" though :P
- ByronT 13y ago
  Los Alamos here!

grannyg00se 13y ago

Facebook required so you know my interests? Facebook doesn't know my interests. Or...unfortunately maybe facebook does know my interests but not because I've deliberately divulged them. In any case, it would be much better to ask me directly. For friend-making through common interests I use meetup.com

njoglekar 13y ago
Has it worked well for you? Do you like going to activities already scheduled or do you think there is value in having people found for specifically you?
- lmm 13y ago
  I think the big advantage of meetup is a lower "creepy factor". If I'm going to a scheduled, planned event to do something specific then that has natural boundaries - and then often a subset will go to the pub afterwards where things get a bit more informal, but you're under no pressure if you don't want to. I do like this idea because making new friends is hard, but I'm worried meeting people who have been "matched" with me would turn awkward.
  - njoglekar 13y ago
    Love to get your thoughts on our about page. Does this make it seem less creepy? We want to de-creepyify this as much as possible!

sukuriant 13y ago

What does this offer that Meetup.com doesn't?

njoglekar 13y ago
Our goal is to actually find people that we think would be a good match for you. With meetup.com you are signing up for an activity. Here we are finding people that you should be friends with and setting up an activity. Like a friend matchmaker.
- hawkharris 13y ago
  Every friendship I've ever established has been based on some activity: sharing an office, playing sports, watching a movie, etc. And I don't think I'm unique in this respect. Meeting a person solely for the person of selecting him or her sounds very specific to dating. I think your project is interesting and has a lot of potential — I'm just pointing out that, by downplaying activities, you may be expecting a type of socializing that's unnatural to many people, especially if you hope to differentiate yourself from dating sites.
  - njoglekar 13y ago
    We totally agree. When we make a match of 4 people we send them on an activity. Perhaps we need to make that clearer in the messaging - where would you like us to say something like that?

DanBC 13y ago

Hello! I like the idea! I hope this is constructive. I signed up with facebook. The next page asked me what my location was. I thought that was a bit odd, because what's the point of giving you access to all my FB stuff? So, I drop down the thingy and there are 2 towns, both in California. Well, it's brand new so I kind of expected that. But I have no idea how to enter my location. Do I just put my town name? Or town name, county? Or town name, UK? Or what? So, I guess at town and UK. The next three boxes ask me for some things I've done recently. Eh, I really don't do much. It might be worth giving people a grid of ideas as suggestions?

njoglekar 13y ago
Hi Dan, Well one issue is that you can work in one city and live in another. That may not be reflected in Facebook. We didn't think about town vs. county vs. city. Suggestions are a great idea. Thanks.

Dewie 13y ago

I'm from Northern Europe and the problem with making friends is that you have to have an excuse to make friends - there has to be a pretense. Sure, a lot of sports, volunteer work, hobbies and so on and so forth emphasize that you will get to socialize, but you don't get away from the fact that you have to have some kind of pretext to meet new people.

njoglekar 13y ago
hopefully we can help with that!
- solnyshok 13y ago
  I doubt it. Working against social habits is an uphill battle that even facebook cannot afford.
aneth4 13y ago
How is that a problem? Go out and do something.
- Dewie 13y ago
  It is a problem because you necessarily need to take the whole pretext as well - which is fine if you really like that pretext, less so if you don't. Maybe someone just wanted to meet new people and so she got a volunteer job for some organization. Now she has the job and has made some friends, but the job is weighing her down, because it turns out that she didn't care for that job in itself. "But", you say, "she could just find something she likes", but that might not be so easy. In her case, she needed to commit to a job, and it is often something of an investment like that when it comes to these pretexts - it's not merely a question of "casually drop by that thing I do whenever I feel like it, but I've committed to noone about doing with any regularity". Hopefully she can quit her job and still maintain her friendships - but people also tend to compartmentalize, and without something like a common job, there isn't necessarily a compartment for her anymore. I am not talking about merely needing to do something together to meet new people. I'm not talking about going down to the court and asking random people to shoot some hoops, and basketball being the pretext. I'm talking about "we need to work together or have met in some context where it was clear that we had stuff to do other than make friends with each other". There might not need to be a pretext after a friendship is established, but you sometimes need to get over that hurdle.

dm2 13y ago

1st: the Facebook only login is a HUGE turnoff for many people. 2nd: Videos need HTML5 support. If the Facebook issue is that you are wanting real people, then maybe you could create a "confidence" score for people to identify their trustworthiness, or maybe some kind of ratings system. Confirming a phone number or school email would also be a good alternative to the facebook requirement.

davidw 13y ago
> Facebook only login is a HUGE turnoff for many people. ... on hacker news. And in the rest of the populace? Not so sure.
- dm2 13y ago
  You might be right, but the site being displayed seems to be primarily for more introverted people, which are already likely to be shy/cautious. I've never offered facebook exclusively on a site because of the fear that a smaller percentage of people will signup. After building facebook, mobile, and web apps for a long time, I'm extremely cautious about the internet. I recommend to friends and family "don't add or download any apps, don't use IE7, and don't put anything on the internet that you wouldn't want in your biography." Until you've built a facebook app you'd never think that your friends added apps have extended permissions to your profile.
  - ambrop7 13y ago
    And shy people may not even have a FB account (like me).
- callahad 13y ago
  I should really keep these links handy, but real-world user testing generally shows a pretty strong aversion to Facebook Connect. Here's at least one paper that studied informed consent with Facebook auth: http://www.guanotronic.com/~serge/papers/chi13a.pdf http://www.guanotronic.com/~serge/papers/chi13a.pdf
  - 13y ago

mindcrime 13y ago

I'm not as opposed to the Facebook signin thing as a lot of people here seem to be, in that I don't consider Facebook "private". My default assumption is "if it's actually private, it doesn't get posted on Facebook". IOW, Facebook is mostly just a big online Rolodex to me. BUT... I am opposed to having only Facebook login, just because it's not an open standard, and it isn't part of the Open Web. I'd argue for supporting, at a minimum, OpenID as an alternative.

drum 13y ago

In defense of the Facebook sign up, how about issues of safety? Meeting a stranger online can be risky. Forcing signup via Facebook helps provide data that users can use to perform a due diligence on the strangers they might be meeting. It helps hold people accountable if they do decide to do something malicious offline. Perhaps LinkedIn might be better, but I don't see a problem with utilizing some sort of identity related social sign up for this idea.

robertwalsh0 13y ago

The 'new to the area' headline has a white text shadow on the already white text that makes the content blurry and hard to read. You probably want to turn off the text shadow there.

grrrando 13y ago

Hey njoglekar - your window-fixed "Contact Us" bug is covering up your copyright in the bottom right. And the white text shadow on your main headline and some buttons is rendering poorly in Chrome 27 on a MBPr.

orangethirty 13y ago

I immediately thought about the old sega game called samba de amigo. Cool name.

wellboy 13y ago

This is a great idea, however probably the 5th time this has been on Hackernews this year. Again, there are 100 startups all trying the same thing and it just doesn't work, because you have incredibly high critical mass and no marketing channel. Examples: Spontacts, Woofound, Matewire, Activepepper Hope that helped.

eyeareque 13y ago

I don't have a facebook. I guess this site isn't for people like me.

bluetidepro 13y ago

> REAL-LIFE FRIENDS, NOT FACEBOOK FRIENDS OR LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS. ..."GET STARTED WITH FACEBOOK" button on the same page. Do you not see the irony in your tagline?

raymondduke 13y ago
My thoughts exactly.
- njoglekar 13y ago
  Well we aren't introducing you to your Facebook friends so I'm not sure I see it.

wallacrw 13y ago

You need to move that Facebook button much higher on the page. I had to scroll to see it, and I have a larger than average screen.

njloof 13y ago

Can't I just make friends on Facebook? This is silly.

deleted 13y ago

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petersouth 13y ago

Don't mind all the negative comments. The idea and website are cool!

alexcaps 13y ago

Sounds like At The Pool -- http://atthepool.com http://atthepool.com

raymondduke 13y ago

It's not that I am against signing up with Facebook, it's just that every service I've used with a FB login claims to help make oneself more social; however, that is hardly ever the case. As for wanting to meet people in my area with similar interests, I'll stick to using Meetup. Additionally, here is some advice from someone who runs their own Meetup group. My coffee and conversation group is over a month old and has over 50 members. Only about 20% sign up for a Meetup and about 75% actually show. These are rough estimates, but from people I talk to that host events, they have similar results. I think you'll find that once you set up these "meets" with 4 people, usually not all 4 will show up. I guess if you had them prepay, they would be more inclined to... but anyway, good luck!

deleted 13y ago

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kyro 13y ago

Welcome to HN, where showing your work gets you a "fuck off", "scumbag", and "scum of the earth", all without an iota of positive feedback or constructive criticism! What a brilliant community, indeed!

shortstuffsushi 13y ago
This is exactly what I was feeling. Hey, you have a cool idea, and you don't necessarily want to create an additional login account (which would add yet another security risk to each user)? Don't use facebook, because clearly NO ONE uses that </sarcasm>. Really though, I think that the target market for ... social people... who want to have social gatherings... would likely be people on Facebook. Just because HN in large hates Facebook for XYZ reasons, not all of which are unjustified, I really don't think it's fair to shout at the developers for choosing to use it.
Kiro 13y ago
This whole comment thread is a disgrace.

Sealy 13y ago

On a more positive note: I'm lovin the name, it made me laugh so much. Great idea too. I move around a lot so am always looking for ways to build a solid network of new friends. If you have a vision, pursue it with relentless ambition. Don't let these criticisms put you off.

chewxy 13y ago

We've created one like that in the past (strangers for dinner). Similar ideas - use Facebook info to matchmake for dinner parties. The project failed. I am quite curious to see how this one goes

gfodor 13y ago

FWIW in my own app, on iPhone, Facebook connect with native dialog has a near-100% login rate. (The non-native dialog is much worse unfortunately.) So, fuck the haters, Facebook connect is a very low-impact way to get users to sign up to your service, particularly if you assume in the long run that it will be deeply integrated with phones as it is on iOS. Yes, a few nerds will opt-out, but most of them will be pulled in eventually if your service turns out to be useful and trustworthy.

gfodor 13y ago

Do yourself a favor and ignore the comments here screaming for alternative login options. Look at the data and see what the conversion rate is for people, and only change it if the conversion rate is below what you consider acceptable. (Filtering out "Referer: news.ycombinator.org" of course.) Most people here complaining about Facebook Connect are basically ignorant as to what it actually allows you to do, and are also in the minority of people who have not populated their Facebook profile with interests.

gfodor 13y ago

I went through the signup process. Was pretty fast and easy. A few suggestions: - I live in Redwood City, CA. Would be nice if this autocompleted. - Include more suggestions for the types of things to include in things I've done in the last month. - You should include the "How It Works" info on the landing page after I finish. - There should be other ways for me to find people, I shouldn't have to rely upon algorithms to do all the work.

jayferd 13y ago

Let's beam! ...igos

Hydraulix989 13y ago

Can you add Seattle, WA as a city?

njoglekar 13y ago
We are planning the first few groups in the bay area but we have gotten so many inquiries from Seattle that we can organize something soon

charleslmunger 13y ago

Do most people actually like things that are useful? Most of my friends "like" stuff like Starbucks and Wal-Mart.

Kiro 13y ago

So I have done plenty of A/B testing with Facebook login and I can tell you one thing: having just Facebook login converts multiple times better than having either email sign up or both. The quality of signups are also much better. Sure, you lose out on the hackers but they're a minority and from reading this thread a pretty rude crowd as well.

devcpp 13y ago
The hackers are an efficient way to advertise a product for free. They are continually online and like to go from website to website and talk about stuff they just learned about.
- precisioncoder 13y ago
  Not to mention they will tell their friends and family constantly about the cool new thing they found. Also when people consider a new service who do they ask? Usually the hacker in the social group/family

schulte257 13y ago

I want this but anonymous. I like meetup but its the same drag, digital me showing up to an event feeling akward. I'd use the digital equivalent of picking up a flyer from a coffeeshop.

mmvvaa 13y ago

So a vanilla version of bangwithfriends?

jgeerts 13y ago

Who the hell is igos? My level of jokes will probably never increase.