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Ashton Kutcher launches A+: discover the best products through friends
- matthewbadeau 13y agoFor those interested in signing up, a Facebook account is required. (Which makes sense since it's based on recommendations from friends.)
- newobj 13y agoHard to not highlight items as I scroll down the page on my laptop. Almost nowhere to park my cursor to avoid this. Seems like not the most thought-through UX, at least off-mobile.
- MBCook 13y agoOn my Safari window, it shows ~3.5 products per row, requiring me to scroll to the right to see the rightmost one. Having to scroll left and right is usually a design smell for me.
- bane 13y agoIn chrome I get 4 items at 100% zoom. It's an ugly site, but it works fine. If I change the zoom level if seems to handle it just fine without left-right scrolling.
- rfnslyr 13y agoLooks like an opportunity for parking.js! /s
- klochner 13y agoThis is about a year late to the "pinterest clone for shopping" party. Referly pivoted into something similar before shutting down, and I think Fancy is the major player in the space. Could be successful, but not terribly innovative.
- notdrunkatall 13y agoI'm skeptical that I share a significant interest in specific products with even my closest friends.
- SmileyKeith 13y agoDiscover the best (Nikon) products from your friends (and people I advertise with)
- jreed91 13y agoThought the exact same thing. But kudos to Nikon and Ashton that I automatically associate both of them.
- SmileyKeith 13y agoVery good point. That campaign has apparently done well for them.
- sbrother 13y agoHalfway down the first page I see the "EVGA SUPERNOVA NEX1500 CLASSIFIED POWER SUPPLY". I find it hard to believe this is that relevant to the target audience of this site, and it's too much of a coincidence that I just bought a bunch of computer parts from newegg and Amazon.
- ZoF 13y agoFor what it's worth I saw the same thing and haven't bought anything computer related recently. Won't be using this site, but I'm not the target demographic anyway.
- chaz 13y agoI see it, too, and I haven't bought computer parts like that in years, so I doubt it's retargeting. If you are concerned about that kind of retargeting, then it's probably newegg and Amazon you should stop using.
- sbrother 13y agoI'm not concerned, actually I find that sort of retargeting preferable to less relevant ads. I was just intrigued because a 1500W power supply is a pretty niche gadget that I was surprised to see here.
- zbruhnke 13y agoSorry to say this but if Ashton Kutcher's name wasn't on this it would have not even made it to the front page of HN much less been worthy of people commenting on it. I think he's made some great investments and I'd love to chat with him about the startup I'm working on, but I think its fair to say I won't soon be a user of this product
- zende 13y ago> Sorry to say this but if Ashton Kutcher's name wasn't on this it would have not even made it to the front page of HN much less been worthy of people commenting on it That's possible, but you could argue something similar about repeat entrepreneurs. Ashton is an incredible marketer, which is a HUGE part of a consumer product like this.
- zbruhnke 13y agoTotally agree, some level of hype is necessary no matter how much bullshit hype really is. But nearly all lasting companies have one thing in common, a great product. Right now this site is a long way from that ... but then again they always say you should eventually be embarrassed of the first version of your product. I think it's fair to say he will be.
- zende 13y ago> they always say you should eventually be embarrassed of the first version of your product. Definitely! If you're not embarrassed of your first version, then you waited too long to launch. You should try listing a product. The flow is actually pretty good, especially given the product indexing, tagging, and categorization that has to happen behind the scene.
- ye 13y agoDon't dismiss Ashton. He may be goofy, but he is into technology and has an army of followers. When he tweets, his 15 million twitter followers retweet like crazy.
- jgalt212 13y agoSay you want you want about Kutcher, but he went from a camera salesman to the highest paid actor on TV in two years. That's nothing short of miraculous.
- vladsanchez 13y agoBut why!? He's not miraculously accomplished at anything...
- ye 13y agoWhy would I care about my friends' opinions only? I want hundreds of reviews, not a couple (or zero most of the time).
- breakupapp 13y agoWho made it?
- mason240 13y agoAshton coded it himself from the set of 2.5 Men.
- lazyjones 13y agoI'm not impressed, being greeted by a 90's style "your browser is out of date" (= "we're too stupid to detect browser features") message because I'm using Waterfox. But hey, it's endorsed and funded by a celebrity, so it will work.
- pvnick 13y agoWhat is this? Social meets ecommerce meets meteor? This whole site is like you took a buzzword pipe bomb and set it off in a geocities data center. A+? What is he trying to do, get listed first in the internet phone book? I guarantee you his pitch involves a lot of lofty talk about consumer and social big data. There's a whole lot of synergy going on here! That being said I obviously wish him the best of luck.
- aaronbrethorst 13y agoHis twitter handle is "aplusk", as in [A]shton [plus] [K]utcher". "A+" would imply the best, and also suggests who's behind it. I think it's a clever name.
- benguild 13y agoLooks like a more specific shot at Pinterest.
- selmnoo 13y agoAs another commenter pointed out, if a celebrity wasn't behind this it wouldn't be getting much attention. What a sad direction things are going. Celebrities want in on this piece of pie now... suddenly michaelochurch's forebodings about 'VC-istan' all seem very relevant.
- pvnick 13y agoI've always loved reading what michaelochurch has to say. I generally make a conscious effort to stay optimistic, but I see a lot of truth in what he writes.
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- krapp 13y agoIt's a really nice domain. All the yellow is making my eyes bleed and the fonts look weird and aliased in my browser though. I'm sure it'll still make Ashton Kutcher another million dollars though.
- bprater 13y agoI. Don't. Get. It. You only get one good chance to make an impression. And although I see a lot of products blowing up my webpage, I have zero context about how anything works or why I should care. Guys, if you are building something you want the world to admire -- take the approach of idiot-proof video games: walk me through the process of getting "my context" up-to-speed with "your context". It'll make all the difference.
- mrpoptart 13y agoIf you're looking for this, chances are what you're actually looking for is thewirecutter.com. They actually give you a recommendation about which is the best, then tell you why in detail.
- tiffani 13y agoIt looks an awful lot like Svpply and The Fancy. And he's an investor in The Fancy. I guess this time the curation is through friends instead of the site itself.
- zende 13y agoYou should check out adding a product. The flow is actually different from both Svpply and Fancy.
- tiffani 13y agoBut, seriously, what else is different? If I'm looking at it as if it's a Fancy or Svpply clone, I'm not going to go as far as signing up to add anything. One way I see these kinds of sites is as wishlists and thus, it makes sense to have just one site I use--unless there's something compellingly different.
- mvkel 13y agoEveryone thinks their tattoo artist is the best. Consumers don't care what their _friends_ recommend, they want to know what _most people_ recommend. Amazon reviews have a ton of value in aggregate. The more reviews, the more value. My friend's subjective recommendation of a Canon DSLR because he's already invested $2K in lenses? Not so much. Also, how is this not exactly http://svpply.com http://svpply.com, a much better execution of an item discovery site that sold to eBay over a year ago.
- jqm 13y ago"Your browser is out of date" -no, actually it isn't... it's Firefox 17 on Linux. but, just for the fun of it, click on the Firefox icon. -"Hooray, your browser is up to date!" (with no updating because... the browser was already up to date). click back and refresh -"Your browser is out of date..." ok then...
- buckyball 13y agoyeah right. No legal info, not even a hint who is responsible for this. But wait, there's even more, you need a facebook account to attend the party. Oh boy, this thing is gonna storm everyone's heart for sure. Like Bitcoin will be the next all purpose currency. </sarcasm>
- X4 13y agoOh weird.. The first time a friend force-signed me up on facebook I only got ads for High-Frequency Trading and High-End Dedicated Servers. On A+ I'm getting ads for a Ferrari's, BMW's, a Martin JetPack, Ducati's a $2.5m Pagani Zonda Revolucion and similar stuff, like 24k Gold iPhone Cases … Hah, either something is really wrong with my browsing habits, or these sites suck at targeting my habits. For those who wonder, the last time I searched for Cars must be 6 or 7 years ago and I don't search for jewelery or jetpacks. I also never search for sports, pop, music or anything popular, really. Dear Ashton, I wish I was rich enough to buy that car, but I feel a little pressed when a site expects me to be rich. The system probably mistakes me for an investor or a vc like Kutcher himself. Ok, off to work, let's get rich or die trying.