5 ms·

Show HN: I was curious to see what's happening around me, and I created an app

4 points by atudoute 12y ago

jnorthrop 12y ago
It's a neat idea, but I hope you've done some sort of privacy assessment on the concept. If I understand the app right, you share with everyone, but only if they are within a 1 mile radius of you. Maybe I'm being oversensitive, but when I see the picture of the baby or the girl in the club I think that is exposing too much information to potentially unsavory characters -- and they will be within a mile of the subject.
- atudoute 12y ago
  Thank you so much for your feedback. Almost right cause your pictures not following you, but they stay where them were taken. So you will see only pictures of clubbing in zone of clubbing.
spamprotecti0n 12y ago
Awesome concept. I've seen an other app top that's trying to do almost the same lately, roundio.com. It's based on a map, though, but the concepts of nearby activity is very similar.
- atudoute 12y ago
  Thank you. I saw the same as you, but we are a bit different and we ask people to describe what they see with this sentence : "What do you see ?" It seems to create great new content.
smt88 12y ago
Looks like you have recreated one of the most notorious failures in the recent history of venture capital: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs I don't think Color failed because of the idea. Their marketing was flawed, and they were trying to create a social network. So are you. I think they eventually tacked their service on top of Facebook, which might be a good idea. I haven't really thought it through. What's going to be your hook for getting users? I'm assuming the app isn't very useful unless other people are on it, right? Or do you have content from somewhere?
- atudoute 12y ago
  Thank you for the feedback. Some peoples told me about Color, but we are a bit different. We don't want to include social stuff like messaging between authors and comments. Keep the app simple, and see what users wants. We have a new feature is coming. Imagine you are an event hoster, you create an event on ICU and you get an ICU link, people take picture with the app on your event, and in live you will see all the pictures on the link. The cool thing is that peoples would like to retrieve their photos, so they need to have ICU installed. You're right if nobody is around you, the app isn't very useful. We have couple of cities like Montreal, NYC and Paris.
  - smt88 12y ago
    > Imagine you are an event hoster, you create an event on ICU and you get an ICU link, people take picture with the app on your event, and in live you will see all the pictures on the link. I spent a year working on a startup doing exactly that. We failed. The problem we ran into is that it's cool, but Twitter (and others) already accomplish the same thing with hashtags. People just don't like to add new channels to their everyday lives. Beyond that, it was impossible (for us) to monetize, even though we had connections to creative agencies and large companies that were marketing events. The problem is that we weren't reducing pain points or adding operational efficiency, and thus paying us was never urgent. Meetings would get pushed off by weeks at a time, and it was hard to get anyone to make concrete moves forward. To give you an idea of what we were experiencing, imagine that you're selling your car. Which is a higher priority, getting a scratch fixed or having it waxed? It's very possible that you'll make your money back from the waxing when you're able to sell it for more money, but that's only a possibility. You're going to first spend your money on the repairs and then on the appearance. For the business world, increasing operational efficiency is like the repair, while marketing/social media is like the appearance. People in the business world just don't like to pay out for something that MIGHT have ROI. That's why creative budgets are some of the first to get crunched in a recession.
    - atudoute 12y ago
      Nice feedback about your experience and thank you for it. Are you guys stop your app ? or is still live ?

4 points by atudoute 12y ago

It's a neat idea, but I hope you've done some sort of privacy assessment on the concept. If I understand the app right, you share with everyone, but only if they are within a 1 mile radius of you. Maybe I'm being oversensitive, but when I see the picture of the baby or the girl in the club I think that is exposing too much information to potentially unsavory characters -- and they will be within a mile of the subject.

atudoute 12y ago
Thank you so much for your feedback. Almost right cause your pictures not following you, but they stay where them were taken. So you will see only pictures of clubbing in zone of clubbing.

spamprotecti0n 12y ago

Awesome concept. I've seen an other app top that's trying to do almost the same lately, roundio.com. It's based on a map, though, but the concepts of nearby activity is very similar.

atudoute 12y ago
Thank you. I saw the same as you, but we are a bit different and we ask people to describe what they see with this sentence : "What do you see ?" It seems to create great new content.

smt88 12y ago

Looks like you have recreated one of the most notorious failures in the recent history of venture capital: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs I don't think Color failed because of the idea. Their marketing was flawed, and they were trying to create a social network. So are you. I think they eventually tacked their service on top of Facebook, which might be a good idea. I haven't really thought it through. What's going to be your hook for getting users? I'm assuming the app isn't very useful unless other people are on it, right? Or do you have content from somewhere?

atudoute 12y ago
Thank you for the feedback. Some peoples told me about Color, but we are a bit different. We don't want to include social stuff like messaging between authors and comments. Keep the app simple, and see what users wants. We have a new feature is coming. Imagine you are an event hoster, you create an event on ICU and you get an ICU link, people take picture with the app on your event, and in live you will see all the pictures on the link. The cool thing is that peoples would like to retrieve their photos, so they need to have ICU installed. You're right if nobody is around you, the app isn't very useful. We have couple of cities like Montreal, NYC and Paris.
- smt88 12y ago
  > Imagine you are an event hoster, you create an event on ICU and you get an ICU link, people take picture with the app on your event, and in live you will see all the pictures on the link. I spent a year working on a startup doing exactly that. We failed. The problem we ran into is that it's cool, but Twitter (and others) already accomplish the same thing with hashtags. People just don't like to add new channels to their everyday lives. Beyond that, it was impossible (for us) to monetize, even though we had connections to creative agencies and large companies that were marketing events. The problem is that we weren't reducing pain points or adding operational efficiency, and thus paying us was never urgent. Meetings would get pushed off by weeks at a time, and it was hard to get anyone to make concrete moves forward. To give you an idea of what we were experiencing, imagine that you're selling your car. Which is a higher priority, getting a scratch fixed or having it waxed? It's very possible that you'll make your money back from the waxing when you're able to sell it for more money, but that's only a possibility. You're going to first spend your money on the repairs and then on the appearance. For the business world, increasing operational efficiency is like the repair, while marketing/social media is like the appearance. People in the business world just don't like to pay out for something that MIGHT have ROI. That's why creative budgets are some of the first to get crunched in a recession.
  - atudoute 12y ago
    Nice feedback about your experience and thank you for it. Are you guys stop your app ? or is still live ?