18 ms·

Plague

201 points by jamesjyu 12y ago

joshu 12y ago
It is a bit of a cross between tinder (swipe to amplify/dampen) and images (photos are the social object)
- Khao 12y ago
  Why can't the website tell what it actually does? It's honestly a terrible landing page for an app.
  - reledi 12y ago
    It's probably their strategy. Being (intentionally) vague raises curiosity. The best way to find out what it does is to download the app.
ssivark 12y ago
The beauty of the internet is that physical/geographic distance is not the deciding factor any more. Two people far separated by geography can be very close online. So why would an internet-enabled app re-introduce artificial geographic rigidity?
- draugadrotten 12y ago
  Sometimes artificial limits adds to the fun. Why is soccer only played with feet and not with hands, and why can't I kick a basketball? And why can't I go outside the hockey rink at will.
  - michaelmcmillan 12y ago
    I think the greatest example of this is Snapchat with their short lifespan.
- themoonbus 12y ago
  Well, as I see it, different apps for different purposes. Information that is only relevant in a certain geographic area won't spread beyond that area. Information that is widely relevant will spread widely (if I understand the app correctly, I haven't actually used it). Also, many communication platforms have "arbitrary" constraints (square photos, 140 characters) that help shape the user experience.
- ianferrel 12y ago
  There are times when geographic locality is the thing you want to filter on. A few weeks ago, I was stuck on a freeway. Completely stopped. After about 10 minutes of no motion I really wished I had been able to do a "search within 1/2 mile of my location" sort of thing to find out what was going on and when it would likely be fixed, so I could decide to tell the friends I was meeting "I'll be a bit late" or "Sorry, guys, go on without me".
  - tetrep 12y ago
    >There are times when geographic locality is the thing you want to filter on. Which has nothing to do with actually being near said locality. I think filtering on geographic locations is great, but even greater is that ability to do so while remote. I can learn about events occurring in and around a specific area without actually being in that area. That's (part of) the beauty of the internet.
    - ianferrel 12y ago
      I disagree that it has nothing to do with it. I'm way more likely to be interested in stuff happening near where I currently am than in some other arbitrary place. Sure, sometimes it makes sense to be able to search elsewhere, but that makes things more complicated for marginal gains. Yelp is a good example. Yes, I've used it to research food in other locations, but it would still be 95% as useful to me if the only thing it did was show me stuff that was nearby, since that's what I almost always use it for.
  - yaddayadda 12y ago
    You should check out waze https://www.waze.com/ https://www.waze.com/
    - nilkn 12y ago
      I was a dedicated Wazer for a while and I eventually had to accept that it just didn't work. I could count on one hand maybe the number of instances where it actually seemed to react to construction or road obstacles in a practical way. I could count on 10-20 hands the number of times it tried to get me to maneuver across several lanes of traffic in order to spend 30 feet on some back road only to get back onto the road I was just on, having to re-maneuver across lanes. Also, at some point a few months ago they redesigned the ride sharing interface. I'm referring to the feature where you can link a friend so they can see your drive. I used this all the time with my girlfriend when I'd come to visit, so she could see how close I was. Then it completely broke. It became horribly unreliable. In the end I left Waze for Google Maps because it didn't seem to actually deliver on any of its goals.
- 07a 12y ago
  The popularity of Yik-Yak has kind of already proven that you are objectively wrong.
- Kurtz79 12y ago
  There are plenty of apps for which geographic vicinity is crucial to the service they provide: meetup, yelp, uber... apps for which the end goal is for the user to interact with, or obtaining information about, something/someone close to him/her. To be fair, the description of this app it's so vague that it's hard to see how distance would affect its users.
  - bbcbasic 12y ago
    During the growth stage they probably need to allow infections to go far (otherwise if you are in a sleepy town you see nothing and stop using it) Once they gain traction, you will get too many infections from around the world and may be interesting in what is happening local. I like how vague it is - it is allowing the the users to define it's purpose. A bit like Facebook. Already seen too many cats on there for one day though. One is too many.
    - jerf 12y ago
      "Already seen too many cats on there for one day though. One is too many." Well, that's the fatal flaw of this recurring "let's build a local social network!" idea... if you wanted to indiscriminately talk to people all around you in your area, you already would be. By and large, you don't have every neighbor on your Facebook because you don't really want them there.... I still haven't seen a compelling use case that isn't based largely on wishful thinking or nostalgia (often for eras not lived in by the nostalgia-ee that may or may not even have existed...), rather than being based on some sort of witnessed need.
- andrewfong 12y ago
  It's perfect for something like a protest, especially if you're worried about a (non-local) adversary flooding the network with irrelevant information. See some of the coverage on the use of FireChat in Hong Kong (http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/16/tech/mobile/tomorrow-transformed-firechat/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/16/tech/mobile/tomorrow-transform...). Along a similar vein, I could see localized information being very useful during an emergency or natural disaster. "Downed power lines on Main Street" means different things depending on the poster's geography.
  - alsoosla 12y ago
    But you can't take your cell phone to protests anymore - we live in a constant mass-surveillance society now. So unless you don't care that that protest will be added to your personal profile, you leave it at home.
- mb_72 12y ago
  Perhaps it could work as follows: 1) in terms of information sharing you are always sharing what is 'nearby' with others who are 'nearby'; this keeps the information flowing no matter what 2) in terms of information DISPLAY, it defaults to monitoring what is 'nearby' BUT you can also choose to remotely monitor other geographic areas (while 1) is still happening)
torkable 12y ago
I dun get it
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Wow, marketing fail. Epidemic information distribution was the center piece of the paper "Epidemic information dissemination in distributed systems" and highlighted in Gossip[1]. Marketing words that have a better connotation for this might be 'discovery' or 'enlightment' or 'intuition', even 'gossip', even though it is often a scourge in middle school, has a better reception than 'plague'. [1] http://phdopen.mimuw.edu.pl/lato08/notes-1.pdf http://phdopen.mimuw.edu.pl/lato08/notes-1.pdf
dilap 12y ago
I love Plague. For me, it's like the spiritual, mobile successor to mainpage reddit, i.e., a nice casual way to consume & share neat photos, links, and interesting "what if...?" questions. So far at least, the community has been very positive, and not overrun with 9gag-style inanity. An interesting aspect of the dissemination scheme is that even popular cards will only spread to, say, 100 to 1000 people. This keeps the conversations on the cards small enough to still be intimate.
deleted 12y ago
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Velox 12y ago
What is the definition of "nearby users" in this context? It seems like someone can start something in Seattle for example, and then only 1 other person has seen it, but they are in France?
- dilap 12y ago
  They've been tweaking the algorithm as they go along. Initially it was highly local centric, now it appears to bias towards nearby but with a lower probability chance of jumping further away. (Source: Early user, and some comments from the CEO on Plague cards asking the same question.)
themoonbus 12y ago
They do need to make it more clear what the word "information" means in the context of the app... It's such a broad word.
bjackman 12y ago
This page is totally devoid of content. If it wasn't for the comments in here, I would have absolutely no idea what it's advertising; I would have closed it and forgot about it forever. It does seem like a cool idea though.
devindotcom 12y ago
More like Vague amirite! But seriously, I am unclear on pretty much every aspect of this. Even the screenshots give very little info. I don't know if I'm going to need to sign up for an account, or whether I'd be receiving "infections" from Portland and Boise or just up the block here in Seattle. And since I'm guessing 90% of these items are going to originate on the wider net to begin with, or be posted there simultaneously, the benefit to me seems dubious at best. A more limited version that only sends stuff over local wifi or using local wifi as a beacon to make an ad hoc connection between "carriers" would be cool, though. More hyperlocal, you can be sure if the thing has only taken two or three steps, it was someone nearby who made it. Maybe that's how it works; there's no way to know for sure and I don't really plan to find out!
- kghose 12y ago
  I've never used it, but our CEO swears by "Yik-Yak" (I wrote "Whisper" which was wrong)
- sethammons 12y ago
  The first thing I thought of was something I saw at a weekend hack event: in a disaster or when no network can be found, it looks for nearby phones over blutooth and propogates messages until the original message eventually finds a phone to send out a communication over data or wifi.
  - devindotcom 12y ago
    Yeah I love the idea of this kind of robust mesh. I think it'll happen eventually. Alternatively it could propagate until it reaches whoever it's going to on the limited network (your friend in a different neighborhood) and then send out a kill order for the other propagating packets.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      The kill order sounds like it could waste as much bandwidth as the duplicated message copies, and be exploitable to suppress messages unless it requires a signature from the message's recipient.
nilkn 12y ago
I'm trying it right now on Android and I think the up/down swipe gestures are too sensitive. I have to be super careful with my finger on the screen to avoid accidentally swiping a card the wrong way. Other than that, it's an interesting idea. For those who are unclear on how this actually works, it presents cards with information on them that others nearby you have posted (photos, etc.). You can swipe up to "infect" nearby people (send the card to them) or swipe down to do nothing. Also, I didn't have to sign up or create an account to start swiping.
pavel_lishin 12y ago
Since the page itself is useless: this is like Tinder for reddit's r/funny subreddit. No account creation, so it's probably just tied to your device - sort of like Yik Yak, I guess. Things seem to be geographically correlated, though I imagine that the more 'viral' a thing is, presumably the further it can spread. edit: I guess you can create an account, but it's not required to 'infect' crap. At least here in NYC, it seems like one user is generating 99% of all content. A third of it is "art", a third of it is gifs of girls twerking, and another third is just celebrity snapshots.
- runn1ng 12y ago
  You have to have an account for "creating" content. Not for infecting.
DonaldDerek 12y ago
Plague Inc. of real data! Cool!
- Artemis2 12y ago
  Hopefully Madagascar can get some news with this!
rwfilice 12y ago
You shouldn't have to login to create a new item.
pizzashark 12y ago
This is kind of reinventing the wheel. If I want to hear things from people in my area, why can't I just walk outside and talk to them instead of using this app?
- unfunco 12y ago
  To some, going outside and talking to people is an inconvenience and uncomfortable. Reinvention affords convenience, why rent a movie from iTunes when I can just walk the thirty minutes to my nearest DVD rental place? Why listen to a song immediately when instead I can wait for a CD to arrive in the post?
- tjbiddle 12y ago
  New ideas are always welcome; for even if they fail - they may inspire another.
- fizzbatter 12y ago
  Such an odd response. How many people are waiting on your doorstep to inform you of information in your local area? I don't think this app does information sharing any better than, say, twitter (far worse, imo) - but i find your response puzzling. Since your issue is not of the quality of content (signal/noise), and instead that of locality.. that you believe you can just walk out of your door and get the same information this app provides - I ask you, can you? Can you walk out your door, and receive similar info to that of this app? The range on the internet far exceeds most peoples doorstep. Mine for sure, at least.
deleted 12y ago
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cstross 12y ago
It looks to me like someone just reinvented RFC 977 (or maybe 3977) as an app ...
stephenhess 12y ago
I really like this. Simple mechanic and has that intimate feel that you get from snapchat but with people nearby. They clearly need some love from a real designer tho.. that logo / loading thing looks like something you'd stomp to death if you ever ran into it.
tronium 12y ago
I highly recommend this. I've been a heavy user for two weeks, and it's been working fantastic, I don't regret it.
stockkid 12y ago
I believe there is a game with a similar name and concept: Plague Inc.
jbinto 12y ago
My feedback: I just tried it in Toronto and had to swipe down about 50 times to get rid of obvious (and NSFW) spam. The content is better now, but all coming from the eastern USA. I tried to comment on something, and got prompted to register. But after I registered, I lost the card I was going to comment on, and there appears to be no way to go back to a previous card. The geolocation is a little wonky ("Nueva York, Estados Unidos").
- personZ 12y ago
  I tried in the Halton area (West of Toronto) and had about 40 things from a single individual in Hamilton who continually posted far right conspiracy type things. I suppose this is the issue with the network effect -- right now it looks pretty pathetic in this area. But the idea is solid. The Internet went global, but really a lot of the activity now is making it local again.
rymohr 12y ago
I don't care to see pictures of cats but I do want to be notified of major local events. Allow me to filter out posts that haven't already been spread by X users and you're onto something major here.
bsg75 12y ago
Deleted within 5 minutes. There was no news, no actual information. Only a series of random pictures, screenshots of other apps, and vague comments about whatever what on the poster's mind. Social news will always have a near zero signal to noise ratio.
tjbiddle 12y ago
Seemed interesting; however I uninstalled after a few minutes of use. I think the idea certainly has potential - but the people around me just seem to treat it as a status update or Instagram post. This would be a great technology to spread important information but I don't know how you'd filter that without defeating the purpose of "infecting" people.
darkstar999 12y ago
I couldn't figure out where the post came from. That should be easy.
elwell 12y ago
99 Notifications on the app icon badge; made me uninstall. Also, would be nice to be able to go back to a post I accidentally swiped.
07a 12y ago
The website doesn't do a good job of explaining what it is. Essentially, you are provided with a list of 'infections' which are just funny photos or messages. You can choose to either 'stop' the infection from spreading further or 'infect' other people, propagating the message to new people whom you can geographically reach but the previous propagators could not. It seems like the range can get pretty large. I live in the middle of nowhere. My first few images were from maybe ~5 miles away, but after using it for a bit I'm getting messages from 40-100 miles away. You don't need an account, but it gives an option to create an account to "track" your infections as they spread.
oracardo 12y ago
Description on the app store is better than the website imo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.plague https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.plague "Plague is an essentially different way to spread information. The idea for Plague is to create a perfect medium for spreading information as wide as it deserves to be spread, without any boundaries. Plague works like a virus. When you spread information, it goes to the users who are closest to you physically. The infected users can spread information exponentially further or they can resist the epidemic by keeping the information to themselves. Everyone has a fair and equal chance to be heard by the whole network right from the start - there is no friending or following on Plague. If your information is interesting to people, it can eventually spread to the entire world."
runn1ng 12y ago
It's interesting how addictive it is, at one hand, and how fast it becomes boring on the other. After one hour of seeing "motivational quotes" and "funny pictures" I about had enough.
pstavro 12y ago
hi all, I've been working on a similar concept called Ripple, and launched 2 days ago. I heard of Plague days after submitting my app to the iOS store, and found it to be a bit different from what I want to focus on. I do think it's possible to create a community with this type of concept without all the clutter, and have it simultaneously focus on local (city or neighborhood wide) events and news. Ripple allows users to only submit text-based content for now, and presents all content in table form instead of individual cards. We've found that this combination really focuses the type of content shared as well as allows users to browse content and spread "ripples" they truly find engaging. There is also a bit of a difference with how ripples are spread versus how plague infects people. Ripples are received by users only once. Though we are at the beginning of our user base building and want many users on Ripple, we are also promoting this in specific cities and communities to have people share local news that matters amongst each other. Check it out here: http://getkefi.com/ripple http://getkefi.com/ripple I'd love to hear all your feedback and thoughts.
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  Consider picking a different name; Ripple is already used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_%28payment_protocol%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_%28payment_protocol%29
  - colmvp 12y ago
    I don't know why you're getting downvoted. When I think of Ripple I think of the payment protocol and I'm not even that tech savvy.
    - eof 12y ago
      Says the guy with 2k karma and a 3 year old account on a site called hackernews :D
    - pstavro 12y ago
      Hello colmvp, Yes, there are a couple of products out there with the name Ripple, but I don't think the vast majority of people know any of them, including this. If this does turn out to be a problem, I'll rename in a heartbeat!
glesica 12y ago
Something like this that didn't use the Internet would be cool. Like if it used some kind of Bluetooth and would "sync" certain topics. Kind of like Bitcoin meets Usenet but using a mesh network.
- bwian232 12y ago
  so ... street pass on 3DS
  - glesica 12y ago
    Woah! That's neat!
tomelders 12y ago
An information dissemination tool created by a company called "Deep Sea Marketing"? Colour me cynical, but nope.
digitalpacman 12y ago
This medium only works for localized information. There's no reason to use it for anything that's not.
0x0 12y ago
It's slightly worrying that looking at a post I made via "my profile" shows a map with "Infection started here" pinpointed to my exact house, but when I click "Show post" it shows the same map with the marker offset somewhat. Is the post tagged with exact geolocation and merely randomly offset by the client in its "show post" mode? Why else would it should an exact location on my profile but a distorted location on "show post"?
call 12y ago
Opened the app and was immediately met with ~10 posts from a local leather daddy. It was incredibly endearing.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
bbcbasic 12y ago
It is a lot of fun. Glad to see some infections already down here in Sydney. It could get very addictive.
- bbcbasic 12y ago
  Two requests: 1. Please make the videos not auto-play! Embarrassing at work. 2. Please properly set the audio source in Android, so that when I adjust the volume it isn't the ringer volume but the app volume.
dredmorbius 12y ago
Forward to Marketing: A few bits I've noticed over 25+ years in the industry in assessing technology product and service offerings: hardware, software, SAAS, PAAS, and more. ⚫ Tell me what your product is. What it does, where it works, how it does it, what it requires. Is it a physical product (or is it shipped in one), an interactive application, a Web service, a programming language / tool? As a reader notes, don't make me use Wikipedia to figure out WTF your company does. ... http://redd.it/27d5xr http://redd.it/27d5xr (Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489870)
- peteretep 12y ago
  I suspect the story would have had less traction here if it was obvious what the app did
deleted 12y ago
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BronSteeDiam 12y ago
“I am unclear on pretty much every aspect of this” “don't know if I'm going to need to sign up” “benefit to me seems dubious” “what this things actually do?” “This page is totally devoid of content” “If it wasn't for the comments… I would have closed it and forgot about it forever” “Tell me what your product is. What it does, where it works, how it does it, what it requires. Is it a physical product (or is it shipped in one), an interactive application, a Web service, a programming language / tool? As a reader notes, don't make me use Wikipedia to figure out WTF your company does” 1) Lower your bar for trying new things 2) Don’t be so cynical and quick to judge. “The best way to find out what it does is to download the app.”
- andrea_s 12y ago
  Actually that kind of feedback can be extremely useful to a creator... There might be a demographic worth targeting with "it looks cool, just install it!", but that's surely not HN... Having a page detailing what the product offers never killed any marketing attempt (unless we are talking complete vaporware, that is). I personally wasn't sure if I was looking at a game or some social app, and certainly I wouldn't install everything that shows up on HN for the sake of trying (we would wind up with a hundred apps per week, each with its own security clearance!)
- imron 12y ago
  Considering the amount of malware, spyware, marketing-ware, grab-all-your-phone-contacts-and-upload-them-to-our-server-ware on the marketplace these days, my bar is quite high and I'm happy for it to remain so. For a new product/app, the onus is on the company creating it to explain why I would want/need their product. I'm not going to go around installing random things on my phone just to 'find out what it does'. I want at least some idea of what the app does before installing. No compelling use-case? No download.
  - BronSteeDiam 12y ago
    I would rather install an app, to see what permissions it needs, before assuming it needs anything. If an app does nothing without me logging in or giving them my contacts, then it probably does nothing. There are many good reasons to be a late adopter, safety is one. I don't think they should optimize their landing page for late adopters. Judging from the site I thought Plague would be a new take on Reddit. Where Reddit asks if you like or dislike a Meme (we need a new word). Plague asks if you want to slow down or speed up its spread. This difference should mean different content is surfaced.
ForFreedom 12y ago
Tried this... You could equate this to Jelly, Foursquare. But seriously there is not much use of it.
Houshalter 12y ago
I'm confused what it is even after reading the comments. It's some kind of image sharing thing? Why is this at the top of HN?
jackau 12y ago
Amazing idea!!
ThinkBeat 12y ago
This has advertising and spam written all over it. How nice just as you pass Benny Giraffe store: "Today 50% off healthy biscuits for Giraffes."
TheHypnotist 12y ago
So far my plague experience has been random photos of random locations, text quotes of famous people, and text quotes of users. So basically, a lot like Instagram. Neat concept, but I'd rather it be pictures of something exciting down the street that I may pass forward to others in the area and if it's exciting enough, even further. Not reposts just to gain points for how far your post reached.
bbcbasic 12y ago
I have used it for a few days. Here is my account: ==== The mechanics ==== Basically you share cards with short messages, pictures and videos. When you post a card you infect a few people who are closest to you. Then those people see it as a card, and decide whether to swipe up to infect more people close to them, or swipe down to ignore. If you make something popular and people tend to swipe up 25% or more of the time, it slowly will spread across the world. I live in Sydney, so with a faily dense userbase here, the first infections are in the same city. However if you live somewhere without any users nearby the infections will go further geographically to find the nearest 4 or so people. The more success you have with infecting people, the more your infection index goes up, and so the more people you infect when you post or swipe up. In addition there are comments on cards. If you make a comment you get subscribed to the card and altered on further comments. You can unsubscribe from a card when this gets annoying. ==== Expect to see ==== ► Memes copied from other sites. This leads to popular cards complaining about this, and saying to not upswipe memes. ► More memes. ► Even more memes. ► Inspirational quotes, mostly cliche but sometimes something new. ► Pet cats, dogs as expected. ► Pretty women, boobs, etc. ► Holiday photos. ► A small amount of politics. ► Screenshot of a plague card, which someone else takes a screenshot of so you get a recursion. Those are really boring now! ► More Memes. ► Vary rarely inappropriate things - NSFW, porn, hatred etc. The system seems good at self policing that kind of rubbish. ==== What is it for ==== In my opinion it is for mindless entertainment. The same way you may hang out on Facebook for an hour because you are bored. This fills a boredom hole and can get addictive, especially with the gamification of rewards (higher infection ability) for creating new messages and getting to argue with strangers about pointless stuff. For this reason alone I decided to uninstall.

Plague

201 points by jamesjyu 12y ago

joshu 12y ago

It is a bit of a cross between tinder (swipe to amplify/dampen) and images (photos are the social object)

Khao 12y ago
Why can't the website tell what it actually does? It's honestly a terrible landing page for an app.
- reledi 12y ago
  It's probably their strategy. Being (intentionally) vague raises curiosity. The best way to find out what it does is to download the app.

ssivark 12y ago

The beauty of the internet is that physical/geographic distance is not the deciding factor any more. Two people far separated by geography can be very close online. So why would an internet-enabled app re-introduce artificial geographic rigidity?

draugadrotten 12y ago
Sometimes artificial limits adds to the fun. Why is soccer only played with feet and not with hands, and why can't I kick a basketball? And why can't I go outside the hockey rink at will.
- michaelmcmillan 12y ago
  I think the greatest example of this is Snapchat with their short lifespan.
themoonbus 12y ago
Well, as I see it, different apps for different purposes. Information that is only relevant in a certain geographic area won't spread beyond that area. Information that is widely relevant will spread widely (if I understand the app correctly, I haven't actually used it). Also, many communication platforms have "arbitrary" constraints (square photos, 140 characters) that help shape the user experience.
ianferrel 12y ago
There are times when geographic locality is the thing you want to filter on. A few weeks ago, I was stuck on a freeway. Completely stopped. After about 10 minutes of no motion I really wished I had been able to do a "search within 1/2 mile of my location" sort of thing to find out what was going on and when it would likely be fixed, so I could decide to tell the friends I was meeting "I'll be a bit late" or "Sorry, guys, go on without me".
- tetrep 12y ago
  >There are times when geographic locality is the thing you want to filter on. Which has nothing to do with actually being near said locality. I think filtering on geographic locations is great, but even greater is that ability to do so while remote. I can learn about events occurring in and around a specific area without actually being in that area. That's (part of) the beauty of the internet.
  - ianferrel 12y ago
    I disagree that it has nothing to do with it. I'm way more likely to be interested in stuff happening near where I currently am than in some other arbitrary place. Sure, sometimes it makes sense to be able to search elsewhere, but that makes things more complicated for marginal gains. Yelp is a good example. Yes, I've used it to research food in other locations, but it would still be 95% as useful to me if the only thing it did was show me stuff that was nearby, since that's what I almost always use it for.
- yaddayadda 12y ago
  You should check out waze https://www.waze.com/ https://www.waze.com/
  - nilkn 12y ago
    I was a dedicated Wazer for a while and I eventually had to accept that it just didn't work. I could count on one hand maybe the number of instances where it actually seemed to react to construction or road obstacles in a practical way. I could count on 10-20 hands the number of times it tried to get me to maneuver across several lanes of traffic in order to spend 30 feet on some back road only to get back onto the road I was just on, having to re-maneuver across lanes. Also, at some point a few months ago they redesigned the ride sharing interface. I'm referring to the feature where you can link a friend so they can see your drive. I used this all the time with my girlfriend when I'd come to visit, so she could see how close I was. Then it completely broke. It became horribly unreliable. In the end I left Waze for Google Maps because it didn't seem to actually deliver on any of its goals.
07a 12y ago
The popularity of Yik-Yak has kind of already proven that you are objectively wrong.
Kurtz79 12y ago
There are plenty of apps for which geographic vicinity is crucial to the service they provide: meetup, yelp, uber... apps for which the end goal is for the user to interact with, or obtaining information about, something/someone close to him/her. To be fair, the description of this app it's so vague that it's hard to see how distance would affect its users.
- bbcbasic 12y ago
  During the growth stage they probably need to allow infections to go far (otherwise if you are in a sleepy town you see nothing and stop using it) Once they gain traction, you will get too many infections from around the world and may be interesting in what is happening local. I like how vague it is - it is allowing the the users to define it's purpose. A bit like Facebook. Already seen too many cats on there for one day though. One is too many.
  - jerf 12y ago
    "Already seen too many cats on there for one day though. One is too many." Well, that's the fatal flaw of this recurring "let's build a local social network!" idea... if you wanted to indiscriminately talk to people all around you in your area, you already would be. By and large, you don't have every neighbor on your Facebook because you don't really want them there.... I still haven't seen a compelling use case that isn't based largely on wishful thinking or nostalgia (often for eras not lived in by the nostalgia-ee that may or may not even have existed...), rather than being based on some sort of witnessed need.
andrewfong 12y ago
It's perfect for something like a protest, especially if you're worried about a (non-local) adversary flooding the network with irrelevant information. See some of the coverage on the use of FireChat in Hong Kong (http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/16/tech/mobile/tomorrow-transformed-firechat/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/16/tech/mobile/tomorrow-transform...). Along a similar vein, I could see localized information being very useful during an emergency or natural disaster. "Downed power lines on Main Street" means different things depending on the poster's geography.
- alsoosla 12y ago
  But you can't take your cell phone to protests anymore - we live in a constant mass-surveillance society now. So unless you don't care that that protest will be added to your personal profile, you leave it at home.
mb_72 12y ago
Perhaps it could work as follows: 1) in terms of information sharing you are always sharing what is 'nearby' with others who are 'nearby'; this keeps the information flowing no matter what 2) in terms of information DISPLAY, it defaults to monitoring what is 'nearby' BUT you can also choose to remotely monitor other geographic areas (while 1) is still happening)

torkable 12y ago

I dun get it

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Wow, marketing fail. Epidemic information distribution was the center piece of the paper "Epidemic information dissemination in distributed systems" and highlighted in Gossip[1]. Marketing words that have a better connotation for this might be 'discovery' or 'enlightment' or 'intuition', even 'gossip', even though it is often a scourge in middle school, has a better reception than 'plague'. [1] http://phdopen.mimuw.edu.pl/lato08/notes-1.pdf http://phdopen.mimuw.edu.pl/lato08/notes-1.pdf

dilap 12y ago

I love Plague. For me, it's like the spiritual, mobile successor to mainpage reddit, i.e., a nice casual way to consume & share neat photos, links, and interesting "what if...?" questions. So far at least, the community has been very positive, and not overrun with 9gag-style inanity. An interesting aspect of the dissemination scheme is that even popular cards will only spread to, say, 100 to 1000 people. This keeps the conversations on the cards small enough to still be intimate.

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Velox 12y ago

What is the definition of "nearby users" in this context? It seems like someone can start something in Seattle for example, and then only 1 other person has seen it, but they are in France?

dilap 12y ago
They've been tweaking the algorithm as they go along. Initially it was highly local centric, now it appears to bias towards nearby but with a lower probability chance of jumping further away. (Source: Early user, and some comments from the CEO on Plague cards asking the same question.)

themoonbus 12y ago

They do need to make it more clear what the word "information" means in the context of the app... It's such a broad word.

bjackman 12y ago

This page is totally devoid of content. If it wasn't for the comments in here, I would have absolutely no idea what it's advertising; I would have closed it and forgot about it forever. It does seem like a cool idea though.

devindotcom 12y ago

More like Vague amirite! But seriously, I am unclear on pretty much every aspect of this. Even the screenshots give very little info. I don't know if I'm going to need to sign up for an account, or whether I'd be receiving "infections" from Portland and Boise or just up the block here in Seattle. And since I'm guessing 90% of these items are going to originate on the wider net to begin with, or be posted there simultaneously, the benefit to me seems dubious at best. A more limited version that only sends stuff over local wifi or using local wifi as a beacon to make an ad hoc connection between "carriers" would be cool, though. More hyperlocal, you can be sure if the thing has only taken two or three steps, it was someone nearby who made it. Maybe that's how it works; there's no way to know for sure and I don't really plan to find out!

kghose 12y ago
I've never used it, but our CEO swears by "Yik-Yak" (I wrote "Whisper" which was wrong)
sethammons 12y ago
The first thing I thought of was something I saw at a weekend hack event: in a disaster or when no network can be found, it looks for nearby phones over blutooth and propogates messages until the original message eventually finds a phone to send out a communication over data or wifi.
- devindotcom 12y ago
  Yeah I love the idea of this kind of robust mesh. I think it'll happen eventually. Alternatively it could propagate until it reaches whoever it's going to on the limited network (your friend in a different neighborhood) and then send out a kill order for the other propagating packets.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    The kill order sounds like it could waste as much bandwidth as the duplicated message copies, and be exploitable to suppress messages unless it requires a signature from the message's recipient.

nilkn 12y ago

I'm trying it right now on Android and I think the up/down swipe gestures are too sensitive. I have to be super careful with my finger on the screen to avoid accidentally swiping a card the wrong way. Other than that, it's an interesting idea. For those who are unclear on how this actually works, it presents cards with information on them that others nearby you have posted (photos, etc.). You can swipe up to "infect" nearby people (send the card to them) or swipe down to do nothing. Also, I didn't have to sign up or create an account to start swiping.

pavel_lishin 12y ago

Since the page itself is useless: this is like Tinder for reddit's r/funny subreddit. No account creation, so it's probably just tied to your device - sort of like Yik Yak, I guess. Things seem to be geographically correlated, though I imagine that the more 'viral' a thing is, presumably the further it can spread. edit: I guess you can create an account, but it's not required to 'infect' crap. At least here in NYC, it seems like one user is generating 99% of all content. A third of it is "art", a third of it is gifs of girls twerking, and another third is just celebrity snapshots.

runn1ng 12y ago
You have to have an account for "creating" content. Not for infecting.

DonaldDerek 12y ago

Plague Inc. of real data! Cool!

Artemis2 12y ago
Hopefully Madagascar can get some news with this!

rwfilice 12y ago

You shouldn't have to login to create a new item.

pizzashark 12y ago

This is kind of reinventing the wheel. If I want to hear things from people in my area, why can't I just walk outside and talk to them instead of using this app?

unfunco 12y ago
To some, going outside and talking to people is an inconvenience and uncomfortable. Reinvention affords convenience, why rent a movie from iTunes when I can just walk the thirty minutes to my nearest DVD rental place? Why listen to a song immediately when instead I can wait for a CD to arrive in the post?
tjbiddle 12y ago
New ideas are always welcome; for even if they fail - they may inspire another.
fizzbatter 12y ago
Such an odd response. How many people are waiting on your doorstep to inform you of information in your local area? I don't think this app does information sharing any better than, say, twitter (far worse, imo) - but i find your response puzzling. Since your issue is not of the quality of content (signal/noise), and instead that of locality.. that you believe you can just walk out of your door and get the same information this app provides - I ask you, can you? Can you walk out your door, and receive similar info to that of this app? The range on the internet far exceeds most peoples doorstep. Mine for sure, at least.

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cstross 12y ago

It looks to me like someone just reinvented RFC 977 (or maybe 3977) as an app ...

stephenhess 12y ago

I really like this. Simple mechanic and has that intimate feel that you get from snapchat but with people nearby. They clearly need some love from a real designer tho.. that logo / loading thing looks like something you'd stomp to death if you ever ran into it.

tronium 12y ago

I highly recommend this. I've been a heavy user for two weeks, and it's been working fantastic, I don't regret it.

stockkid 12y ago

I believe there is a game with a similar name and concept: Plague Inc.

jbinto 12y ago

My feedback: I just tried it in Toronto and had to swipe down about 50 times to get rid of obvious (and NSFW) spam. The content is better now, but all coming from the eastern USA. I tried to comment on something, and got prompted to register. But after I registered, I lost the card I was going to comment on, and there appears to be no way to go back to a previous card. The geolocation is a little wonky ("Nueva York, Estados Unidos").

personZ 12y ago
I tried in the Halton area (West of Toronto) and had about 40 things from a single individual in Hamilton who continually posted far right conspiracy type things. I suppose this is the issue with the network effect -- right now it looks pretty pathetic in this area. But the idea is solid. The Internet went global, but really a lot of the activity now is making it local again.

rymohr 12y ago

I don't care to see pictures of cats but I do want to be notified of major local events. Allow me to filter out posts that haven't already been spread by X users and you're onto something major here.

bsg75 12y ago

Deleted within 5 minutes. There was no news, no actual information. Only a series of random pictures, screenshots of other apps, and vague comments about whatever what on the poster's mind. Social news will always have a near zero signal to noise ratio.

tjbiddle 12y ago

Seemed interesting; however I uninstalled after a few minutes of use. I think the idea certainly has potential - but the people around me just seem to treat it as a status update or Instagram post. This would be a great technology to spread important information but I don't know how you'd filter that without defeating the purpose of "infecting" people.

darkstar999 12y ago

I couldn't figure out where the post came from. That should be easy.

elwell 12y ago

99 Notifications on the app icon badge; made me uninstall. Also, would be nice to be able to go back to a post I accidentally swiped.

07a 12y ago

The website doesn't do a good job of explaining what it is. Essentially, you are provided with a list of 'infections' which are just funny photos or messages. You can choose to either 'stop' the infection from spreading further or 'infect' other people, propagating the message to new people whom you can geographically reach but the previous propagators could not. It seems like the range can get pretty large. I live in the middle of nowhere. My first few images were from maybe ~5 miles away, but after using it for a bit I'm getting messages from 40-100 miles away. You don't need an account, but it gives an option to create an account to "track" your infections as they spread.

oracardo 12y ago

Description on the app store is better than the website imo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.plague https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.plague "Plague is an essentially different way to spread information. The idea for Plague is to create a perfect medium for spreading information as wide as it deserves to be spread, without any boundaries. Plague works like a virus. When you spread information, it goes to the users who are closest to you physically. The infected users can spread information exponentially further or they can resist the epidemic by keeping the information to themselves. Everyone has a fair and equal chance to be heard by the whole network right from the start - there is no friending or following on Plague. If your information is interesting to people, it can eventually spread to the entire world."

runn1ng 12y ago

It's interesting how addictive it is, at one hand, and how fast it becomes boring on the other. After one hour of seeing "motivational quotes" and "funny pictures" I about had enough.

pstavro 12y ago

hi all, I've been working on a similar concept called Ripple, and launched 2 days ago. I heard of Plague days after submitting my app to the iOS store, and found it to be a bit different from what I want to focus on. I do think it's possible to create a community with this type of concept without all the clutter, and have it simultaneously focus on local (city or neighborhood wide) events and news. Ripple allows users to only submit text-based content for now, and presents all content in table form instead of individual cards. We've found that this combination really focuses the type of content shared as well as allows users to browse content and spread "ripples" they truly find engaging. There is also a bit of a difference with how ripples are spread versus how plague infects people. Ripples are received by users only once. Though we are at the beginning of our user base building and want many users on Ripple, we are also promoting this in specific cities and communities to have people share local news that matters amongst each other. Check it out here: http://getkefi.com/ripple http://getkefi.com/ripple I'd love to hear all your feedback and thoughts.

JoshTriplett 12y ago
Consider picking a different name; Ripple is already used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_%28payment_protocol%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_%28payment_protocol%29
- colmvp 12y ago
  I don't know why you're getting downvoted. When I think of Ripple I think of the payment protocol and I'm not even that tech savvy.
  - eof 12y ago
    Says the guy with 2k karma and a 3 year old account on a site called hackernews :D
  - pstavro 12y ago
    Hello colmvp, Yes, there are a couple of products out there with the name Ripple, but I don't think the vast majority of people know any of them, including this. If this does turn out to be a problem, I'll rename in a heartbeat!

glesica 12y ago

Something like this that didn't use the Internet would be cool. Like if it used some kind of Bluetooth and would "sync" certain topics. Kind of like Bitcoin meets Usenet but using a mesh network.

bwian232 12y ago
so ... street pass on 3DS
- glesica 12y ago
  Woah! That's neat!

tomelders 12y ago

An information dissemination tool created by a company called "Deep Sea Marketing"? Colour me cynical, but nope.

digitalpacman 12y ago

This medium only works for localized information. There's no reason to use it for anything that's not.

0x0 12y ago

It's slightly worrying that looking at a post I made via "my profile" shows a map with "Infection started here" pinpointed to my exact house, but when I click "Show post" it shows the same map with the marker offset somewhat. Is the post tagged with exact geolocation and merely randomly offset by the client in its "show post" mode? Why else would it should an exact location on my profile but a distorted location on "show post"?

call 12y ago

Opened the app and was immediately met with ~10 posts from a local leather daddy. It was incredibly endearing.

deleted 12y ago
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bbcbasic 12y ago

It is a lot of fun. Glad to see some infections already down here in Sydney. It could get very addictive.

bbcbasic 12y ago
Two requests: 1. Please make the videos not auto-play! Embarrassing at work. 2. Please properly set the audio source in Android, so that when I adjust the volume it isn't the ringer volume but the app volume.

dredmorbius 12y ago

Forward to Marketing: A few bits I've noticed over 25+ years in the industry in assessing technology product and service offerings: hardware, software, SAAS, PAAS, and more. ⚫ Tell me what your product is. What it does, where it works, how it does it, what it requires. Is it a physical product (or is it shipped in one), an interactive application, a Web service, a programming language / tool? As a reader notes, don't make me use Wikipedia to figure out WTF your company does. ... http://redd.it/27d5xr http://redd.it/27d5xr (Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7489870)

peteretep 12y ago
I suspect the story would have had less traction here if it was obvious what the app did

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BronSteeDiam 12y ago

“I am unclear on pretty much every aspect of this” “don't know if I'm going to need to sign up” “benefit to me seems dubious” “what this things actually do?” “This page is totally devoid of content” “If it wasn't for the comments… I would have closed it and forgot about it forever” “Tell me what your product is. What it does, where it works, how it does it, what it requires. Is it a physical product (or is it shipped in one), an interactive application, a Web service, a programming language / tool? As a reader notes, don't make me use Wikipedia to figure out WTF your company does” 1) Lower your bar for trying new things 2) Don’t be so cynical and quick to judge. “The best way to find out what it does is to download the app.”

andrea_s 12y ago
Actually that kind of feedback can be extremely useful to a creator... There might be a demographic worth targeting with "it looks cool, just install it!", but that's surely not HN... Having a page detailing what the product offers never killed any marketing attempt (unless we are talking complete vaporware, that is). I personally wasn't sure if I was looking at a game or some social app, and certainly I wouldn't install everything that shows up on HN for the sake of trying (we would wind up with a hundred apps per week, each with its own security clearance!)
imron 12y ago
Considering the amount of malware, spyware, marketing-ware, grab-all-your-phone-contacts-and-upload-them-to-our-server-ware on the marketplace these days, my bar is quite high and I'm happy for it to remain so. For a new product/app, the onus is on the company creating it to explain why I would want/need their product. I'm not going to go around installing random things on my phone just to 'find out what it does'. I want at least some idea of what the app does before installing. No compelling use-case? No download.
- BronSteeDiam 12y ago
  I would rather install an app, to see what permissions it needs, before assuming it needs anything. If an app does nothing without me logging in or giving them my contacts, then it probably does nothing. There are many good reasons to be a late adopter, safety is one. I don't think they should optimize their landing page for late adopters. Judging from the site I thought Plague would be a new take on Reddit. Where Reddit asks if you like or dislike a Meme (we need a new word). Plague asks if you want to slow down or speed up its spread. This difference should mean different content is surfaced.

ForFreedom 12y ago

Tried this... You could equate this to Jelly, Foursquare. But seriously there is not much use of it.

Houshalter 12y ago

I'm confused what it is even after reading the comments. It's some kind of image sharing thing? Why is this at the top of HN?

jackau 12y ago

Amazing idea!!

ThinkBeat 12y ago

This has advertising and spam written all over it. How nice just as you pass Benny Giraffe store: "Today 50% off healthy biscuits for Giraffes."

TheHypnotist 12y ago

So far my plague experience has been random photos of random locations, text quotes of famous people, and text quotes of users. So basically, a lot like Instagram. Neat concept, but I'd rather it be pictures of something exciting down the street that I may pass forward to others in the area and if it's exciting enough, even further. Not reposts just to gain points for how far your post reached.

bbcbasic 12y ago

I have used it for a few days. Here is my account: ==== The mechanics ==== Basically you share cards with short messages, pictures and videos. When you post a card you infect a few people who are closest to you. Then those people see it as a card, and decide whether to swipe up to infect more people close to them, or swipe down to ignore. If you make something popular and people tend to swipe up 25% or more of the time, it slowly will spread across the world. I live in Sydney, so with a faily dense userbase here, the first infections are in the same city. However if you live somewhere without any users nearby the infections will go further geographically to find the nearest 4 or so people. The more success you have with infecting people, the more your infection index goes up, and so the more people you infect when you post or swipe up. In addition there are comments on cards. If you make a comment you get subscribed to the card and altered on further comments. You can unsubscribe from a card when this gets annoying. ==== Expect to see ==== ► Memes copied from other sites. This leads to popular cards complaining about this, and saying to not upswipe memes. ► More memes. ► Even more memes. ► Inspirational quotes, mostly cliche but sometimes something new. ► Pet cats, dogs as expected. ► Pretty women, boobs, etc. ► Holiday photos. ► A small amount of politics. ► Screenshot of a plague card, which someone else takes a screenshot of so you get a recursion. Those are really boring now! ► More Memes. ► Vary rarely inappropriate things - NSFW, porn, hatred etc. The system seems good at self policing that kind of rubbish. ==== What is it for ==== In my opinion it is for mindless entertainment. The same way you may hang out on Facebook for an hour because you are bored. This fills a boredom hole and can get addictive, especially with the gamification of rewards (higher infection ability) for creating new messages and getting to argue with strangers about pointless stuff. For this reason alone I decided to uninstall.