Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 121 posts

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#111

Post by mikeokner »

aacook wrote: post #101
mikeokner wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the best ideas (and execution) I've seen in a while! Great example of solving a problem w/ technology and turning it into a business.

Thank you. Means a lot. It's been the most interesting journey I've had to date. Unsure of where it'll lead but I plan to push through the end of December. I've been at it essentially full-time since the beginning of September with help from Andy on nights/weekends. Prior to this project, I had a failed solo side project. This project is different in so many ways, in part because I have people to talk to. For example…

I think you definitely have a shot. I'd suggest spinning up some social media accounts to widen your engagement since you're going to have a ton of overlap with the Instagram/Snapchat crowd. Also your prices for the higher tiers look on the cheap side. Don't be afraid to play with pricing.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#112

Post by cpeterso »

aacook wrote: post #94
cpeterso wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have offline advertising of NanaGram in retirement communities? That seems like a great way to reach more customers. Get "Nana" and the retirement community staff to market your product for you. :) Another idea: if the photo has any date/time or location metadata, you could print that on the photo so the recipient has more information about the photos when they look at them later.

I hadn't thought of metadata yet. I'm unsure if it comes through MMS. I'll have to check. We do know who is sending in the photo and we support captions (scroll down to the mushroom hunting photos for an example). When captions get added, we add the name and date of the user who added the photo. Lots of improvements to make in this area, for example, I'll probably release a way to insert full note cards (maybe 1 free…

Your caption examples are what made me think of the photo metadata, other content/context you could include in the photo. However, the user's own captions are probably more meaningful (and easier to implement ;). Photo metadata might be low quality or wrong if the image happens to get transcoded somewhere in the pipeline from camera to MMS to mobile carrier network to your service.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#113

Post by bovermyer »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #67
bovermyer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You read that entire article and this is what you took away? The situation is far more complex than that. Japan is facing a very real crisis, and the causes are not limited to its adoption of capitalism following WWII.

We're encouraged in capitalism to spend our limited time developing networks and connections with people who can benefit us financially or career wise. A true capitalistic value system considers it a waste of time to pursue relationships with simply interesting people with mostly non-capitalizable quality's like good sense of humor, compassion, storytelling...etc. reply. You get what you value.

And keeping in mind that both the USA and Japan have hybrid economic systems rather than pure capitalism implementations, you must be talking about an abstract concept rather than a real-world system.

Regardless, the article was not about the effects of capitalism, but rather about desocialization and abandonment of the elderly population in one class of Japan. This is not caused by capitalism alone, though capitalistic systems played a part.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#114

Post by aacook »

cpeterso wrote: post #112
aacook wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't thought of metadata yet. I'm unsure if it comes through MMS. I'll have to check. We do know who is sending in the photo and we support captions (scroll down to the mushroom hunting photos for an example). When captions get added, we add the name and date of the user who added the photo. Lots of improvements to make in this area, for example, I'll probably release a way to insert full note cards (maybe 1 free…

Your caption examples are what made me think of the photo metadata, other content/context you could include in the photo. However, the user's own captions are probably more meaningful (and easier to implement ;). Photo metadata might be low quality or wrong if the image happens to get transcoded somewhere in the pipeline from camera to MMS to mobile carrier network to your service.

This is a good point - need to get those images on the home page up to date to reflect the current functionality which inserts the name. Thanks a bunch for all the feedback.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#115

Post by fjsolwmv »

theklub wrote: post #73
andygcook wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I read the whole article from the parent, which got my thinking about my grandparents because this topic's been on my mind. Then I just started typing and didn't really have a plan of where it'd end up. We honestly don't really make much money on the whole project because the margins are razor thing. It's not software and there's a physical product that needs to be mailed, which costs a lot. We could ja…

I think its a cool idea. I'm surprised there isn't something like that already.

Of course there are many things like that already:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-share-digital-photos-with...

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#116

Post by timthelion »

Here in the Czech Republic there are many discussions about how there is not enough money for the elderly (almost all of whom lost what little they had during the transition away from communism due to changes in currency). Simultaneously, there is a lot of discussion about the lack of spots in pre-schools. And I also see that many elderly people are quite lonely. I think it would be a great idea to create combined elderly pre-school centers. You could attend if you were under the age of 7 or over the age of 70. Morning would be breakfast time, where the elderly and the very young would eat together. Then there would be play time, when the elderly could chat and watch as the children played. Then there could be lunch time. And after lunch, the elderly and the very young could sing songs. Then there could be some excersize time, which would mostly teach the kids to sit still and follow directions, while enticing the elderly to do some stretching. And then the kids would go home. And the elderly could perhaps sleep up-stairs.

I do not think this would harm the children, and I think that many old people would be much happier in such a setting.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#117

Post by aacook »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #115
theklub wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its a cool idea. I'm surprised there isn't something like that already.

Of course there are many things like that already: http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-share-digital-photos-with...

Thanks for sharing. Hadn't seen this yet. There are a ton of products in the space.

One of the things that makes NanaGram different is the group aspect. Most photo sharing apps are one-to-one. Usually, it's one person curating the photos and printing them and in most cases, they're sending the photos to themselves. For example, Groovebook.

We started as many-to-one with the first account being me and my 3 siblings curating photos together and sending them to our Grandparents. I think it was our 10th or so customer who asked us to create a way to send the same set of photos to multiple loved ones. That's when the service became many-to-many (or one-to-many if you're an only grandkid) and I started sending a copy of my Grandparents photos to myself.

My youngest brother is the most interesting (and sometimes elusive) man in the family and it's always tough getting photos from him. But every month so far, sure enough, he's reminded and sends in a sweet photo or two.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#118

Post by mercutio2 »

ashark wrote: post #68
somberi wrote: post #52

My mother-in-law lives in an active community where old people live. The other day I had gone to visit her and she was playing bridge with a dozen people. I thought to myself "There is a 1000 years of history here in this table". It was a humbling thought.

Bridge is freakin' great. It's recently infected my 25-35 age range circle of friends and now we've almost all caught the bug. It's like some kind of partners chess, but meaner, in card game form. A little like spades if you're familiar with that, but makes spades look like a game for babies. No requirements for multiple or specially prepared decks like some games (hand & foot, pepper) so it's convenient, too. Which…

Duplicate is basically the best game ever created. Just sucks you need 8, hard to accomplish in most youthful social circles.

When you’re retired, much easier to get at least two tables.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#119

Post by Aloha »

andygcook wrote: post #36

Elder loneliness is something I think about a lot. My grandparents on my father’s side are both 94. They’re also both hard of hearing. My grandpa had scarlett fever as a child and went almost deaf. He struggled through school and eventually got hearing aids in his 20’s. A huge improvement for him and every time he recounts that story he revels at the wonders of technology. I like to think my love of tech just runs in…

Well, I think this is a GREAT idea - in the spirit of the season, I did my part and shared about it on Facebook.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#120

Post by aacook »

Aloha wrote: post #119
andygcook wrote: post #36

Elder loneliness is something I think about a lot. My grandparents on my father’s side are both 94. They’re also both hard of hearing. My grandpa had scarlett fever as a child and went almost deaf. He struggled through school and eventually got hearing aids in his 20’s. A huge improvement for him and every time he recounts that story he revels at the wonders of technology. I like to think my love of tech just runs in…

Well, I think this is a GREAT idea - in the spirit of the season, I did my part and shared about it on Facebook.

Thank you!
Post reply on HN