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Ask HN: I made an app that makes people happy, how do I let them know about it?

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Re: Ask HN: I made an app that makes people happy, how do I let them know about it?

#31

Post by getonit »

evilchelu wrote: post #14
A1kmm wrote: post #11

The idea is reasonable. A few comments: * The login system is difficult to use. A user registration system on your site is really worth the effort; if not, at least supporting OpenID would be good. After logging in, returning to the page the user signed up on could also improve the flow. * For a site like this, I'd expect that having a very refined visual design might matter to many users; the current visual design w…

Sorry, I forgot to mention. For some strange reason, I'm not looking to make money out of this. At some point I was considering it, but decided that just making people happy and having a fun project to play with is good enough for now. Thanks for the advice tho. Most of it applies even if I'm not looking to monetize in some way.

That's awesome, but be wary of your bandwidth rocketing up faster than you can afford to pay for it...

Re: Ask HN: I made an app that makes people happy, how do I let them know about it?

#32

Post by notahacker »

evilchelu wrote: post #14
A1kmm wrote: post #11

The idea is reasonable. A few comments: * The login system is difficult to use. A user registration system on your site is really worth the effort; if not, at least supporting OpenID would be good. After logging in, returning to the page the user signed up on could also improve the flow. * For a site like this, I'd expect that having a very refined visual design might matter to many users; the current visual design w…

Sorry, I forgot to mention. For some strange reason, I'm not looking to make money out of this. At some point I was considering it, but decided that just making people happy and having a fun project to play with is good enough for now. Thanks for the advice tho. Most of it applies even if I'm not looking to monetize in some way.

People will be made happy giving or receiving mugs and t-shirts with good designs on them. By all means leave the ads out of the equation if you're not interested in exploiting that angle, but there's no need to leave money on the table.

Re: Ask HN: I made an app that makes people happy, how do I let them know about it?

#33

Post by cfontes »

gojomo wrote: post #7

StumbleUpon, reddit.com/Art. Upload some of the best resulting pictures as examples of a novel kind of online collaboration in appropriate forums to pique curiosity. Do some themed collaborations around upcoming holidays/events/controversies. (Superbowl, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, etc. – each output might carry further, and fit discussion in more places, for a few key days.) Try to find fans/discussions of th…

You should try uploading some stuff periodically to www.DeviantArt.com, one of the best sites for Artists around, very Tech addicts, with a huge crowd of users...

But don't shoot all your bullets at once, drop a new piece there once a day, and it should give some some users in some weeks.

Re: Ask HN: I made an app that makes people happy, how do I let them know about it?

#35

Post by rriepe »

Maybe call them tile drawings or something? I too was expecting something like drawball when I read "collaborative drawing." Quilts, patchworks, lots of words to play off here.

Get the artists' permission to use their work in the design of the site. It'd be more interesting than the grey that's there now, and would also help to show what's going on. The first image would be great for getting visitors' attention.

The name's a bit tricky. You could rename it to whatever name you come up with to describe the whole process. (I don't think Tzigla is sticky enough to become that name on its own)

Prints of this stuff could be really popular with people who like psychedelic art (which is a lot of people). Maybe that's your market? Of course, giving the artists their share is gonna be tricky (not to mention how fast the money/art clash can ruin your community).

I'd say build up your community before worrying about monetizing it. (I have to run now, before an angry mob forms)

Re: Ask HN: I made an app that makes people happy, how do I let them know about it?

#36

Post by evilchelu »

brudgers wrote: post #34

Tried to test: http://tzigla.com/boards/6 For me, it does not render correctly in Opera 11. Does not load correctly in IE8. Only loads right in Chrome.

IE is not supported at all. IE9 might work through some divine intervention, but we didn't test it.

Opera 11 should work fine and it actually does works fine for us, just tested it right now. But, thanks for the report, we'll look into it a bit more.

Re: Ask HN: I made an app that makes people happy, how do I let them know about it?

#38

Post by brudgers »

evilchelu wrote: post #36
brudgers wrote: post #34

Tried to test: http://tzigla.com/boards/6 For me, it does not render correctly in Opera 11. Does not load correctly in IE8. Only loads right in Chrome.

IE is not supported at all. IE9 might work through some divine intervention, but we didn't test it. Opera 11 should work fine and it actually does works fine for us, just tested it right now. But, thanks for the report, we'll look into it a bit more.

Opera 11 [build 1156] looks like the CSS is broken. Not supporting IE means the easy-to-use meme is more likely to be stillborn.

Re: Ask HN: I made an app that makes people happy, how do I let them know about it?

#39

Post by john-n »

evilchelu wrote: post #30
john-n wrote: post #27

Hi, nice idea. Had a few issues with usability however. - Think you need to simplify the site, its a bit too cluttered to be easily approachable. - Maybe i just missed it but on first arrival maybe have a simple 3 step instructions as to what the site is/users do. Using the word drawing so much gave me the impression there was a simple flash/canvas drawing tool. Perhaps make it clearer that you download the file then…

I'd really love to hear if you have some ideas about uncluttering it. We've iterated lots of versions till we got to this state. The canvas drawing confusion seems to be quite spread. We'll definitely have to add something about it. Oh wow, that's but is nasty. Let me explain why you got that, you'll find it hard to believe, I promise :) We use an iframe to upload the tiles directly to s3 and s3 redirects back to the…

Will go back and look over usability stuff again, but just quickly yeah id just uploaded then logged out (In latest stable chrome btw, not ff).

Re: Ask HN: I made an app that makes people happy, how do I let them know about it?

#40

Post by ao12 »

rriepe wrote: post #35

Maybe call them tile drawings or something? I too was expecting something like drawball when I read "collaborative drawing." Quilts, patchworks, lots of words to play off here. Get the artists' permission to use their work in the design of the site. It'd be more interesting than the grey that's there now, and would also help to show what's going on. The first image would be great for getting visitors' attention. The…

The irony: in romanian, Tzigla (Țiglă) means roof tile
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