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Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

bubblic.app

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Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#31

Post by sgt »

jaybhum wrote: post #28
theflyinghorse wrote: post #23

The app loaded nearly instantly for me on mobile brave browser. Seemingly flutter has gotten a lot better for flutter web. It's nice to see more adoptation of flutter

That is great to hear! Sometimes it is hit-or-miss. I think it might have to do something with the AWS backend that sometimes fail to connect instantly. We plan to improve on this for next iterations.

I've built a couple of Flutter apps and one of them was Flutter web. At the time (from 2020-2022), Flutter web definitely wasn't mature enough. It was a challenge and last time I checked (earlier 2023) there were some serious issues.

However your app seems to load very quickly and I can't see any glaring performance issues, and that leads me to think that maybe Flutter web has improved significantly in the last year. I sure hope so!

Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#32

Post by jerrycruncher »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #27

Just a bit of my thoughts on seeing how this is being promoted, and the fine line/gray area between spam and an authentic "Show HN": 1. First, want to say kudos for building this app and putting it out there. It takes works and guts to do that. 2. "Overly promotional" submissions come off as spammy to me. Some of this is likely cultural, but things like "It definitely restored my faith in humanity" and "We are on a m…

I don't think you're being overly critical, especially since both user accounts seem to exist for the sole purpose of promoting the project.

Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#33

Post by mrweasel »

jaybhum wrote: post #26
mrweasel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do write: "We are on a mission to end loneliness" I don't know, it's a noble goal, but I don't really see it being something to build an income on. Not everything has to have a commercial angle, but you need to pay for hosting and you need to pay yourself a salary. If the last few months have thought us anything is that you need to have a plan for monetization (whatever that means to you).

Thank you very much. Voice connections without the element of vanity (photos, videos) can allow for authentic connections between strangers that texts cannot convey. It is what we believe in and first-hand experienced on our app. We first want to achieve the network effect so that the platform has value to users, then we do have some premium features in mind that we can serve to enrich the experience of power users.…

Thank you for you answer, it's nice to see that there's a plan for you to pay yourself in the future, and one that doesn't involve ads or "big data". Best of luck.

Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#34

Post by throwaway920102 »

jaybhum wrote: post #24
d0gbread wrote: post #14

What is it? I opened it up but it kinda throws you right in. Lots of recordings about being lonely. Is that what it's for, or was that some kind of prompt? Is it a mental health platform? Or is it meant to be more general, like a Twitter/Reddit but audio only?

It is the web-demo of the app that we have. On our iOS and Android app, we have onboarding pages that guide you what our mission is, and how to use the app. Sorry if the web-demo interface felt abrupt! The goal is to facilitate people forming authentic connections using their voice in today's day and age where we are flooded with vanity-focused photos and videos and easy-to-misinterpret texts. So far, the response fr…

Just some feedback, I'm really thrown off that literally every conversation I can see just says something like "Hi, I'm lonely and this is why".

I don't understand what this is / it just feels like a survey for really short sort of useless replies to a survey on loneliness.

If the goal here is to just show a snapshot of one example of how this system works, you may want to have a modal or explanation saying "This is just an example, download the mobile app to see the full experience and other conversations".

Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#35

Post by jaybhum »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #27

Just a bit of my thoughts on seeing how this is being promoted, and the fine line/gray area between spam and an authentic "Show HN": 1. First, want to say kudos for building this app and putting it out there. It takes works and guts to do that. 2. "Overly promotional" submissions come off as spammy to me. Some of this is likely cultural, but things like "It definitely restored my faith in humanity" and "We are on a m…

Thank you very much for your feedback!

I agree with you that we should be more incisive on our messaging instead of being too promotional like a mass-market ad.

But rest assured, we were able to deliver real value to our users for the past 2 months since we have launched. The voice as a conversation medium has allowed people to connect with complete strangers at an authentic level not possible with texts, not to mention photos and videos.

To answer the basic questions:

  - what is this? : Bubblic is a social audio app where you connect with others exclusively with your voice.

  - why should I care? : The authentic human connection is getting harder to come by as the communication channels people are inundated with are low-dimension (texts) or highly focused on vanity (photos and videos) which ultimately leads to surface-level connections. We believe this is the cause for rising loneliness and mental struggles among people, especially youths, in US and around the world, and the digital and social environment is such that it is very easy to fall into the abyss of loneliness. Many don't know how to get out of it and eventually go out into the world to find friends. We want Bubblic to be the bridge that can help people get out of, or prevent getting into, the abyss of loneliness by helping them connect with others using their voice. Voice, being the most primal method of communication, has the power to help feel connected and understand others that other media do not come close to, in our opinion.
That was long winded, but we will try to get those messages clearly on our landing page.

Thank you very much, again!

Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#36

Post by jaybhum »

jerrycruncher wrote: post #32
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #27

Just a bit of my thoughts on seeing how this is being promoted, and the fine line/gray area between spam and an authentic "Show HN": 1. First, want to say kudos for building this app and putting it out there. It takes works and guts to do that. 2. "Overly promotional" submissions come off as spammy to me. Some of this is likely cultural, but things like "It definitely restored my faith in humanity" and "We are on a m…

I don't think you're being overly critical, especially since both user accounts seem to exist for the sole purpose of promoting the project.

That is a fair point. We did want to promote it on Hacker News because it is such a great forum to get the word out. We apologize if it came off as a bit off-putting.

But we do hope that our app delivered on the value that we promise.

Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#37

Post by jaybhum »

throwaway920102 wrote: post #34
jaybhum wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the web-demo of the app that we have. On our iOS and Android app, we have onboarding pages that guide you what our mission is, and how to use the app. Sorry if the web-demo interface felt abrupt! The goal is to facilitate people forming authentic connections using their voice in today's day and age where we are flooded with vanity-focused photos and videos and easy-to-misinterpret texts. So far, the response fr…

Just some feedback, I'm really thrown off that literally every conversation I can see just says something like "Hi, I'm lonely and this is why". I don't understand what this is / it just feels like a survey for really short sort of useless replies to a survey on loneliness. If the goal here is to just show a snapshot of one example of how this system works, you may want to have a modal or explanation saying "This is…

That is a very good point.

On the actual app, you are able to carry a conversation with a stranger, going way beyond just sharing your short audio status messages.

We will try to capture that in the demo as well, either as an video or texts. Thank you for your feedback!

Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#38

Post by throwaway67743 »

jaybhum wrote: post #20
throwaway67743 wrote: post #13

While I'd like to look it left me on a blank page for ~2 seconds before redirecting to the actual app, it needs to be much faster as user engagement drops off almost instantly

Great point. We are working to optimize the load time as we have built this quickly to get it out into the world

Fair enough!

Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#39

Post by nonameiguess »

jaybhum wrote: post #35
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #27

Just a bit of my thoughts on seeing how this is being promoted, and the fine line/gray area between spam and an authentic "Show HN": 1. First, want to say kudos for building this app and putting it out there. It takes works and guts to do that. 2. "Overly promotional" submissions come off as spammy to me. Some of this is likely cultural, but things like "It definitely restored my faith in humanity" and "We are on a m…

Thank you very much for your feedback! I agree with you that we should be more incisive on our messaging instead of being too promotional like a mass-market ad. But rest assured, we were able to deliver real value to our users for the past 2 months since we have launched. The voice as a conversation medium has allowed people to connect with complete strangers at an authentic level not possible with texts, not to ment…

Sorry, but what you're describing sounds frankly impossible. You can't make an authentic connection with a complete stranger via voice clips in less than two months. Meaningful relationships take time to build, full stop. I believe, if you were truly being honest with yourself and not trying to promote a product, the "cause for rising loneliness and mental struggles" isn't that people are using communications channels with too much text or imagery. It's that their communications channels are largely mediated by a computer and involve communications with strangers in the first place. The solution isn't yet another app. It's to get off their devices and meet people physically and build true relationships, that involve not only talking to someone, but mutual obligation and care demonstrated over a long span of time across varied life circumstances that you share with one another. Sharing your life only with strangers is what causes this shallowness you see.

Re: Show HN: My husband quit his job to build a new social audio app with Flutter

#40

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

jaybhum wrote: post #36
jerrycruncher wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're being overly critical, especially since both user accounts seem to exist for the sole purpose of promoting the project.

That is a fair point. We did want to promote it on Hacker News because it is such a great forum to get the word out. We apologize if it came off as a bit off-putting. But we do hope that our app delivered on the value that we promise.

Actually, jaybhum, after looking at your post history, I changed my opinion - this isn't a gray area, what you're doing is flat-out spam, and I'm glad this post has been flagged.

You just submitted a Show HN on this exact site 11 days ago, and it got decent traction and comments. You don't get a second swing at bat just by having your wife submit it.

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