Show HN: Pinterest for text • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#11

Post by levng » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:02 PM UTC

terhechte wrote: post #7

I build something very similar in 2007: http://quotevault.appspot.com/ It has a bookmarklet to store quotes, and you can share selected quotes on a public 'quote feed': http://quotevault.appspot.com/public/terhechte It never really took of, so I stopped working on it. Kinda stupid because I spend quite some time working on it. Good luck with your endeavour.

That's pretty cool. I notice you have both a public and private option for users. We're sticking to making everything public for now for network effects, but will be keen to add a private option later on, demand pending.

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#12

Post by joyeuse6701 » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:05 PM UTC

Since you're sort of competing against the vibrancy of photos, why not consider allowing typography choices?

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#13

Post by levng » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:08 PM UTC

bradhe wrote: post #3

I can see a lot of utility in this tool. I don't care about quotes for quotes sake, but I could totally see this being useful as a tool for saving snippets. No idea how that's a business, but you can figure that part out.

We actually started this project at a Hackathon at Facebook HQ. We came up with the name via a quick domain search. I agree with you that quotes aren't necessarily the best term to use - maybe text snippets would be more accurate? We want to be a collection of all the interesting things people read on the Internet.

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#14

Post by jordn » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:09 PM UTC

levng wrote: post #8

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #5

I played around with this idea a couple of years ago, called it Quote Feed. I applied to Amazon -- thought it would be a great kindle app. Amazon seemed to have other ideas, though. Good luck! For what it's worth, I think it's a really cool idea.

Thanks Daniel - so it didn't work out with Amazon? The Kindle annotation system is also part of the inspiration behind QuoteRed actually. I find it pretty useful myself.

is there a way to access from my laptop those kindle snippets to put them on the site?

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#15

Post by ignostic » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

I believe https://clipboard.com/ has been doing this for a while, too. It'll be interesting to see if there's a market for these services along with Evernote and similar.

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#16

Post by levng » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #12

Since you're sort of competing against the vibrancy of photos, why not consider allowing typography choices?

I like that! Any typefaces you would propose in particular? Not sure if you noticed, but we've used two typefaces on the current version of the site: Adobe Caslon Pro and Proxima Nova.

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#17

Post by Hovertruck » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

ignostic wrote: post #15

I believe https://clipboard.com/ has been doing this for a while, too. It'll be interesting to see if there's a market for these services along with Evernote and similar.

So has https://findings.com/

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#18

Post by wilfra » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:11 PM UTC

Very cool. I have a better domain for you: tacked.com

Shoot me an email if you want to use it, I'm sure we can work something out :)

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#19

Post by olso4052 » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

I like the idea. I'll be honest, half the emails in my inbox are from myself, either with links or quotes or ideas, whatever.

Now, does EverNote offer something like this, or do they do full webpages only?

Integration is definitely key. I really like how you have the option to Tweet a saved quote on your app.

Re: Show HN: Pinterest for text

#20

Post by levng » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 4:18 PM UTC

undershirt wrote: post #9

mchusma wrote: post #2

I've always described Pinterest as "Twitter for images instead of text." If this is a common description it might help to come up with a better proxy. If not, go for it. I have no clue personally how to evaluate consumer products like this. Seems just as likely as any to work (Low probability high reward).

This seems like a way to separate the aphorisms and other significant musings from the everyday conversations on Twitter. I definitely see the value in this.

Thanks - part of the reason for making QuoteRed is that I find it hard to share things on Facebook and Twitter without it taking over my feed. My idea for this was, by limiting what you post to unoriginal content, you would be freer to post what you really want.