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Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

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Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#31

Post by christiangenco »

angersock wrote: post #23

So, talked with some folks about an idea similar to this a few months ago. As the conversation evolved, they came up with "tagging" a given chat room to denote what was in it, and letting people choose their own names...some kind of "handle" on the identified "channel". The proposed messaging fabric would use servers hosted in the cloud, each functioning as sort of a repeater to their client mobile devices. A sort of…

After seeing the criticisms of Dropbox[1] on Hacker News, I'm much more analytical of the stereotypical "critical top post(s)" when introducing a new project. Getting candid, constructive critical feedback is certainly one of the values of posting on HN, but criticising that a product or service is just a combination of known technologies is an incredibly weak criticism: it could be applied to any innovation.

Here's my litmus test for whether something has already been done: if I asked ten random people to solve the problem this thing is trying to solve, could they name a product that solves it?

Ex:

* "How would you have a folder on your computer that stays synchronized across multiple computers and is accessible online?" -> Dropbox or Google Drive (not an acceptable answer: "I'd set up rsync to run as a daemon syncing to a VPS on each computer")

* "How would you send public messages to people you didn't know in close proximity?" -> Popcorn Messaging?

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#34

Post by jroll »

jcutrell wrote: post #27

I almost created one of these, except for news. Hyper-local news is largely missing - I was going to mash up Twitter, Instagram, and in-app updates to help people get a sense of what's happening immediately around them. This is actually a great idea to solve this problem though. The news use-case is for city life. When you hear a gunshot or a car accident occurs on your street or you see smoke off in the distance or…

I would pay good money for this - I'm always trying to figure that sort of thing out and it always ends up as a bunch of random googling or trying to remember to check the news in a few hours.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#35

Post by jaredsohn »

jcutrell wrote: post #27

I almost created one of these, except for news. Hyper-local news is largely missing - I was going to mash up Twitter, Instagram, and in-app updates to help people get a sense of what's happening immediately around them. This is actually a great idea to solve this problem though. The news use-case is for city life. When you hear a gunshot or a car accident occurs on your street or you see smoke off in the distance or…

Check out http://app.bg/. It shows local Instagrams, Foursquare tips and tweets. Also http://www.nearbytweets.com

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#36

Post by mattberg »

melvinmt wrote: post #25
adamb_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming it's a one mile radius for everyone, making it a chat room the app would either need to intersect or union everyone's area... This would make the novelty of the app unusable or pointless, respectively.

Yeah, I wonder how that works actually. If radius A intersects with B and C but B and C don't intersect with each other, do B and C see A chatting to someone who they don't see?

would really like to know more about this as well.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#37

Post by michaelx »

hallman76 wrote: post #26

I really hope this takes off - it would be great to use at events! Yobongo was trying to get this going a while back. For some reason they focused on specific cities (Austin, NYC, and SF) instead of using a generic 1-mile approach like this. I was always disappointed that they got aquirehired - their app died on the vine.

Agree. It could be very useful at events and a good addition to Twitter's nearby feature, because of the intention to actually meet people.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#38

Post by mforbes »

melvinmt wrote: post #25
adamb_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming it's a one mile radius for everyone, making it a chat room the app would either need to intersect or union everyone's area... This would make the novelty of the app unusable or pointless, respectively.

Yeah, I wonder how that works actually. If radius A intersects with B and C but B and C don't intersect with each other, do B and C see A chatting to someone who they don't see?

That's how mobile radios have always worked... CB, FRS, GMRS, etc. Definitely not a new problem. Repeaters can mitigate the problem somewhat.

Re: Show HN: Popcorn Messaging – Anonymously chat with people within 1 mile

#40

Post by angersock »

christiangenco wrote: post #31
angersock wrote: post #23

So, talked with some folks about an idea similar to this a few months ago. As the conversation evolved, they came up with "tagging" a given chat room to denote what was in it, and letting people choose their own names...some kind of "handle" on the identified "channel". The proposed messaging fabric would use servers hosted in the cloud, each functioning as sort of a repeater to their client mobile devices. A sort of…

After seeing the criticisms of Dropbox[1] on Hacker News, I'm much more analytical of the stereotypical "critical top post(s)" when introducing a new project. Getting candid, constructive critical feedback is certainly one of the values of posting on HN, but criticising that a product or service is just a combination of known technologies is an incredibly weak criticism: it could be applied to any innovation. Here's…

Don't get me wrong, it's a nifty little app.

I'm just pointing out that I heard an idea a few months ago that was nearly identical. Our advice to the folks was "Yeah, this is cool--go code it!".

These toy campus apps are really great for building experience and learning; that said, they're still just that: toy campus apps.

The obligatory "but but but facebook" rebuttal is that it was a matter of timing more than anything else.

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