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Show HN: Solo - An app for sharing solitude and loneliness

sharesolo.com

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Re: Show HN: Solo - An app for sharing solitude and loneliness

#41

Post by codezero »

This is really great. I'm pretty impressed with the decent amount of initial content. Where did you get your initial contributors? Is it entirely organic?

Regarding spam/inappropriate content, if you need any advice/guidance on how to best identify/block naughty people, feel free to send me an email.

Separately, I see all your submissions to HN are about loneliness, and Solo seems to have iterated through a number of names/goals, I'd love to hear how this idea evolved to what it is today.

Solo/Solitude is fantastically better than Anon App Anonymous Instagram, but one couldn't know that beforehand, what led you to change the name and what lessons did you learn along the way?

Re: Show HN: Solo - An app for sharing solitude and loneliness

#42

Post by wtsui »

codezero wrote: post #41

This is really great. I'm pretty impressed with the decent amount of initial content. Where did you get your initial contributors? Is it entirely organic? Regarding spam/inappropriate content, if you need any advice/guidance on how to best identify/block naughty people, feel free to send me an email. Separately, I see all your submissions to HN are about loneliness, and Solo seems to have iterated through a number of…

Thanks! That's kind of you to offer, will keep that in mind.

Initial users are friends and some nice people from /r/introvert on reddit.

Lonenote was inspired by PostSecret, a project I volunteer for. Lonenote seemed like a good idea at the time but ended up being a bad merging of two products, a niche handwriting app and the alone sharing app I really wanted to build, which is now Solo. I thought the novelty handwriting feature was necessary to bring attention to the alone idea.

Anon was an attempt to follow the early anonymous app wave and a reaction to Whisper, where people share stock images that are disconnected from real life.

Solo is the app I wanted to make even if no one but a few people would use it. I switched to 'Solo' because I wanted the name to express both the positive and negative sides of the alone experience.

Re: Show HN: Solo - An app for sharing solitude and loneliness

#44

Post by orng »

devolve wrote: post #43

I'd love to see face recognition being implemented in this app to ensure that group photos don't appear.

But what if you are "alone" in a crowd? At a concert, times square, etc. You can be lonely even when surrounded by people, in fact; it is often then that you feel the most alone.

Re: Show HN: Solo - An app for sharing solitude and loneliness

#45

Post by GotAnyMegadeth »

orng wrote: post #44
devolve wrote: post #43

I'd love to see face recognition being implemented in this app to ensure that group photos don't appear.

But what if you are "alone" in a crowd? At a concert, times square, etc. You can be lonely even when surrounded by people, in fact; it is often then that you feel the most alone.

Completely agree. I feel most alone at parties full of people I have nothing in common with

Re: Show HN: Solo - An app for sharing solitude and loneliness

#46

Post by scotthtaylor »

wtsui wrote: post #23
macu wrote: post #22

I signed up to wait for the Android version. As for myself, I spend 90% of my time (outside of work) alone, and there are a lot of wonderful things I see and think while wandering slowly in the early morning or evenings. It's not that I want to be alone, it's just really hard to find the right people, even knowing they're out in the world. I wouldn't want to spend too much time interacting with my phone, but this app…

That's exactly what this app is about. Thanks for signing up :)

You should check out http://www.peeky.co ;-)

Re: Show HN: Solo - An app for sharing solitude and loneliness

#50

Post by orthecreedence »

I respect the author and his approach. There's a lot to be said for quieting the noise we subject ourselves to at every turn.

However, in my personal experience, solitude is a state of being I do not wish to share with others when I'm experiencing it. It's a place I go to get away from the bombardment of thoughts and ideas and senseless chatter we all suffer through (although some enjoy it more than others). It's a place for quiet reflection and meditative concentration on self improvement and pursuit of happiness. When I want to be alone I want to be absolutely alone because each time I emerge a new person.

Then again, take what I say with a grain of salt; I don't even have a smartphone for precisely the reasons above. I view the level of mindless connectivity we all have with each other now to be somewhat insane.

All that said, if you can get more people to enjoy time by themselves, even if it is with the crutch of a smartphone, I would consider this app the methadone to social media's heroine. You have my blessing =].

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