Ask HN: Review My (first) Startup: jummpp.in

Your baby is not ugly!

The site I'm currently working on and discussions I've had with friends, a few have asked me to build exactly what you've got.

Others didn't want me to abandon the original idea, so I'm sticking to my guns, figuring somebody would nail the space you're going after (plancast is trying, but haven't seemed to capture the ad-hoc-iness that you've got).

I like your nice clean design and the simplicity of adding events, though I didn't get any sort of pop-up to post to my facebook page, so I can't really inform my friends about it (I used one of my old fb test accounts).

I see you linked in to your cirque list, which I think is really great, to get intros to other people who are looking to do similar things.

I'm going to be in Vancouver in the next week (I'm from Whistler) let me know if you want to meet-up for coffee and I can tell you about the suggestions I've had from my friends and my thoughts related to your project.

I can be reached at pete / hearwhere.com

cool! ya i'd be very interested to hear your experience. i'll drop you an e-mail.

I'm not big fan of using Facebook login. I would think that it raises a barrier of entry for users, either because they don't have a facebook account or because they don't know what side affects your app will have. You don't explain what the advantages of using Facebook, or what integration there is with facebook. How will it affect the users's facebook account. You said in your post that it does not post to your wall, but you don't say that on the site that I can see.

Also the footer links are not links. You can't click on them. If I just say this page, I would not sign up because it doesn't look real yet with just a single page.

yes. lesson learned. offer options other than facebook login.

the footer is a potemkin village ;)

So, I think my biggest problem with this app is the UI. The layout is okay, but there are lots of places where the spacing is really far off.

Especially the enormous yellow bar on the front page. The type is way too big for the box, and the facebook connect icon is way too big. It needs to be displayed in its natural size - or an appropriately sized one needs to be found.

In general, little issues like that plague the UI and make it feel unpolished. Fixing them will go a long way towards making the app feel like something I'd want to use.

the enormous yellow bar is large and loud... in hope to focus attention on the facebook connect. But ya, I'll have to spend some time taking a closer look to fix the little issues

Anything is good for version 1.0. Start working on what matters because Ugly sites do make millions

http://blog.kissmetrics.com/ugly-websites/?utm_source=wptwit...

I cant use it. I don't have a FB account so pretty useless to me.

Looks like a fun idea though.

do you think twitter integration might work for you?

Not for me.

I have zero interest in coupling some new Web app to any of my other online accounts.

Just let me use a validated E-mail address and a password to use your site, and don't require me to let you hook into any other services I may or may not use.

i'll for sure implement login for jummpp.in itself. Before that though, i think it's a good idea I establish a baseline so I can see how many people actually want to use a separate login. This is one area i am not sure of. Some of my friends like facebook connect, some are surprisingly reluctant (despite knowing it's from me).

Then perhaps openauth or something else that's independent.

I second the request for a non-FB/Twitter login. Two reasons: (1) I cannot access Facebook and Twitter from work. (2) I don't trust new websites with my FB credentials since I am paranoid about how they might spam my friends, compromise my privacy etc. without me even realizing it.

With a validated email account, I would love to test out the site.

I think I would like to try it first and if I like it, then associate it to one of my accounts.

what are the thoughts that are going through your mind when you were like, uggh, i don't know if i want to login with facebook?

When I see that, I figure you're making an association with Facebook (or twitter, or whatever) on purpose. You're targeting the same audience as those who use that other service, and as such will likely add or alter features based on what that target audience wants.

I don't use Facebook much, nor twitter all that much either, and don't see myself as part of (real or imagined) those demographics. So I'm skeptical that your service is for me, or will follow my interests.

I also wonder if your service will be posting updates or tweets on my behalf ("I just joined a service that tweets things without my wanting them to!") or if at some point they'll be an unwelcome exchange of info among applications.

While I'm sure some people see the option to use an existing ID system as a real convenience, I see it as a potential pathway to privacy invasion.

thanks for the brain dump :) ya, you are different from the assumptions i am making. lesson learned

howard,

I agree with the above comment - I think you'd probably have more luck getting people to sign up for your service if they could try or at least browse parts of it without needing to associate an account with it first.

That way they can get a feel for what it does, what its value is, and why / if they might want to use it without having any cost.

Every user is going to associate some "cost" with the time it takes to associate their account with your service or the potential risks of associating with your service, and giving them a little taste of what your service might do first is a good way to help them overcome their initial objection to the perceived cost.

ya. i was thinking in terms of clicks. one click, and you have an account. I didn't expect the idea of using facebook itself a big mental wall. But the immediate plan is

1) make a screen cast 2) link to my own account as an example page 3) some sort of alternate login

These are all great ideas.

I'd love to do a more detailed walkthrough through your service later tonight and try to give you some pointers. I'm going to be relocating to a new city for work (LA) and your service would actually be very helpful for me.

You can DM me on Twitter (@Aaronontheweb) with an email address I can send you some more detailed user experience feedback if you're interested.

thanks so much! i'll do that

my email is hayeah at gmail

Seems like a cool idea.

However, I'd recommend doing some more brainstorming on the name (provided this is the brand you've settled on, and not just the dev site).

I know all too well that it's tough to find a good domain these days...but I think you can do better. I find that the average user's mind will have a hard time following ONE changed spelling convention. And you have two (the double-m & the double-p.)

Jummp.in? Cool. Jumpp.in? Sure. Jummpp.in? A little too cumbersome to explain to my friends when we're hanging out (& have any chance of them remembering it).

ya. but then with jumpp.in or jummp.in, it's hard to remember which of m or p is doubled

That's a better problem than having the whole domain name be hard to remember. I guarantee you a lot of people will look at this site and go, "Holy cow, that name is total nonsense," because the two doubled letters in a row make it no longer resemble the word "jump" so much as a cat walking on a keyboard. Personally, my skim-reading more closely associates it with the word "app" than "jump," which makes me want to read it as "jumapp."

My personal recommendation: For maximum readability, consider something like "letsjump.in". If you're attached to a quirkily spelled "jump in", "jumpp.in" is fairly readable.

i registered for both. so i now have

jummp.in letsjump.in jummpp.in

and incidentally, but completely unrelated,

hummpp.me ;)

which would should be the canonical? I am think letsjump.in? then in the future i can maybe buy jump.in, without having to rebrand

Nice. :)

Incidentally, I agree with all of the above commentary. Unfortunately, it's the sad reality of trying to start up an online service/product/whatnot today.

For the canonical, I like letsjump.in or gojump.in - and it's never too early to try and snag jump.in (the owner might be willing to part with it for less than you think). Good luck!

clickable http://jummpp.in

For me it seems like an app that would work with small groups of friends (like people from the same college) maybe you can consider using OpenID integration for everyone that doesn't use Facebook. IMHO there's a lot of API integration that you can do, like Google Calendar or even YouTube or Flickr for a fancy description of the event. And in the future consider going mobile, anyway, great idea.

+1 for OpenID

to be honest, i am a surprised that facebook connect is the biggest issue. I guess we techies are more cautious and cynical about facebook. I wonder how i can test against a less tech oriented crowd.

But ya, more API integration.

I think it sounds like a really cool idea and I would almost certainly use it if my friends were using it. That being said, I'm not going to associate my Facebook account with this app unless I'm a little more sure I'll actually use it. For me to make that decision, I need to see some examples.

In other words, consider linking to your profile (or a throw-away example profile) on the front page.

that's a good idea. do you think a screencast would help to convince you? that's one of the things i haven't got around in doing.

Sure, a screencast definitely wouldn't hurt.

It's a pretty neat idea, I just created an event to see who wants to go see Inception.

I'd add optional time/date and location fields for events that actually do have a set time and location. Looks like it might be Rails-based, so you can use the Chronic gem for easy natural-language time parsing (sort of like Plancast does).

Great idea, and this is definitely something i could see myself using.

I'm wondering though, what's the big advantage over me just posting on Facebook 'anyone want to see inception tonight?'? Does it just help me to manage the responses?

thanks! glad you like it. jummpp.in is somewhere between facebook events and facebook statuses. Right now it has a little extra features over facebook statuses (hashtag, so you can quickly find all the #lunch events, for example).

as I develop the app more, I'd build more features to help solidify a suggestion. For example, multiple choices of dates, so people can vote on which date works the best.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/books/humor/8e6c/images/2070/

hahaha, that's awesome. 12 different flavors of maybes

From what I've seen of it, it looks like a great idea. I can't wait 'til you have a mobile / non-FB interface. I hope it catches on.

agreed - mobile (cut down) version would be great - other ways of logging in that FB - AND even more FB integration (don't want the site to become one MORE place to visit) - maybe tie-in with twitter too?

Like the design but could have a few more colours to feel more social for the non hacker/geek squad like us here :)

Decent name and url - I just bought a shorter URL which might be a better fit, but guess you want to stick with what you got :)

Also - add a simpler feedback form to the site - I couldn't be bothered to add my details / search for similar questions etc.

I suggest,make logo smaller, add video above the fold. Explain in images what you so, since you make me read a lot.

thanks everyone for taking the time to comment. I think the main lessons are:

1) provide independent login 2) explain better what facebook connect is used for 3) provide more information upfront what the service is like, some people can decide if they want it. 4) an example page

i am glad i got early feedback :) thank you all so much

after using facebook connect to log in I clicked 'find friends' (either in the to do list or up top) and it appears to log me out and take me to the front page...

eeek. really! does it do that all the time? but can you log back in? so sorry for that :(

'fraid so. Seems to do it every time. I can log back in.

The link it is giving me to 'find friends' is: http://jummpp.in/users/45/find_friends

that is weird. i am not getting any exception raised. let me try to track it down.

This bug is still happening for me btw.

is anyone having the same problem? the "find friends" page queries facebook for the list of your friends also using jummpp.in. which is most likely the empty set. Tearing my hair out why Super_Jambo is being logged out.

i'd ignore everybody hating on the facebook login. this group is a little niche. it was probably a good decision for the first pass.

neat idea, ugly name. but idea more important!