Desks Near Me - find great coworking places to work at | Hacker News Reader

Desks Near Me - find great coworking places to work at

desksnear.me

88 pointspufuwozu76 comments

Price would be useful to have. It looks like the front page asks non-free spaces to mention that clearly in the description, but browsing through, the descriptions are pretty vague on that. Clicking through to the sites, it looks like they range from a person or small company with some spare desks they're willing to let you use free, to dedicated commercial spaces charging $20-30/day to rent. Those are pretty different categories, and I doubt I'd normally be looking for both simultaneously.

We completely agree. We are currently discussing the best way to do this

Also, please show number of desks available at the "at a glance" page. http://desksnear.me/workplaces

Right side can be reformatted to present more information.

So something like "20 @ $30" would be useful.

Its on the list of things to do in our next release. We cant push any new features up for 5 days because of the competition were in.

Just a note to anyone visiting the site. We are currently having issues with the mass demand of visits and going over our Google API request limit.

Currently in a team Skype call trying to resolve the issue. You can still see all the workplaces available via the "Workplaces" link. Search and creating workplaces are the pages that are affected.

Thanks to everyone for checking us out. We will keep @desksnearme updated with the progress.

Cheers.

We are back online and ready to take your search queries. But dont all geocode at once ;)

I like it. Actually, I'm looking for a desk to work at in Buenos Aires for the next 3 weeks. The cafes here are very busy and noisy.

I wonder if AirBnB will enter this category since they are a "marketplace for space".

You beat me to it! I was just going to comment that this was the office version of AirBnB! Hopefully there will be some Toronto additions.

A few weeks ago I was wondering about AirBnB for offices. Wasn't sure if it would be massively successful, but thought it might make a quality side project. Good to see someone's built it and their execution is decent.

RE: Workspaces in Buenos Aires. Have not used them, but went to an event hosted there, and it was a very nice place. http://areatresworkplace.com/en/services/areadesk/

Also just found this online: http://coworking.pbworks.com/CoworkingBuenosAires

RE: Airbnb, I think they have a lot of work left in just living space to keep them focused for a long time in that.

I have an office with some space but mostly i'd just like to meet other HN'ers while you're here - email me (email is in my profile)

There's one location listed in Hollywood, CA, with an address listing of 'hollywood': http://desksnear.me/workplaces/7-fortress-of-solitude

The idea is cute, but I assume there's some kind of QC available for verifying links? Otherwise you're literally begging to be overwhelmed by griefers at this stage.

Yup, Keith created that. Its a test record. Because we created this for a coding competition we need people to be able to judge the site and make bookings without actually making a real life booking.

Oops, I probably could have guessed that from reading your footer :]

Makes sense if it's a submission like that. I really like the idea and would 100% use a service like this were it populated well. Best of luck!

The search function does not work for me. I typed in 'Baltimore' and received zero results. But when I browsed the listings I came upon Beehive Baltimore ( http://desksnear.me/workplaces/32-beehive-baltimore).

Hey. We are onto this right now. Just having some issues with using a Google API service and request limits. Team Skype call is underway :)

Is it an issue with the geocoding limit ? if so why don't you geocode client-side ?

We have a fix in the pipeline that does :D But we can't push it up just yet...

Yeah I imagine it's not that easy to change the flow :)

Little known secret: libraries and hotel lobbies are great coworking locations for little to no cost.

that's true but a lot of the time you don't care about the location as much as about being around other people.

and sometimes you just want peace and quiet to get work done. it's all about appropriate context really.

Great! As someone who floats from cafe to bedroom to cafe throughout the week, this is a service i have been looking for. Impressed that you already have a location in Melbourne, Australia in your database, i'll probably go check them out.

It's because we're from Australia :)

Definitely worth checking out inspire9.

We've been getting a lot of really great feedback from this site and twitter and we've been taking it all under consideration. Feel free to check out http://blog.desksnear.me for some updates.

And guys, if you love the idea and want to see the site around, please vote for us at http://railsrumble.com/teams/the-rad-warlike-annex when public voting opens on Oct 21! The prizes will keep us alive for a long type!

Would it be beyond the scope of this to list temporary coworking spaces? For example there's a couple of places in my area that run an open office either weekly or monthly and it might be good to have a listing of those sorts of spaces.

It'd also be good to link in with the coworking visa that a number of coworking spaces are members of. And in fact it'd be good to work more closely with coworking spaces in general via the coworking wiki.

Great initiative! AirBnB for desks is really needed. Would be great to choose one day where I'd like to work :)

I think a lot of works needs to be done on UI. You don't need location from browser, you can just show desks within my city (get that from ip). And no facebook connect?

Watch how AirBnB did it. Start slow and from few cities then generalize it to other.

Good Luck!

Please please please, let me create an account without having to jump through silly hoops like OpenID or Twitter. Your little website just isn't compelling enough for me to do that.

I want to try it though, just to give you some feedback. Please let me create a simple login so that I can do so.

Yup we will be expanding the site soon. We built the site in 48 hours for the Rails Rumble competition. We kept it light as we could. After the judging and voting we will be adding in more features and options for login :)

Although we think using Twitter or OAuth is the easiest way. 1 Auth and your email address, thats it.

Thanks for your feedback.

How could implementing OpenID and OAuth for Twitter be faster to implement than a User table? Certainly you've built web apps before, and therefore have a login workflow that you can rip out and drop into a new site in the first 5 minutes of development?

One other thing you're missing is that as a new user of your thing, I don't trust you enough to hand across my twitter username or openID. I'm more than happy to create a throwaway account with you, but you're certainly not going to get any information that links my profile with you with my profiles elsewhere.

In short, you're losing a significant fraction of your potential userbase. Right now, since this is the moment when you've got more exposure than you'll ever have again. Spend 20 minutes getting a user/pass thing implemented right now, before the sun comes up in the US, and you'll quadruple your first-day signups.

I agree that might be the case but actually the Twitter and OpenID authentication is much safer.

1) When you authenticate with Twitter or OpenID its all done on Twitter or your OpenID providers site. We cant snoop your credentials at all, you dont enter it on our site. 2) Sure authentication is an easy feature but this way we dont need to ask you for your details again, you let us talk to your service and use your existing information. 3) You can kick us off from your Twitter account from Twitter itself and at any time, see Connections section under settings.

Some people might be conscious about us being able to access your Twitter or OpenID information but its mostly available to the world on these services anyway. OAuth (which is the underlying technology behind this authentication) is being used more and more. It's much better and safer for end users, its just that initial hurdle to get mass adoption. Its the end users decision if they trust the site or not. Most people have trusted us today :)

We cant make any changes to the app whilst its being judged, not one line of code. I do agree that we should look at implementing a base user signup sans-OAuth provider but we cant do anything until Rails Rumble has been judged and voted. It was a 48 hour coding competition with many other developers around the world, see www.railsrumble.com

You forget though that you've studied all this stuff. Casual users of your thing won't have.

So when you say "Give me your Twitter username and password", they'll say no. It doesn't matter that it's actually safe. It certainly doesn't sound safe, and that's all that matters.

Argue against it at your own peril. People are comfortable with user/pass.

You're blowing up a straw man. Quite a few people may actually have an active Twitter session and thus no active password entry even occurs. Open it up to Facebook Connect and it's more of the same.

You're comfortable with new user/pass and it doesn't sound safe to you.

I see what you guys mean. Hopefully when we can add features agin we'll able to implement these things. We had FB connect, but took it out because we didnt have time to test it enough. We also took out username/password auth because we felt it would complicate things - perhaps not?

I'll argue to the contrary.

Lots of sites use Facebook Connect because it actually drives signups.

Where are you basing your argument that people do not actually want to give their twitter username and password?

In my experience, a lot of casual users do not actually care. We had an email inviter that was used frequently where people actually have to give out their Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail credentials.

You may be comfortable with user/pass but do not make the assumption that the rest of the world are. You may think you're mainstream but you're probably not.

Hey, cut them some slack. This is for a weekend competition and if they think it is faster for them to implement OpenId and Twitter OAuth, it's their choice.

Give them the benefit of the doubt that it makes more sense for them to do this than an email/password authentication.

I don't think they are trying a big push for their site right now so they just need to do enough to make it work.

OpenID is easier than having to register for each site.

And you have Gmail right? Then you have an openid account.

In what respect? Because you have to type your password twice the first time you use a particular site with your standard throwaway user/pass combo?

In exchange for that single extra input box, OpenID forces a longer login process every time you use a site. The breakeven point where user/pass starts beating OpenID in terms of convenience happens at visit number two.

I type "stackoverflow.com", and click "login" then "Google", done. This is the same number of clicks as having my browser save my username and password.

What am I missing?

I have something like six Google accounts and a couple of Yahoo accounts and a LiveJournal account and three Twitter accounts and a Facebook account and a bunch of other things that come with OpenIDs.

What I don't have is any idea what OpenID I'm supposed to be using for any given service.

I've tried to just pick one, but the other thing I don't have is a desire to share my login history with any of the above sites, or to link my identity on any of those sites with my identity on New Fly-By-Night Site X without at least trying out Site X, and possibly checking its references too.

Something I do have is an automated workflow for handling usernames and passwords.

Let me provide an equally anecdotal, opposite preference:

Please please please, don't make me create an account on Yet Another Website. Your little website isn't compelling enough for me to do that. I'd much rather just use my Facebook or Twitter account.

(note, this is actually exactly how I feel, I'm not playing devil's advocate.)

OK, this web site has a terrible terrible interface. It uses these nonstandard recessed ovaloids and SOME of them are text fields and others are buttons that take you to other pages. It also tries to establish a HTML5 database without letting me know why.

what buttons/links are you talking about exactly?

Nothing sets up an HTML5 database, but it does ask use geolocation if your browser supports it

"The website “http://desksnear.me” is requesting 1 MB of disk space to store “html5 test db” as a database on your disk."

WORKPLACES, SIGN IN and Search By city or address all use novel UI elements of thinly recessed semi-transparent ovaloids, or let's call them extreme rounded rectangles. One is a text field and others are buttons.

Interesting. I wonder if that is Modernizer.js doing that without us realising it. What browser/OS are you using? I'll see if I can replicate it. On Chrome/OS X I never get asked.

Safari/OS X. You have to set "None allowed before asking" in Security if you want to be informed before a db is established. The issue is not that there is a message, it's that it's alarming to have a db set up without an obvious reason for it.

I guess I don't really care though. I am right about the user interface problems, but since your folks are slamming the downvote button as fast as they can in response to useful feedback when you've obviously not done user testing, I don't really care any more about giving good usability feedback. "Someone says our interface has problems! Punish him! He must die!" That's a stupid attitude and your company will fail if it retains it.

I'm not on the team nor did I downvote you but I can understand why others did.

Why are you complaining about "thinly recessed semi-transparent ovaloids"? Is that just another way of saying you don't like the rounded buttons? Why put it that way?

It's pretty intuitive to see which is a search area (obvious magnifying glass icon) and which are navigation buttons. Saying that it's a "terrible terrible" interface because of that is a bit excessive.

Thanks for trying to give feedback to them but try not to be so mean and make accusations like them conspiring to downvote you.

We didn't down vote you. I've only had an account for a day and don't even have the ability to down vote. There are only 4 of us so the down votes are coming from OTHER people.

I don't appreciate your attitude and assumptions about how we are responding to your criticism. I'm legitimately trying to understand why the HTML5 database is being created (it is the Modernizer.js script) and I'll be trying to stop it from doing so.

As to the interface issues, I didn't respond to that because I didn't understand your criticism. The other replies to your message have explained it better and I agree, that's a bit confusing. We WILL be looking into that so back off.

Why is this getting downvoted? It's honest criticism, with actionable things the site owners can do to make their thing better. Just because it's negative doesn't mean it's uncalled for.

I agree with you, but he could have been more polite than "terrible terrible", especially considering that site is 48 hours old.

Phrasing your feedback in a more friendly way will probably result in a better experience for you. For instance:

"I found it a bit confusing that the nav buttons and search box look really similar. Perhaps you could consider restyling them? Also, I keep getting a message from my browser that the site is trying to establish an HTML5 database. Could you explain why? The site doesn't appear to need the database for any of the functionality I've seen."

It's almost unusable on my G1, I think because of this:

    <meta name="viewport" 
       content="width=device-width; 
       initial-scale=1.0; maximum-scale=1.0;">

I can't zoom out to properly see the page.

Yeah sorry about that. It's a known bug. We've got it on our list and hopefully within a week or so (once voting closes on railsrumble.com) we will be fixing that up

Dude Im sorry about that, my bad. Used the HTML5 Boilerplate and didn't remove it before going live. I feel your pain. Iw anted to do a full mobile skin but time ran out.

NP. It seems something like this would be especially handy on phone if you're out and about and looking for a place to work.

Now I just need coworking places in north Scottsdale :).

There's already a pretty good directory here: http://wiki.coworking.info/Directory

It has none of the comfort features that desknear.me is attempting, though.

Free Co Working Space for Bangalore Hackers

http://www.getr.co/free-co-working-space-for-bangalore-hacke...

Nice work guys - this is excellent. Site feels awesome, and I will definitely be using it rather than having to put a shoutout on Twitter to find coworking spaces.

Great idea. Excellent execution.

I've added Gridspy (be fun to have a companion) http://desksnear.me/workplaces/87-gridspy-office

Like the application? Head on over to http://railsrumble.com/entries and vote for us!

Nice site, and I'd like to add the coworking space I work at, but...I don't own it. It looks like adding it presupposes ownership of the space.

Currently, it does, but we are discussing/planning the ability to add locations you don't own in a later release.

I was confused by the button "workplaces". Maybe something more explicit like "completely workplace listing" or "all workplaces"?

good idea. I've added it to the list

I don't think the Rails Rumble is actually in Earth, Texas (as the map shows) ;-)

I blame Google!

I blame it on the boogie.

Haha yeah we know. Unfortunately the first bug we've discovered is that editing the address doesn't update the coordinates :)

We can't deploy again until voting closes but the fix is being committed already.

Luckily it's fairly minor!

Great idea and nice execution! I can't wait til there is some desks in my area.

one thing, it did take me a second to figure out where i could upload a picture.

i kept naturally thinking it would be someone in the workplace edit page. Maybe a link from that page would be nice.

Good idea! It's on the list.

Also see loosecubes.com.

Looks good too, but I think the guys have captured some of the social elements better with @desksnearme - additionally the availability rollover in desks is awesome.

Nice to see more than one team rolling with the idea. May be best one emerge victorious.

great idea for a site. good luck in the rumble!

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