Show HN: My craigslist erotic section replacement | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: My craigslist erotic section replacement

localstrange.com

13 pointsp01nd3xt3r27 comments

Open articleView on HN

The reason that Craigslist is popular is because there is no BS involved. It's plaintext. You click on something—it loads. It does not ask you where you are or try to sneak info from your browser. It doesn't stop loading while it's doing goofy Microsoft stuff. It doesn't stop loading while it harvests your personal info. It's dead simple.

I'd suggest you emulate this, above all else.

nah, this is more for fun than anything. And Geo loc is not sneaky microsoft stuff. All im doing is detecting your location.

I made this in a weekend by myself so I think its pretty cool even if everyone on HN thinks its lame. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I don't mean to be all negative or rain on your parade; it's just that you presented this as a replacement for a certain pat of Craigslist. But what you appear to be designing is something very different. It won't really attract that audience. And in particular, I agree with other commenters that people browsing such a service explicitly do NOT want the site harvesting their location info. That's an example of something they'd want to avoid.

I dont think its very diffrent; the goal here is for girls to check in and then you can find them via search and video chat / txt or call them. Thats the same value prop that CL Erotic section had. If you are saying you dont like how I am going about that then that is possibly a valid good point. Are you saying bad product or product / market fit? This is my first node project and it kind of took a few twist and turns but whatever... I might just make it something else if that does not work out.

Dont get discouraged, there will always be people who dont like what you do. And it is often this group that floods you with messages, those who like your product are too busy using your product to message you =) fact of life

I would like to at least know what I'm getting in trade for allowing the app to know my location. As it is, I load the site, it displays a blank page with a weird icon on the left, and it immediately asks for the location ... and I have not done anything yet.

I got this error:

IP-0AF2C18B HTTP www.localstrange.com C:/psc/htdocs/default/index.php

Not very erotic...

To be fair, not much would make me feel dirtier than PHP on Windows.

Leave off the www and just go to localstrange.com

Sorry about that I had the dns setup wrong and www. was going to the wrong aws instance. Its fixed now. I had to update from this account because i'm using noprocrast and cant login as p01nd3xt3r for a few more hours.

The whole thing is writen in Node w/ Mongo. I hate windows & probably could not get php running on windows either.

The minute I type in "blonde" or whatever, the first thing Chrome does is say "The browser would like to know your physical location" before it even begins loading the map. I feel like if I was trying to be discrete about my erotic actions, I'd be inclined to click "no".

More concerningly, the entire page stops loading before you make up your mind (since the whole page is a google map, I'm guessing?) - this makes it look like you have to say "yes" in order to use the website at all. You may want to look into trying to get parts of the site to load first that make it clearer that getting your location is an optional part of the experience.

it should not ask for loc on the search page. Ill fix that.

well, it's not on the search ('home') page, but as soon as you type anything it takes you to the map and that's when the browser asks for location.

I think another reason CL does so well - in all services - is that it allows me to browse wherever I want - not tied to my current location.

One of my favorite things about CL writ large is that they don't try to be smart, they just organize things reasonably so that people can more easily find what they're looking for.

The geoloc thing is very creepy. If I'm on this site, I don't really like the idea that it knows exactly where I am (even if not exactly).

It might be better to have a button/link to enable it.

"You must share your location in order to use this application. Refresh the page and share your location with the application if you wish to use it."

CL was a no shit, simpleish text layout website, yours can't even be advertised as a CL replacement, It's something else entirely .

You need 2 people. You are red dots they are green. My to do list.

1. limit the zoom level so you can see users block but not exact location

2. Integrate twilio for anon phone / txt capability

3. Fix search and check-ins... hacking on this now. I am entering this in the twilio Holiday Hack contest.

Clickable: http://localstrange.com/

I question using a search box for this - wouldn't categories be much much easier for everyone?

I am not sure; possibly but I wanted to do something different so i did it this way.

Which is it then, something new, or a Craigslist section replacement?

Some sort of text chat capability would be useful. It is also a bit slow; that may be the user's fault though. All in all, I really like it!

Linux users remember to add localstrange.com to your local settings if not prompted:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplay...

I agree, I dont have a mic and webcam on the current computer

this is so amusing watching the green things pop up all over the map! I am so lost on what I am doing though...

click the green dot to chat w/ that person.

what does the green marker signify? What does the box at the top right do? the textbox spotted @ textbox ?

OK i need to make it so that there are chat statuses and you can see when people are available.

No. This is an example of what you do NOT need to do. If you try to make it some giant glorified chat app, it will fail utterly.

I just mean make it so u can see when people are available so u dont click and just wait. What else do you suggest.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com