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Comment by bjonathan | Hacker News Reader

Hi fellow HNers,

I wanted to show you our new project: SecretPoke.com .

As big shy people ourselves and with Valentine's day coming up, we wanted an easy, anonymous and fun way to reach out to our crushes :)

We would love your feedback as much on the concept than on the execution (name, copy, design,...). We built it in less than 10 days and we are ready to modify the website quickly to take your feedback into account!

I also hope that SecretPoke will come handy to some of you ;)

As a thank you for your feedback, and for all what HN taught me during the past year, here is a code to have 3 more crushes for free: thankyouhn . You can enter it on the homepage when you are logged in.

Thank again, we are eager to hear what you think !

http://www.SecretPoke.com

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Before using it I would want to be reassured on two points:

1. I wouldn't feel very optimistic using such a site because I assume the emails you send will seem like spam and will be deleted by the recipients without much thought.

2. Using this site makes one vulnerable to cruel trolling. Imagine three or four people getting together, "secret poking" people they know, and sharing the results for shits and giggles. If I really need this site, am I brave enough to expose myself to that?

Personally, I couldn't use this service, because I'm beyond the age where it's acceptable to need it. I do feel like part of the target audience, though (especially ten-years-ago me) and am happy to be being served.

You seem to have a general mistrust of others. I've found life is a little better if you don't assume everyone's out to get you from the get-go.

I've seen people do equivalent things plenty of times. A group of people at my dorm (guys and girls) conned some poor kid on IRC, got him to reveal embarrassing sexual things about himself, and passed around screen shots. In high school, a girl would go to a guy and say that some other girl wanted her to tell him that she liked him, just so people could be entertained by the consequences. People lose their taste for that as they grow up, but for every kind of growing up there are people who never do. They just become more sophisticated. I've had people reveal private things about other people to me that made my blood run cold at the cruelty required to spread such information, and only for a trivial social advantage.

Adults who act that way are apparently rare and not well-liked, but odds are you know a few. You teach a child to be wary when approached by a stranger offering unsolicited favors, but not to be afraid of approaching strangers when they need help. The same principle applies when you are contacted anonymously over the internet and asked to reveal intimate emotional secrets.

I agree that becoming withdrawn and inhibited is not the best defense (the best defense is simply being someone other people will stick up for) but the site is targeted at people who cope with social fears by being extremely risk-averse. If you have to be comfortable with the risk of exposure and ridicule in order to use the site, then what's the point, except to be a fun flirty thing for cool people for fifteen minutes? The target users need some assurance that the site delivers on its promise of a less-risky way of revealing their feelings about somebody. Perhaps you're right that they shouldn't, but they do, and that's what matters.

If you're dealing with somebody new, you shouldn't assume they're out to get you. If you're dealing with everybody, you should assume somebody's trying to get you.

dude, mistrust of others isn't about assuming everyone's out to get you, it's assuming that one person can ruin things for everyone, which is true.

Hi dkarl,

Thank you for your feedback.

To answer your remarks:

1. We added a copy of the email we are sending in the frontpage (click on "what will they receive?") so you can see by yourself that it is a cute little mail. We are monitoring strongly the pourcentages of the crushes and we are testing some variations to know what perform best. You are right we need to communicate trust and we work toward that.

Although if she delete the email there is no arm for you as your anonymity is still preserved.

2. People are generally not that bad, I cant assure you that it won't happened. But SecretPoke only offer 3 free crushes so it should limit the secret poking ring .

I hope you will be served and that it will be with a person for whom you have a crush ;) Give it a try ... Life is full of good surprises :)

> What will they receieve?

I'm going to guess that some recepients will start entering all their classmates one by one until system will yield a match. Not because they have a crush on the whole class, but because they would want to figure out who the person on the other end is. For example, I know that I would've been mildly disturbed receiving an email from a site like yours, and would've wanted to sort things out.

I ended up here by Googling for "secretpoke spam" so yes, it totally does look like a spam email.

Particularly since the "hint" given narrows it down to married people, people who've moved overseas, and people I can't even get along with for a 5 minute conversation...

Thanks all of you. For the curious a screenshot of the live map of our visitors: http://i.imgur.com/UfXT0.jpg

Dont forget to use the coupon: thankyouhn to get 3 more crushes for free :)

Keep the feedback coming we looooove it !

Not bad for 10 days work. Just one small comment -- lose the song in the video. It's distracting. Use a simpler background music that sets the mood, but doesn't keep the viewer from focusing on the value proposition. BTW, what did you use to make the video? All the best!

nah man, I love the song. I was able to follow just fine with it.

I would also be interested in finding out how you made the video...Thanks!

I will post next week a blog post about how we made the site (design+video+copy+testing+user feedback) . For the moment, we are 100% focus on how to improve the product and build a momentum thanks to the feedback we are receiving :)

Well, I've had a secretpoke. It was almost certainly spam from you. (You chose a hint that made no sense.)

Call me suspicious, but wouldn't this be a great way to gather email addresses for mail marketing! (Almost as good as Facebook...)

On the plus side, I thought it was cute and made me smile for a second. So, thanks ... but, no thanks.

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