Tell HN: Breakup Notifier is now Crush Notifier | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Breakup Notifier is now Crush Notifier

blog.crushnotifier.com

94 pointstheli0nheart52 comments

Heres how people actually use this application.

You get crushed. Now you crush everyone you know of the opposite gender to figure out who it was. You then email the person who crushed you. But she only crushed you to figure out who crushed her...

The Crusher's Dilemma :)

why would someone do that, at risk of someone they don't actually crush on crushing them back?

"Someone hacked my fb acc!" curiosity excuse?

Maybe they crush on everybody (or only make/stay friends with people they have a crush on), but know that it's socially unacceptable to just admit that. There should really just be a "I'll take anybody" flag in the preferences.

How do you know someone of the opposite gender crushed you?

Why does it have to be someone of the opposite gender?

Genius.

I came here to say just this.

But I had something to add. A higher credit value will make people crush only (mostly?) on real crushes. Oh but this applies only to poor people :D.

You can now only un-crush two people per day. I think this should create enough lag time to prevent this strategy from working.

To what extent are people warned about this? If there's not a symmetric restriction on adding - or at least a prominent warning in the interface for adding - I imagine a lot of people might not realize this strategy has problems until they stick themselves with it...

It's the exact same thing as http://adore.ly, a Facebook app that's been out since the beginning of January.

  "Over 50 friends have been connected on adore.ly"

which itself is the same thing as goodcrush.com, which came out a few years ago...

Sounds like the sort of domino-effect I'd like to have.

I'm really reluctant to bash someone else's project, and I think Breakup Notifier and its developer are AWESOME, seriously.

But I'm a little surprised that you pivoted from an original and successful idea to an unoriginal and derivative idea.

I must have seen half a dozen Facebook-powered crush sites like this, several of them on HN as a "review my startup". None have taken off. What's to stop me from crushing on everyone just to see who likes me?

Isn't the anonymous crush site sort of like the to do list app that every developer thinks they can improve on?

Perhaps a pivot to a straight up dating site/monetizing with dating ads might have made more sense.

Well, his original idea was banned, not to mention kinda creepy and borderline stalkerish, so he didn't have much choice, did he?

People only get two free crushes then they have to pay. My guess is there are some kinds of crush caps as well.

There were sites before BreakUpNotifier that alerted you when relationship statuses changed, some that are still going. Just like there are a ton of dating sites, probably a lot more than the anonymous crush sites.

Will be interesting to see what happens. This definitely has legs given the following BreakUpNotifier created.

Only two free crushes and then they have to pay or give the developer the e-mail of their crush. Thus, the idea is marketed.

What's the problem? Most of the difference between success and failure is marketing. This is a great way to take advantage of the momentum of his previous application.

Yep, marketing and nuances.

But I'm a little surprised that you pivoted from an original and successful idea to an unoriginal and derivative idea.

Your priorities are not aligned with the developer's, me feels. You are worried about being "original" and not derivative--both only tangently related to financial success, which is what the creator seems to be after(and good for him!).

It seems like the developer just gave up. I would have collected everyones email and told them that they will be notified when everything is fixed, or just have created the same service under a different name to challenge facebook to shut it down again.

Maybe, but if he redirected that traffic to a crush affiliate offer, he would be about $20,000 richer right now. Just saying.

Now you're talking :)

Exactly. Foursquare was hardly the first service of its kind. I think most would agree this is potentially a great idea, but it's never caught on.

Why not? I'd bet one major reason is that almost nobody has even heard of the previous efforts. You've got to get the specifics right, and you've got to establish it as a popular thing to do. Then lots of fun may ensue.

Well, I've yet to find a to do list app that actually works for me.

There's no such thing as "original" idea.

What about charging people to find out who has a crush on them?

The idea is, if someone really cares, the other party should be ok with them paying to find out.

Give the user 3 free guesses as to who may have a crush on them. Then ask them to buy credits for additional guesses ;)

When I tried this, we had users taking hundreds of guesses. We were trying in Thailand so implementing the whole payment/credits system was too much.

Definitely not a new idea—I remember something like this running through the dorms in 2000. Still, it's a good example of using the existing notoriety to pivot and the Facebook integration is certainly something we didn't have back then. In any event, good luck!

Yeah, be careful though. I remember an app like this on LiveJournal that went wild. Then they came back and told people they could buy the list of all the people who have a crush on them for something like $5. Lots of embarrassment ensued.

There was a series of these back before facebook, and >50% ( I would guess somewhere in the 90+ range) were just traps that sent a list of your crushes to whoever set it up.

I promise you that won't ever happen with Crush Notifier.

Isn't the first thing that happens that the person who someone has a crush on gets a request by the application "crush notifier" that it wants access? And isn't the second thing that happens nothing, because the person doesn't give access to the semi-creepy app? (I've got ten other apps wanting access already...)

Orkut has this feature built in right from the start.

I'm not sure if you accepted Facebook credits in your previous app, but if so I'm guessing this could be one of the reasons Facebook banned you - from what I rememeber of the credits API page, you're only allowed to use them on canvas applications, not ones that use Facebook connect.

They had the exact same thing on a social networking site called 'orkut.com'. It's surprisingly owned by google, and I mean 'surprisingly' because that site belongs with the scum of the internet. Anyhoo, this idea is not at all original...

Why the scum comment? I haven't followed its evolution closely in past years, but from what I understand Orkut managed to attract a lot of users when it launched, but failed to retain them. Novelty worn off, everyone left. With an exception of Brazil, where it is still hugely popular.

Doesn't even work. I see instructions telling me to crush my friends, and no link with which to do so or anything on fb itself.

That's so great. If I could, I would totally throw some money your way as an investment.

You could always set this up for its current purpose then use the information to power the other to bring it back from the read. If you don't mind breaking their terms of service at any rate.

Some MIT and Harvard students recently started a site that does pretty much the same thing but has a way better name:

http://nchoosetwo.com

This is different "You can use nChooseTwo to anonymously suggest matches, and to see matches your friends have suggested for you!" You match potential couples on that, versus on http://crushnotifier.com you pick YOUR crushes. Both are good concepts.

Allowance of a "crush" only on a dating site % similarity of a "personality" test perhaps.

great stuff theLi0nheart! I love your no quit attitude.

get knocked down 6 times...get back up 7.

Related: the "fall down 7 times, get up 8" meme does assume you're starting from a knocked-down situation.

back to where it all started!

well isn't this exactly same as adore.ly except adore.ly has a much better UI?

Way to go! Don't let the man get you down.

good pivot.

nice swivel.

Kind of interesting: my "good pivot" comment was sailing along pretty nicely, up to +6. After sampt's comment started getting voted down so did mine.

Argh, I didn't really like to see the "Here's my new app" at 4/5 of the article. I understand that opportunist people like to leverage situations.. but I don't like the fact that this article has been ranked first on hacker news. I mean, the first reason I go on HN is because of the "Smart Filter". More precisely, I have trust in HN users that only good articles are shown. (Like I try to only upvote good articles thinking that other HN will like them). I'm disappointed.

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