Hacker News Reader

Comment by il | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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, 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.

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

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com