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Comment by mustpax | Hacker News Reader

I don't mind this sort of marketing most of the time. I do mind that you're abusing "Show HN." People generally use this "tag" to ask for advice which is so generously offered here. By using it as a part of your marketing ploy you're reducing the usefulness of the said tag and stealing from the trust the community has built for eachother over time.

How sad it is to see HN get big enough to be gamed liked this...

View on HN

I wouldn't call this a marketing ploy - it's a landing page for an app he designed and is looking to have built. We use "Show HN" to get feedback from our apps, and this is one of those cases.

Is he getting it? In spades!

Is he making money off of it? I don't see how he could, with an unbuilt app.

I see no marketing ploy here, just a clever app that I would love to see come to fruition.

I actually think there needs to be an explicit tag for landing pages on HN. This sort of thing seems to be increasingly common, for example:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2260581

Personally, I don't think a web page saying that you might make something, together with an e-mail signup, is news. That said, people are free to disagree (as with, e.g., Offer HN posts). I just think we need clear labeling.

How do you determine the intent of the poster, whether it was a marketing ploy or a genuine plea for advice?

I call it a marketing ploy because "Show HN" carries a strong implication that an existing product is being showcased. This implication is being used to drive click-throughs. This is a beautiful landing page and the author is clearly a very capable designer, is it too much to ask for higher standards of honesty in our precious corner of the web? Any of these titles would have been perfectly fine:

Show HN: Help me build QuickSend

Show HN: QuickSend, an app concept

Or even simply, QuickSend

My apologies if the format isn't correct.

This is in no way a marketing ploy, but a sincere effort to find someone who would be genuinely interested in working on it and to gather feedback. Someone mentioned adding in a email opt-in field for example, which was a great idea.

Again, apologies if it has felt like anything else.

Apologies for being overly harsh. Seeing content tailored to hit the front page on HN is a bit of a sensitive spot, I understand there was no malice in your choice of title. I do love your idea, hope it sees the light of day.

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