Show HN: tweetvaultHQ, my Twitter archiving and stats app
tweetvaulthq.com
tweetvaulthq.com
Long time reader, first time submitter! I recently launched my first proper web app, tweetvaultHQ (http://tweetvaulthq.com/), which is a hosted personal archiving service for Twitter. A while back I was in need of a more effective way of accessing my own historic content on Twitter, so I created a very simple app that would periodically grab my tweets and store them. A friend suggested this would make a useful hosted service, so that is what it became.
tweetvaultHQ archives your tweets and favourites from Twitter, presenting them in an easily searchable interface. It features export options to get your data out in various formats, and also provides a bunch of stats on your tweeting activity that may inform or amuse in equal measure.
For me, it addresses two major needs: 1) giving better access to the content I've placed on Twitter and 2) giving me better ownership of that data, in the event of something awful happening to Twitter or my being otherwise unable to access that content. I've built up quite a collection of tweets over the last few years, and additionally have quite a bit of value in my favourites collection. I wanted better control over that data.
This is the first app I've produced to provide a service to the public, so this has been a real learning experience. Any feedback would be hugely appreciated - I've received some valuable advice already, including suggestions that I should raise the price (currently £1/$1.60 per month)! Several people have mentioned competitors to this app (a few self-install apps exist, such as TweetNest, and I'm aware of ThinkUp which has similar functions), but I'm not too worried about being a market leader right now, I'd just like to make enough for lunch now and again, and learn what I can.
I've got plenty of features on the roadmap, but feel free to suggest any you desire. If you like the app, let me know. If you don't, I'd still like to know! Many thanks for reading.
As a web-surfing American, when a website wants money and I don't see a '$' sign, for whatever reason, the website loses credibility. I have no idea how much this is going to cost me. So, I'd suggest having the USD pricing on your website.
I know the pricing is only in £ on the front page, but it is visible in $ and € on the subscribe page.
Pricing across continents was something that caused some some consternation from the beginning - I think I really need to do some geolocation, and present more relevant prices throughout.
FWIW right now, a £ is worth about $1.60 :).
I will give you more feedback in 9 minutes.
Random suggestions:
* consider charging annually instead of monthly. * a shareable link to searches might be interesting * I'd like it to archive more! Like full conversations I've been in. * put pagination at the bottom as well as the top, took me almost 3 seconds to find it ;) * It'd be nice to have more detail on people I've mentioned, like a graph of mentions to each person where I can see when I started/stopped tweeting them etc.
What's your stack?
I think the charging model needs overhauling because a vast number of people sign up on the trial and never subscribe. I think this is because the trial is too limiting - what I should probably do is a give a free month (or at least, some measure of free time) to everyone who signs up.
Do you think the monthly price is reasonable? Would you pay £12 / $20 per year?
I'm investigating archiving mentions as well so the opportunity for conversation threading would be there. Glad you mentioned this.
I'll duplicate the pagination controls too, good point!
Will take your stats suggestions onboard - this is definitely an area with a lot of potential.
Thanks again :).
Re conversation threading: you are already archiving the reply_to_status_id values, you don't need to look at mentions to figure out conversations.