Limelight creates a beautiful site for your apps in seconds. | Hacker News Reader

Limelight creates a beautiful site for your apps in seconds.

limelightapp.com

32 pointsaculver24 comments

My friend and I launched this last weekend after a couple months of building it on nights and weekends. (There is a video there that can give you a quick idea of how it works.)

The idea is to make it cheaper and easier for the average app developer to set up sites for their apps, while providing websites that are visually and functionally better than they would typically do on their own.

It scrapes info from the App Store, creates complex product shots from multiple screenshots, provides text message and QR code downloads, allows for custom domains, does logging and reporting, supports custom stylesheets, etc.

We're looking forward to adding more templates and providing this to other markets (e.g. Android, iPad.) However, we think it should useful to a lot of folks now. :)

Can you post a link to an app that is using it?

http://whatll-it-cost.limelightapp.com/ is a site I put up for my own app.

Great work - can't wait to see more themes!

Buy link is broken

Ah, I see the link doesn't work in preview mode. :) I'll fix that right now. Rest assured, people have been able to buy apps from the published sites. :)

It's fixed. :) Thanks for the heads up!

Just out of interest, is this costing megabucks for licensing the themes correctly? I'm under the impression that on a lot of sites (such as where you got your homepage theme ;)) you need to buy a special license if you're going to offer multiple users access to the same theme (e.g. akin to running a wordpress-mp site and letting users choose from themes you have purchased). I'd look into this now, as it's a fantastically well executed idea you're running with, and it'd be a shame for you to lose out as soon as you start gaining traction.

Are you talking about ThemeForest, or is there another one like it with great themes?

I'm talking about ThemeForest. There seem to be some people who persistently claim that you need the extended license for SaaS apps; something that plainly isn't true.

However, if you're buying themes so that users can choose amongst them for their app's sales site, I think there's a good chance that crosses over into extended license territory. I'd advise looking into it at any rate.

Great question. The templates for the actual app sites are built by @nickmjones.

Before I started working with Nick, I looked at some of those template options. They were really expensive for the type of licensing we would need and more importantly, I didn't find enough of them that really clicked with me.

Ah, fantastic stuff, really pleased that you have that covered :-D

I really like the concept and execution... now I just need to write a phone app ;)

This is a great idea and executed very well, however it looks like you are using the marketing resources from Apple for the iPhone graphic and the Available in the App Store graphic. You should be aware that the use of these graphics requires compliance with the App Marketing and Identity Guidelines for Developers: https://developer.apple.com/appstore/AppStoreMarketingGuidel...

Relevant Sections: For the App Store badge: "The App Store badge can be placed on a black or white background, on a solid color background, or on a background image, as long as legibility is not diminished. Do not place the badge on a visually cluttered or patterned background. If the badge is placed on a photograph or other image, it must be positioned in an area that is uncluttered and provides strong contrast and clear legibility."

For the iPhone graphic: "The Apple-provided product image can be displayed only on a white background. Never place the image on a black background or on any color or pattern."

I know these guidelines may seem ridiculous, and I often wonder what consequences may come from not complying with them, however given this is the core of your app, I think it deserves special consideration from you.

Thanks for the kind feedback! The iPhone image we used to compose the product shots is actually not one of the marketing resources provided by Apple. It's based on a vector-based image made available by an independent designer for this sort of use.

As for the use of the App Store badge, I think our use fits within the guideline of "on a background image, as long as legibility is not diminished." I'm sure we'll hear from them otherwise. :)

Would be curious to hear other folks thoughts on this as well.

Sounds good to me. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of a potential headache. Good luck to you, it is an awesome app, and I will most likely use it in the future.

Also, where did you get the art for the iPhone image? I would like to have more flexibility than what the Apple images provide. Thanks!

Had to go looking for it again, but here it is: http://psd.tutsplus.com/freebies/psd/freebie-vector-iphone-4... . "It was designed by Cambridge-based designer, Hector Janse van Rensburg."

Is this service a competitor to App.net, which was much discussed on HN a week ago? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2765602

Yeah, we had been working on this for a couple months when they launched last week. I wasn't surprised that someone else had executed on the same idea, but couldn't believe the timing was so close to the weekend we had set to launch. :) That being said, to us it was a great validation of the idea.

A great idea and youve executed it really well. However is it not ironic that a site offering to provide templates is using a template themselves.. :p

Very. :) We used a template for our marketing site (and backend) for the same reason we think some app developers will use our service: A well designed template will get you 80% of the benefit for 20% of the effort.

I think the fact that you are using a template is a great selling point.

Edit: You eat your own dog food.

Bravo, this site looks to meet the needs of many of us who want a one-click showcase. Great work with the domain management!

Would be helpful to have more (easy to find) info about how you're doing the a/b testing.

Fantastic guys! Excellent for a certain segment of apps.

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