[Show HN] Handpick: The most caring way to share links | Hacker News Reader

[Show HN] Handpick: The most caring way to share links

handpick.me

15 pointsfreshlog20 comments

I like the copy on your homepage. Last year I built a prototype of a similar service and used it for a couple of months with friends, but it turned out that not having immediate feedback takes a lot of fun out of sharing. Posting a link to Skype and having a conversation about it in real time feels much more rewarding. It's something psychological, hard to explain.

Having said that, I still want to explore this idea some time in the future and see how it works out.

You might want to check out a similar service created by other HN user: http://www.yourpane.com/

Yea, I totally agree that sharing links without a chance of a conversation springing from it can feel like a bummer.

This is one of the reasons why I decided for Handpick to send a single email to all people in a single group, so anyone can Reply-to-All and get a conversation started.

I've been using Handpick to keep in touch with my friends, loved ones and folks I care about it for close to a year this way, hope you'll find it useful too =)

I tried yourpane.com, which emails you a unique link that you use to login each time, replacing the username and password challenge, is this a good idea?

I'm using GMail/Google account login coupled with regular username and passwords for Handpick.

I like the email part because it removes the "burden" for some people to think about checking my profile on either G+ or FB or twitter on which I do not always post the same things. But I did not understand how I can select which links to send to whom (for example if I have general CS links for everyone and JAVA specific ones for 10 people and C/C++ for others, etc.)

This also seems a lot like Subjot cf http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2946547

Hey koopajah,

It might not be immediately apparent (I may need to work harder on better UI or copy here), but after you click on the bookmarklet, you'll be able to select which groups to share what with.

So check all checkboxes for CS and Java-specific stuff for Java-loving groups etc.

Yea Subjot looks like they're tackling the signal to noise problem on Twitter as a consumer, while I think Handpick is approaching from the other direction, where the producer becomes highly selective and specific about what he shares with who he shares, just because he cares =)

Awesome idea. Every time my girlfriend goes on Reddit I get five or six emails from her with random links she wanted to show me.

When do you think you'll start letting people into the private beta?

Oh and the "Return to website" link after you submit your email takes you to http://freshlog.com/ by the way. I don't know if that's on purpose or not, just letting you know.

Oh drat thanks for catching that, I'll fix it.

Real soon, actually.

I've been using this everyday to keep in touch with folks I care about for close to a year now, so the app works, but I'd like to clean up a little first :)

Very cool. Is it just the bookmarklet or are there extensions for other browsers? A Chrome extension would be so much nicer than a bookmarklet in my honest opinion.

Right now there's a bookmarklet.

However, my wife wanted a Chrome extension so much that I wrote a custom one for her.

I haven't gotten round to learn how to automatically generate custom Chrome extensions yet, but I'll be happy to manually create them for early beta testers like you =)

you don't really want to be automatically generating chrome extensions. Instead have one definitive extension and have some custom options within it.

Got it, thanks!

Oh snap. I was going to develop something extremely similar to this over the next couple of months (i've only just started to learn how to develop).

I can relate totally to the problem you are solving here, and its a very real one. Let me know if you want me to send you some of the ideas that i had. You might be able to use them ;-)

Definitely!

I couldn't find your contact from your HN profile, so just email me al@alvinlai.com.

Thanks!

I'm upvoting you because well done for launching something. But what I see is "our service allows you to email your friends, but only with links, and not using your normal email client". Explain why I'm wrong?

And which of my problems are you solving?

Thanks for the upvote :)

As different groups of folks care about different things, Handpick helps you easily select which groups of folks to share a link with via a bookmarklet.

As you 'handpick' multiple links throughout the day, Handpick will accumulate them and send a single email at the end of the day to your selected group of folks.

That way, it solves the problem of spamming folks over email or IM.

Another benefit of not broadcasting on Facebook, G+ or Twitter is that you can really be who you are and not have to worry about looking tame, generic, politically correct or fiddle with privacy settings.

It'll email the folks for you if you have at least one link handpicked, so you don't have to remember to.

Let me know if I haven't answered your question! =)

Accumulating links and sharing them to selected groups of people are good ideas. Instead of emailing links to your friends, how about post the aggregated list of links to Facebook/G+ as a single post once per day and make it so that those posts will only be visible to people you select.

Hmm, I haven't taken a look at Facebook's API on selective sharing yet.

I'll look into it, but only after Handpick is solidly loved by all you beta testers that signed up.

Nice, 7 private beta requests after 58 minutes on Hacker News, I should have launched this sooner :)

Nice, but who sends links by email nowadays? Besides, Facebook introduced better sharing controls..

I do :)

I've still got pockets of friends whom I really care about but don't use Facebook.

Also, it's way much easier to be yourself with email Reply-To-All style discussions without fearing what you post on Facebook coming back to haunt you later.

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