Mini-Seedcamp ✔ Scoble ✔ YC Interview ✔ YCW12 ✖ Launch Anyway ✔
didthis.com
didthis.com
I think that messaging does you a disservice. How many people are going to hit your site and say "Finally! An easy way to spread micro-actions!" (what are micro-actions anyway?)
How about appealing to ego: "Use DidThis to tell the world what you've done and encourage others to join you."
The feed is confusing. It looks too much like Instagram, so it contradicts the idea that this is an app for sharing actions rather than just pictures.
The top activities are plankaday (what's that?), write, sleep, run, and meeting(!). None of those are too interesting. So, I'm not getting a feel for what is this app really good for? Why don't you show more activities rather than just the top 5?
The actions are not very specific, that's probably why they don't seem interesting to me.
I bet you get this a lot, but really, if I'm using Runkeeper or another similar app for my exercise tracking and sharing, why should I use didthis? One possible answer is to push actions to those apps (I haven't tried it if you already do).
The quality of the experience will probably go up dramatically if you choose to focus on a single type of action or community. Everyone keeps repeating this and from recent personal experience, it does seem true.
Social causes seem like a good one to go for, but the problem there is frequency of use. I doubt many people volunteer or donate more than a few days a year. This is the kind of app that people need to use at least once a day or it will die.
I like your deed of the day idea. It might be worth zooming in on. What if your app was totally based around that? Daily deeds?
Finally, you better not steal my contacts! If you do, start working on that apology letter right away.
I'm painfully aware of the points you raise. Sometimes you just have to do a "Damn the torpedoes, full-speed ahead" launch. Timing & stuff.
To answer the other points you raise:
The feed will change totally. Less pictures, more "What did you do?" & "How did you do it?" ... in development, coming in one of the next updates.
The actions will become a lot more specific & self-explanatory in one of the next updates.
Right now the app is focussed too much on repetition (I do this x times per day) & because of that I agree it's kinda boring.
Deed of the day is a pretty fresh idea, we're still iterating on that & yes, it's something I would like to consider.
Bravo bravo. That's just the right attitude.
less pictures?? Not sure that's a smart move. As of right now, that's the only thing adding interest to me. Pictures of the actions. And as much as I like the deed of the day, seeing it repeated a billion times on the feed gets boring. I suppose increased ability to filter feeds will help this, as if I could select the actions that I want to see and exclude everything else, it might hold more interest. But, currently, I just can't wrap my finger around why I would use this. I'm not going to log on to tell everyone I kissed my girlfriend, or put together an ikea table. I love that you didn't wait to release it, as you're getting a ton of good feedback. But my honest opinion is it's completely missing the wow factor. It's not doing anything that new, or that different. There's no defensive edge, as someone could release ididit tomorrow even if this for some reason took off. And most importantly, it's lacking anything that would pull me back. Even if it was just fun to use, that would be a draw, but it's not currently. I'm staying tuned, as I've seen plenty of projects go from zero to hero. Although a lot of which unfortunately back to zero again. So good luck to you!
I would think about integrating with companies sooner rather than later. For example, if I drank a starbucks coffee, added the action and a picture of me drinking the coffee. After a few of those I get a free coffee. Or bought flowers for said company, walked into said electronic store, or worked out using a workout product. This maybe an over-commercialized example(aren't they all ;) ), but I'd have incentive as the company could give me things I like. And you could easily monetize as companies would love pictures of their products being used as well as raising awareness/marketing etc.
Going from this screenshot[0], which is the first screen:
- What am I following if I tick 'follow'?
- How do I 'do' the kiss task? I haven't done it yet, so why is it labelled re-do? If re-do is your analogy to re-tweet, I would consider changing it to 'do' - re-do implies more than once.
- Re-doing a task requires an account if you want to share, then brushes me off with a toast, rather than taking me to a signup screen (which I would expect on first load).
I hope you can see why I'm a bit frustrated, it does look as if the Android app is a bit of an afterthought compared to screenshots of the iPhone app.
- "follow": place to follow others users. People who are going to inspire you. - "re-do" is correct. It's about redoing what other people have already done. - "register to share": yes RossM, you are perfectly right. It's a beta version and we are going to improve the UI.
BTW, so Didthis is about seeing how your actions are spread (redone by others) and being inspired by others' actions. In a way, yes, it's about check-in into actions
Android DidThis dev
If it helps in tracking down the errors, the app force closed when I first opened it from the market. Good luck with DidThis!
Scoble is the poster child of "Social media", half-bit hacks who think they're "social media entrepreneurs" subscribe to his views (what he likes and dislikes) and follow/like his profiles on various sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) but the majority don't actually care about what he has to say, they just do it to validate their own position. "I'm a social media entrepreneur, I subscribe to Robert Scoble!" so while his numbers are impressive the amount of people who actually care about what he has to say is minimal.
It's the same "phenomena" that affects Techcrunch, take a look at their Twitter, they have 2 MILLION followers and yet when they post a link to a new article they've posted it gets ~500 clicks in a day. People subscribe to Scoble for the same reason they subscribe to Techcrunch: They want to show they are "with it" and are part of what Techcrunch and Scoble represent (modern media) but they don't really care about either of them individually.
Hacker news on the other hand is a community of people who come here to find things, if something is posted to Hacker news and get upvotes it's because people care about that post, it's not because they love hacker news.
Ok, done with the editorializing, here's what you should do in reality: find out where he'll be, go there, talk to him, be normal. He's very approachable.
By the way, PR people should take lessons from Denis. He not only drove a few hours to see me in Davos, but he taught me to sled, which was one of the highlights of my trip to the World Economic Forum. Of course no good deed goes unpunished because I beat him down the hill.
Does "sled" mean something unusual here? My experience is that it is similar to falling down a hill, but with something slippery under you-- not really a skill that needs teaching, I thought.
Just a minor note: on your home page it says "Don't Talk" but then there is a line through it. To me, that means "Don't don't talk", or "talk". Am I being ridiculous or did anyone else notice that?
Short-term: premium paid app
you can find my email address in the app (menu/about in first screen) to get in touch with me. With your help, I can try to fix the bug and release.
Android DidThis developer
As an aside, your iphone app looks great, but the android version leaves me a little disappointed in the UI department.
"In titles, please don't describe things by their relation to YC unless they're actually associated with YC."
and
"Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important."
Please use less bait-y titles in the future.
Denis, you DidThis!
* edit for typo.
> We want to be around when people do things, this means away from the computer. This means mobile.
Mobile website then?