Show HN: Breakpoint.io - Share and get feedback on your side projects | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Breakpoint.io - Share and get feedback on your side projects

breakpoint.io

150 pointsdrewtemp63 comments

I can't help but feel all these websites miss out on what makes Hacker News great: density of information leading to a quick scan of the zeitgeist. I just feel constrained looking at this website's frontpage.

I agree. This is a good idea but the giant thumbnails are very hard to parse since they clash with each other. Would be nicer if it was a simple uniformly styled text list with taglines, and user interaction (mouseovers/expands/something) to show thumbnails?

Hard to parse + frustratingly unfruitful. I just want to know what the things does, screenshot is a bonus.

Thanks for the feedback. Prior to the current styling, I had a screenshot with title, author, description, etc to the right. I found it cluttered and difficult to read through a list of projects. I'll keep working on it and see if I can find something.

I think the name of the project is more important than who posted it. Maybe switch the username for the Title, under each submission?

Since most of us check HN multiple times throughout the day I don't think it matters that much, especially since the rate of project submission will be relatively (to HN) low.

I agree: density would be much better.

The screen shot is less important than the description and the discussion. A thumbnail will suffice.

Many side projects don't have eye candy. Maybe skip the screenshot altogether, and just give a summary + link, which is what "One Thing Well" did. http://onethingwell.org

Great idea though. (I might use it soon.)

Interesting idea. Thanks for that :)

It'd be good to have the projects tagline on the mouseover display - so one doesn't have to navigate away to see what a project does. Great Job!

Thanks, I'll add that soon.

I was about to comment the same thing. I'd really like to see short descriptions on hover of each thumbnail. I still can't tell what those sites do.

Added.

Great idea and execution, but it's somewhat telling that some of the "side projects" people are posting really don't look like side projects.

What exactly is a side project supposed to look like?

An uncustomized bootstrap app? :P

Mobile apps that haven't been released yet?

Seriously, I think Tappr and several others are just using this to advertise.

I like the idea a lot. Nice work!

One slightly negative impression: while there are already lots of good submissions and it looks like people are using the heart button, there are very few feedback comments so far. I particularly like the idea of a smaller, more tight-knit group of HNers giving each other feedback, since it seems nearly impossible these days to get any attention for a Show HN post without preexisting internet fame or a voting ring, so I found it a bit unfortunate that Breakpoint seems be starting out more in the direction of show-off gallery than a place for substantive discussion and critique in the HN vein. I'm not really sure how to remedy this. Perhaps placing more emphasis on discussion vs. screenshots could help?

I totally agree. I think the main issue at this point is in order to have really good, constructive feedback, you need actual users. Maybe over time, once people start using projects, there will be more feedback.

Everyone wants feedback, nobody wants to give it. I'm gonna' try and go through a bunch here in a minute. This is a beautiful site to navigate.

"(...) there are very few feedback comments so far. I particularly like the idea of a smaller, more tight-knit group of HNers giving each other feedback (...)"

This is one of the reasons behind my Google+ community for and about Internet Startups [1] - currently the largest one about this topic - where you can post under the "Introduce your startup" category and get precious feedback.

[1] https://plus.google.com/communities/100445483815501942968

I love the idea! But I think it would be great if people would be able to change their thumbnail screenshot that is shown on the popular and latest list. I've added my project[1] but I changing the lead screenshot is not possible which is a shame. It's also not possible to delete screenshots, which should be a must-have feature.

[1]: https://breakpoint.io/65-instaghent/ http://www.instaghent.com/

I'm getting an Internal Server Error

Internal server error

It did survive for almost 2 hours.

Not much.. but something http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

The name "breakpoint" seems almost prophetic now.

Sorry about that. Memcached errors. It's back!

The phrase "hand-whatever" has lost its novelty. I'm reluctant to make such a short and flip comment, but I can't be the only person who cringes every time I see it.

Nice idea. I added one of my projects: https://breakpoint.io/84-quotepress-turn-your-customers-into...

Although it looks like one of the screenshots I added is not displaying. Could just be hackernews traffic maybe, I noticed there is also an image error with the ad in the sidebar.

[edit] Looks like both screenshots are showing now.

Amazon takes awhile to get up to speed from when I submitted mine.

A mix with Amazon + backend processing. The server was getting hammered so there was a bit of a delay.

I'm getting server error 500 when I try to upload my project (dbinbox.com) :(

Edit: The developer (thanks Drew!) emailed me within ten minutes of posting this, figured out what the issue was, and pushed a fix. I'm impressed.

Here's my weekend project dbinbox: https://breakpoint.io/144-dbinbox-makes-it-easier-for-people...

Cool. I threw my side project up there:

https://breakpoint.io/48-ringo/

http://www.tryringo.com

Given that most Show HN's never hit the front page (mine was in the 1st page of the 'new' tab for just 20 minutes!), hopefully this fills in a niche that seems to be missing from HN. Good work!

Thanks for the feedback! I really want to turn it into a community where others provide great feedback on their side projects.

Very cool idea, I put my project up here: https://breakpoint.io/101-grouvee/

Very fun, I've added one of my projects here: http://breakpoint.io/43-trackchat/

As others have said, the screenshots management bit needs to be improvement - it's a bit of a guess as to what'll work best right now. But I imagine that will come with time.

Good luck!

I like the idea and the design. This has some overlap with Launchsky (including a similar UI): http://launchsky.com

The main difference is that we're a platform for sharing ideas, and you're sharing projects that already exist. In any case, good luck with this!

It says launching in early 2013. so when is it? BTW interesting concept, I'm one of those "would be" users and shared it too :P

We are launching the beta next week. Really glad to hear you have been spreading the word!

Nice work. I'm glad you are tackling it [1], now it's off my table. Hopefully your site is back up to let me signup. The UI could benefit from simplicity.

[1] = http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5030945

I started the project a few days before that was posted. Seeing that only inspired us to continue.

EDIT: Yeah, the site is getting hammered right now.

I really like it and I hope you're able to get some traction/traffic with it–but also balance it with having a solid community.

Frankly, submitting "Show HN" posts here is now useless and a bit frustrating. Most of them seem to get lost.

Cool site!

Suggestions: - Use Gravatar for the avatar - Add a field in the profile for GitHub

Also, just added mine... http://breakpoint.io/116-straply/

Cool :) few minutes before it was inaccessible but now it works fine! I added my recent experiment : https://breakpoint.io/121-railyo/

Another site that tackles this from a non-social angle: http://criticue.com Interesting 1-for-1 review model. I've used it with good results.

I like this quite a lot. I hope you keep iterating on it. I've added my project: http://breakpoint.io/50-underspark/

Thanks. I plan to keep working on it. I've been working on it for a bit of time now on the side and finally decided to release it.

I'd suggest adding features to keep people coming back. E.g' rss and email subscription for 'hot' projects. Otherwise it might get pretty lonely when you get off the hn front page.

Hi, I am sure you are aware, but as I tried to load my project, your site crashed. I ran this on a VM with a spoofed IP as well, so Im not sure whether it is all domains or not...

Nice - posted my own side project - would love some feedback on the idea from HN. https://breakpoint.io/153-bento/

Great idea! Hope I get good feedback on one of my newer projects: https://breakpoint.io/103-awdio/

You could make signup quicker by adding login with facebook. In this case probably twitter as you are also taking in the twitter username in profile.

Awesome idea. Just added my side project :) https://breakpoint.io/41-furnace

http://breakpoint.io/45-pineappleio/

Nice idea. I think it's a great way to discover what other people are working on as well

Needs a login-with-github button - most of my side projects are on GitHub anyway.

Just added my project. Thanks for making something awesome :)

You're welcome. Thanks for the comment and adding your project!

cache problems with images of Breakpoint - still showing the same image even after i changed the screenshot of my side project

you need more too it... What's the wow feature?

Site is down.

Down

Reply on news.ycombinator.com