Pizza Compass | Hacker News Reader

Pizza Compass

pizza-compass.com

213 pointsbriangonzalez117 comments

OK, I haven't had time to download the app, but was curious about the description

> PIZZA COMPASS IS THE EXCITING NEW LIFE-AFFIRMING IPHONE APP THAT HELPS PIZZA GET TO YOUR MOUTH. CREATED BY A HIGHLY SPECIALIZED TRAINED TEAM OF PIZZA EXPERTS. EXPERTS WHO ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT LIFE, LOVE, AND FRIENDSHIP.

The screenshots featured famous pizzerias...so is the data "curated" by the pizza-compass staff? Or does it rely on other APIs, such as Foursquare? In other words, is it similar to other locations (Google, Yelp, etc) services out there, except filtered by Pizza?

Cool design concept...but is it really a serious effort at an app/startup (i.e. there's a press kit, accounts for the pizza-compass domain)? The use case is pretty limited...that is, limited to the times when you want just pizza and are in an unfamiliar neighborhood. This is not a scenario that I've found myself in...I either eat cheap pizza as part of a routine at a place near work, or know exactly the fancy-pants pizzeria that I want to go to dinner for. Unless there's a lot of custom or well-aggregated data specific to pizza (such as, what kind of pizzas are there, price per slice, etc), it's probably not an app that I would ever use habitually.

This is really overthinking it, IMO. This app isn't a shot at Yelp or an attempt to disrupt the pizza space... It's a joke. You pay a dollar, you get a pizza compass. I think it's hilarious.

The quotes on their page about "life-affirming" and "some people might say this is the most important app... ever" tell me that whoever made this app just wanted to have a bit of a laugh.

Haha, it's so funny! Oh, and look at all this money in iTunes Connect...

Yes, totally just a joke!

Who said you can't make money from a joke?

Nobody.

I'm pretty sure the entire industry of stand-up comedians are laughing with you.

Satire can make money, e.g. the Onion

The app is real, but they're poking fun at how simple it is. I can imagine their users are either often either extremely hungry and/or drunk, so extreme simplicity is a big plus.

Wow. It just goes to show how immune I've gotten to startup pitch ideas and their templates. The text that I copied and pasted is obviously a joke ("EXCITING NEW LIFE-AFFIRMING IPHONE APP") and yet my brain mentally skipped over it as just being thats-what-all-apps-said and tried to evaluate the technical part of an app.

I'm going to blame it on the all-caps throwing blinders on my brain this morning

You're assuming the app is a joke. I see no indication the app isn't real.

No, he is assuming the app is a joke app.

Not that the app is a joke (not real), but that the app is a joke app (a fun app, made cheaply, not intended to "change the world", be the next Facebook, or promote a heavy business model).

That doesn't make it a joke app. By those standards almost all hobby apps are.

Dense in purpose?

It is also given that the app in question is also a PIZZA COMPASS app, on top of all the other qualities.

When I say "joke" I just mean that the whole concept appears to be firmly tongue-in-cheek (or pizza-in-cheek, maybe). Though I haven't used the app I suspect that the tech behind it is pretty sound. I feel you on the hyperbolic marketing though, when every new app is a "revolutionary take on _____" those words begin to lose meaning. I have no connection to the app's creators or any actual knowledge about their intentions but I would assume that this is meant to be a jab at that kind of marketing.

Agreed. They're having some fun. That said, I did stare at the pizza compass the whole way home on the bus tonight.

Obviously a joke.

Obviously yet another reminder how cheap, easy, efficient, direct it is to start a company, create a startup, launch a product.

Obviously the question isn't why is this trying so hard, but rather is why everyone else trying so hard.

Obviously.

Selling humor on hn is like selling ice to Greenlanders.

There should be a html tag and separate formatting for sarcasm, just like there is bold and italics

that would imply they have a lot of it already... I would suggest it's like selling swimming trunks to greenlanders :)

Greenland does have a lot of ice. Perhaps you are thinking of Iceland, which is significantly warmer.

Interestingly, Greenland was given its name essentially as a marketing ploy by Erik the Red: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1965/shouldnt-green...

Greenland: https://www.google.com/search?q=greenland+country+temperatur...

Iceland: https://www.google.com/search?q=iceland+country+temperature&...

Ah I think you misunderstood me... I was correcting the OP's analogy. He said "Selling humor on hn is like selling ice to Greenlanders", I said "No, Greenlanders have lots of ice already. HN users have no humour already".

Gotcha.

It's just a digital pet rock, which made the inventor a millionaire.

The absolute hilarious irony of this is...

...I started my software company to make something exactly like this in design, concept and application as a birthday present for my wife.

We've come a long way since then, to say the least :)

Same exact questions here.

Also interested in their business model and how they plan to achieve profitability. Any VC worth their weight wouldn't touch a startup like this with a 10-foot pole. We all saw what happened to Groupon and their approach in dealing with small and independent restaurants.

Why would I as a pizza shop owner want to join your network? Are there systems in place to ensure that demand does not exceed supply? How do you ensure that a certain standard of pizza quality is met by all members of the pizza network?

I'd like these questions answer before you get me to download your app to find pizza.

>Also interested in their business model and how they plan to achieve profitability. Any VC worth their weight wouldn't touch a startup like this with a 10-foot pole.

Zzzzzz. I find this reading is incredibly dense. What VC, profitablity, business model and such crap?

They made a fun app, they are selling it. They don't intend to become the next Instagram or whatever. They just want to sell their cheaply produced app and make a decent buck. Like thousands of developers out there. Isn't it obvious?

Not everything is a startup, looking for some VC, to validate some business model.

Most apps people use are made like this. Including games -- which don't wait VCs or have "business models" other than: release the game, sell copies, profit.

Of the top of my head, some examples of similar successful apps: iA Writer, Reeder, Letterpress, KitCam, Foldify, Soulver, Brushes, Camera+, Flashlight, Hundreds, Procreate, ...

These people are trying to exploit the pizza market by taking advantage of desperate pizza workers and forcing them to join their walled pizza garden with promises of absurd profits. It's a shame that people are endorsing this very obvious and pathetic attempt to use pizza for their own success.

But look at the growth! Yesterday I had one pizza, and today I have two. By the law of extrapolation that makes pizza compass the fastest growing company ever with a roughly 7.5X10^107% annual growth rate!

>Or does it rely on other APIs, such as Foursquare?

It does, according to their Twitter feed.

I think this is relevant, since it launched today and no one in the last 7 hours has provided context:

https://www.urbancompass.com/

http://www.businessinsider.com/ori-allon-has-hired-63-ex-goo...

That BI headline is all I need to read about this. Let me know when they progress beyond govWorks.com

Is...is that a joke? Am I going insane? Is it a product?

I can't tell anymore. I just can't. So many smiling faces on their team/about page...what the christ.

EDIT: Some minor looking around... maybe it isn't?

The http://zombo.com/ of 2013

Only time will tell if it can serve humanity as well as ZomboCom. With this, pizza is possible .. with ZomboCom, ANYTHING is possible.

Except it costs $.99

Hey, a hint. Drop the dot.

Just Zombocom; it's cleaner.

http://www.xkcd.com/855/

No, that would be http://html5zombo.com/ ;)

I heard they just closed a 1.5 mil seed round with Andreessen Horowitz.

I really like the way the video was done, i.e. the video background keyed exactly to the page background, but IMO the video itself smacks of trying too hard. I think they tried to ape the Dollar Shave Club vibe and I don't think it went over.

Your comment doesn't make any sense.

The comment made sense to me. The technical approach of filming on a white background so there are no borders on the video is neat.

The content of the video felt inauthentic.

really? he struck me as a genuine pizzaficionado

I think that's the whole point. It's satire

"Grimaldi's Pizzeria > 11ft" That 11ft journey will take you 30 minutes in line, but its worth it.

They have a location in Manhattan that's just as good and usually doesn't have a line.

They have a location in Tucson that never has a line.

A chef (friend) told me: It's good pizza, but not worth standing in line for. When I lived there, I had it and I thought it was OK.

The secret here is to go to the Grimaldi's in Manhattan (20th and 6th). I have been there many times and have never once stood in line. Whatever the delta is between the Brooklyn location and the Manhattan location, it surely isn't 30 minutes of standing around.

Last I heard the difference is a coal-fired oven in Brooklyn, which is not allowed in Manhattan beyond the existing grandfathered ones.

Which Grimaldi's is it again? Famous Grimaldi's? Original Grimaldi's? Famous Original Grimaldi's? World Famous Grimaldi's?

Shhhh...you're ruining the secret

Go to Roberta's Pizza, dude.

Maybe they should include wait times in the app?

"Grimaldi's Pizzeria > 33 min (3 min walking + 30 min in line)"

"Rubio's Pizza & Pasta > 17 min (5 min walking + 11 min in line)"

Edit: Google Traffic for restaurant lines? Track line speed by phone GPS location in the waiting area and dining room?

When I visited New York I went at 11.30am, there was no queue and the pizza arrived quickly. But by the time I was eating it, I looked out the window and the queue was already stretching a whole block!

In terms of quality, it was good, but overhyped.

Ok, HN, I'm obviously missing something so please enlighten me. Why is this on the front page? I thought that it might be a joke as some people suggested , but it's not, there's an actual app that you can download on iTunes. So... I just don't get it. Why is this important?

PIZZA IS IMPORTANT

Pizza is delicious

I think it's a fine example how someone takes a novel idea like this, charges 99 cents, and probably ends up making a nice dollar off it. No one ever asked for it, but a lot of people will want it.

Everyone is always asking to get their problems solved but it shows how you don't always need a problem.

Novel idea? What novel idea? There were apps that showed you bars, fast food joints etc. in your vicinity before. A lot of them are free, too.

The novelty is in the presentation and execution.

exactly this.

Pitch: beer-compass.com

Ready for VC funding now.

The shape of a slice of pizza is more conducive to pointing at stuff.

Shape of a bottle works very well too :)

You could use a tap handle for beer. Perhaps a tap handle shaped as pizza, even.

How about the fizz of co2 bubbles pointing towards stuff?

Didn't play much spin the bottle when growing up, did we?

Too busy playing spin the pizza.

There's a serious beer-compass already: https://untappd.com/

and awesome, too! :D

I think the main use case for untapped is enabling your beer drinking habits via badge rewards ;)

http://www.whatontap.com/

i vibe with their humor in this app and the marketing so i'm going to purchase it. if for nothing else, so they can do more cool/funny/fun shit like this!

i made a one page app that might help someone decide which craft beer to drink after getting their pizza from this compass. oh and it insults you a bunch.

launched it last week and spread on the internet tubes. people responded to it positively and it's received a shit-ton amount of attention for a fun side project -- over 2 million unique views and counting.

  Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Shitty Fucking Beer.
  Drink Only Good Beer.

http://ShouldIDrinkThisFuckingBeer.com

I have never felt so compelled to install an app. Incredible.

This is great art. It's the kind of art that makes you question your beliefs, the kind of art that makes you consider things in a different light; the kind of art that makes you question your existence and the futility of the world and capitalism.

Thanks for making this a reality.

Reminds me of "wheres the ladies at" app.

Brilliant, time to port it to android. New weekend project: Beer Compass.

Someone should make an app like this for expatriates looking for the closest Starbucks or McDonald's.

I usually just look up and notice the golden arches. There are so many, that an app would take time away from enjoying a Big Mac

Reminds me of http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/02/wheretheladies-at-shows-you... from... wow, really two and a half years ago?

Has anyone got a link to Zeus Goremunkist's Github profile? This guy looks legit.

almost identical to my app, Nearest Burrito: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nearest-burrito/id575617196?...

I don't have sound at work so the video just appears to be a man waving a pizza slice around before I got bored and gave up. Is there anywhere on the site where it says what it does in writing?

I assume you're being sarcastic since there's a picture of the app showing a slice of pizza pointing your way towards a pizza place. And the name should be a dead giveaway.

Either way I think it's a terrible example of the decadence of western societies.

I had set the audio on Vimeo down, and I can't adjust the audio volume on your site. I had to jump over to Vimeo to hear it

If I close my eyes while listening to the video, I see Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad.

This guy is a modern Delboy

Love it --

Should try a free version with ads to pizza joints all jostling for business.

Ok, that is really really funny. Spinal Tap for the App set.

Can someone please explain me what the app actually does??

Is it not obvious?

1. Search for nearest pizza place (probably using Foursquare) 2. Pizza-looking-compass-needle points to said pizza place 3. Distance updates as you're pulled towards pizza

Simples.

No, its not obvious.

I personally thought it was that, hoped it was that, but nothing on that site told me what you just did. I had to half work it out, half guess.

The difficulty in finding information just makes you more interested in it. Growth hacking 101.

Yeah, sort of, but never if Im being "sold" something.

Customer 101 :)

It's like a compass. But for pizza.

Brilliant.

That's pretty great.

the last 10 seconds of the video were a little weird.

This is hilarious.

Awesome idea!

After watching the guy in the video, I think I will pass on pizza today.... No thrills , but it would help if they would have had a sexy model instead :)

Sexy models don't eat pizza often enough to warrant a pizza compass app. At least there's a bit of truth in advertising here!

Stupid app. Tap built in Maps app -> Search for 'Pizza'

That's what people said about the telephone!

but where's the novelty in that, nick?!

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