Ask HN: Review my startup - tripstamp.com
TripStamp allows users to create a digital scrapbook of their travels, past and present. Any feedback on the concept, design or functionality is welcome.
http://www.tripstamp.com
http://www.tripstamp.com
On the last image, don't hesitate to add a big CTA, or a an arrow appearing toward the facebook button. The viewer's eyes on the right side (where all the images are :) ), and when it stops, you have to show him in a big way !!!
Also, Login with facebook doesn't tell about the product. Maybe have a button saying : Start your scrapbook now ! (and below, the facebook logo)
Say with who they can share : with their parents ? Or friends ? If you say to people they can show how amazing their trip are with their very close relative, they would be happier.
Is there a reason why there is nobody on the pictures ? What about showing some cool, funny pictures with people in special places ?
When we check people's trip : can we add a comment on their overall trip ? What about giving some badges, ranks, points to encourage people ? Maybe people could vote up trips or photos ; give them a grade for each level ? (check http://www.quora.com/User-Acquisition/How-has-Turntable-fm-g...) As you know, facebook may lose speed in the future, so I suppose you are working on a way to import instagram pictures or else.
Don't hesitate to 'show some love' in your privacy page, if it's actually something you want to emphase on. Like saying, on the top of the list, that you would like to keep people's privacy, respect it, etc, that's why you don't do this or that.
Tldr, it's cool stuff you are working on ! Focus on things that would really set that apart from facebook, instagram and others. Work a little bit on your landing page ( add a bigger and clearer call to action button (not 'login to facebook', but 'Start your trip (login to facebook)' on the button) ). Add some social incentive and gamification to increase your user engagement.
I would love to use this, but then host the resulting content myself. Maybe you could offer exporting a trip for a fee?
What I think of is the classic comedy sketch scenario of being invited to a friends house to view a slideshow or home movies of their last trip.
People like to share this stuff... that's obvious. What seems harder to admit is that nobody else cares.
During and since that trip, I have often thought about building something to make sharing those kind of experiences easier. I think TripStamp hits some of those points, but one major problem that would be difficult for TripStamp to solve in its current incarnation is that of being able to make updates while offline, and have them sync whenever internet is available. (I'd often write blog posts in my tent at night and then upload them from whatever public WiFi I could find the next day, and I think that would apply even more to people travelling in remote locations where a lot of this "exciting" travel happens.)
On the "who cares" side: it's actually an improvement to be able to say on $socialnetwork "here's my trip, take a look at it" rather than having to sit your friend through a one hour show off :)
However, there's the mapping and the layout, as riffraff points out. There's not really a quick and easy way for me to create this kind of integrated thing myself.
the salt is 22 chars, the hash 31 chars.
By adding in journaling you provide users the ability to tell more of a story and remembering the story is one of the main reasons someone would use this service over FB or flickr. Like antoinec said, you should either do away with the small thumbnails in between the large photos or if you adopted the journaling concept, have a two options for that intermediate view, See Photos or See Journal entries (possibly with photos embedded). Best of luck!
Good luck!
I'm sorta iffy on what a digital scrapbook is. I think the above the fold part of the home page should illustrate the pain point and how you solve it.
I like the idea with the slideshow, but I think a video would be better, or at least a slide show where the user decides when it goes to the next slide.
I'm still not really sure what you do that makes making a scrapbook of travels notably easier than it already is.
Those are the two first things I think about, but maybe that's just me. I'm not a very social media type of person, also I'm living in Sweden, so I'm probably not part of your main audience here, but I don't see why I should spend my precious time on this, that's all I can say.
Oh, and good luck! :)