Review our app: IntentBox (London Startup Weekend) | Hacker News Reader

Review our app: IntentBox (London Startup Weekend)

8 pointsig116 comments

We just built this app this weekend, we didn't manage to get full facebook integration. But the site works as a self-contained app.

Our site: http://intentbox.com

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One thing I noticed right away is:

I entered in what I wanted to do, and I'm instantly prompted to register. Fair enough, this is a common pattern. But after I've registered, the thing I entered in already isn't listed, and I have to re-enter it. I was very much expecting that information to carry over.

I can't speak for everyone, but this doesn't solve a problem I've ever had, and it doesn't seem any more useful than an email or Facebook status update.

thank you for pointing this out.. we are currently fixing it.. much much appreciated!

Fix released and tested, it should now retain your activity when you create an account :-)

Regarding versus Facebook status. Facebook status will move very fast. If you post "I want to go and see Batman" in a couple of days time everyone will have forgotten about it. This keeps track over time.

Initially we planned it to have tight facebook integration but the facebook api proved to be an enormous pain, so we cut our losses to built what we could build in a weekend.

Also we wanted an android/iphone front end which would be good for realtime activities (i.e I want to go to the pub this evening) but again it was a time thing.

A nice value add over what you can already do by just posting a Facebook status update / shooting out a message on Twitter would be to do a time-delayed push of the message. If I know I want to go shoot pool tomorrow night, put that on your site, shoot it out over Facebook/Twitter/whatever with a link back to your site, then if I haven't created plans, push out a 'last chance' status update that is closer to the time when I want to go do whatever it is I wanted to do.

More generically, I can see value in choosing a strategy to publish information at some future time and not having to do it manually.

Clickable link: http://intentbox.com

Project start - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=954556

I really like the idea behind this. Best of luck.

I'd prefer an OAuth twitter integration.

It's a neat idea.

Any chance of OpenID support rather than requiring signup?

Oh, and the ability to link to an intention from elsewhere. I'd love to be able to link to it from my LJ.

As a quick hack you can link directly to an intention by clicking on it and then copying the URL.

(This is fixable and should be no problem however).

Please don't look too closely at the code, there are some things in there that need a bit of refactoring :-)

"I built this app in a weekend" + need to register to see anything = bounce. Make it easier.

You don't have to sign-up with an email address, you can just pick an arbitrary username which isn't taken and hit signup.

Yeah, my brain is hardwired by everyone else's signups to bounce on screens like that. Maybe it can be made clearer that there's no big signup required? Even picking a password is friction.

Would be really useful if it automatically added my facebook friends list

Isn't it similar to 43things.com?

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