346 karma · joined February 15, 2011
The experience for writers was surprisingly rewarding, but the end result was not for mass consumption. Still, as a writing tool, it showed great value.
The most promising workaround would be to find a JS screenshot tool that doesn't rely on the DOM, and then run some client-side image analysis to get the index values of the red squares, and then go from there to click the things. Well played, exploit fixers, well played.
Now, where is the documentation? The readme from the repo points to a docs folder that does not exist, and links to the online versions of documentation lead me to login-only pages... registering only puts me in line for access.
I learned about it through a girl I'm currently seeing. She is very far removed from the whole tech scene. Her cousin told her to try it, and then she told me to try it and impress her by getting a high score. So I tried it, enjoyed it (masochism involved here), and the very next day my roommate asked me if I knew of the game. We've been competing with each other for high scores ever since.
So yes, at the beginning I thought it was good.
But never implemented / merged. Surprised the powers-that-be are resisting the most elegant solution. Then again, I came up with it, so I remain bitter and biased :)
Monetizing? Apps aren't expensive, and if it provides value to a community I certainly wouldn't mind not-charging for it. It took me 24 hours to build, and hopefully not a year of labor to maintain. If I can break even, I'd be happy. Otherwise, selling contact info of idea authors who've collected unreal amounts of upboats to investors seems like it could do something, granted I gather the consent of all parties involved.
Regarding the former, that's answered in the OP, so you probably mean the latter.
A) Why do you browse HN? I will assume here that it is because you want to keep up with hacker news. Another possibility is that you want be stimulated/inspired by interesting ideas and premises for startups. While the traffic and postings on Upboat thus far haven't been overwhelming, I've enjoyed reading people's ideas and commenting to probe them deeper about them. It keeps me on my toes for ideas I might have in the future. It also gives me the chance to become an early adopter/user of a service I personally find impactful and needed. I get to be a part of that, if other Upboaters agree.
B) The social aspect to Upboat lets me see how people I follow are upboating. This eases the friction of finding potentially great ideas I would like to upboat for the reasons in A. Although the follower/followee social network thing is overplayed and contrived by now, I feel the social filtering it provides is a compelling reason to stay active and upboat ideas I find valuable and want my followers to take a look at.