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Ask HN: Review my app: Firetweets

21 points by iampims ↗ HN
It's written in Python and runs on Google Appengine. http://firetweets.appspot.com/

It's tracking a dozen of topics — for which I'd like to keep up with what’s new. Other topics (ruby, python, appengine…) are coming soon, but the amount of spam or assimilated spam for these topics on Twitter is significantly higher than for the current ones. I'm working on a solution to reduce noise, and duplicates, but in the mean time, if this micro-service is useful for somebody, that'd make my day.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome.

23 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 74.3 ms ] thread
js4all
Great idea. I will use it in the future.

The yellow background however is stressing. If you like yellow to be your signature color, use it on a single element like a header strip or so.

Also, go get a custom domain for it. When your app gets popular and you do that later, many people have to update their links.

mishmash
> The yellow background however is stressing.

Agreed. It's a lovely shade of yellow, but in front of maximized window on a 24" monitor, my eyes physically squinted a little when switching to it. :)

iampims
I'll revert to white and put the yellow background as an option. I indeed didn't realize it might be a little too aggressive on a 24" monitor :)

edit: changed to white. I'll provide the theme switcher in the next release :)

js4all
Wow, that was fast. Much better, thanks.
mishmash
Yes much better, thanks. BTW, I like the implementation and good luck with it.
iampims
Thanks for the feedback. The background was originally white, and easier on the eyes, but it wasn't distinctive enough. The site looked like almost every other site. The yellow paint coat gives it charisma, but I might have over done it a little bit.

As for the custom domain name, I wanted to test it first before buying a domain. I used to buy the domain first and write the app afterwards. But most of the time, I was left with a domain name and no app. But yes, you're right, doing things properly requires a domain name. That'll give me the opportunity to change the name — since firetweets was just chosen randomly a long time ago.

xsltuser2010
Distinction by design is easy, but your site is distinctive because it is a simple and useful tool. The 'distinctive' style will grow with its use becoming more clear and widespread.

Besides that, it really doesnt look like every other site. Almost all other sites are spoiled with eye sugar.

iampims
I'm glad to hear that you see this as a useful tool. I've found a handful of interesting links I hadn't seen mentioned in most popular sites — HN, Reddit,…

And as for simplicity, I'll quote St Exupery:

>A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

I certainly don't believe that this design is perfect, but it fades away to let the content shine.

adrianwaj
I had an idea, which could fit in with a future phase of this app. Grabbing links from twitter lists and reposting with page title, link, and underlying tweet. It's about surfacing what's hot in certain user circles, for example, you might find twitter lists concerning the topics already displayed on Firetweets. The final display might end up somthing like: http://hackerbra.in/links -- some lists of interest http://twitter.com/tlrobinson/hackernews http://twitter.com/DHS/hacker-news.
iampims
That's an interesting idea. Somewhere on my hard drive lingers an app that grabs all the links from your Twitter timeline and is supposed to send you a daily digest. I hadn't thought of including the tweet itself, but it can't hurt to have some context and hadn't thought of using lists either. Before thinking about phase two, I'd like to grow the site a little bit, but I will certainly keep this in mind. Thanks for the suggestion :)
timhastings
Here's a similar link collecting service I've been developing, e.g. for #nodejs http://tagwalk.com/tag/nodejs
adrianwaj
Nice, didn't know about it. The black background, small writing and grey text kills me. But I've got a new link on Twitya for any username to tagwalk. Thanks.
timhastings
Cool, thanks for the link. Sorry if the colour scheme made your eyes bleed - I'm still experimenting with that. :-)
iampims
That's really interesting. I started firetweets by tracking only node.js links. I really like the data driven approach you've taken. Do you plan on expanding to other topics?

edit: You already do track other topics. That's really cool!

timhastings
Thank you.

It already works for any hashtags or usernames that it encounters, here's #sundaybaconclub http://tagwalk.com/tag/sundaybaconclub

iampims
I'm impressed. From what I've read on your blog, you have gathered a massive amount of data. How do you fight spam?
timhastings
It's many pronged approach. User timelines are loaded for "reputable" users, (see blog for computing reputation) and search input is used with primative bayesian filtering.

In my experience, I have found Tweet source (web, Tweetdeck, API etc.) to be one of the most effective quality/authenticity indicators.

iampims
Using the tweet source is such a smart idea! So far I rely on username filtering / patterns. Toughest is to get rid of job postings ! Good luck with Tagwalk ! You've got a new user ;)
timhastings
Nice one, thanks, and good luck with Firetweets!

There is tons of job tweets, but most have "job" in the username and/or app source. Also any app source that contains "bot" or "feed" is most likely safe to ignore.