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Ask HN: App for finding your cognitive siblings?

13 points by mjhirn ↗ HN
Hey HN,

I have this idea: An app that lets you find your 'cognitive siblings' - people that share your viewpoints, interests, etc. based on (a subset of) your browsing history.

Would like to see if this is something worth building a prototype for.

Facebook, but for connecting with people that you haven't met yet. Twitter, but finding also 'non-famous' cognitive siblings.

The idea is a plugin, that records your browsing history and shows you people with similar histories that you can then connect with.

Do you think that would produce interesting sibling results? Why / Why not? Has it been attempted before - why didn't it work out? (Maybe leaving privacy issues aside here for now)

15 comments

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ATLB1411
Why not just go on reddit and look for subreddits you are interested in, to find these like minded people?
kazinator
Because you somehow have to ferret out the ones who recur on many of those subreddits. "Oh look, bob123 is a regular on seven out of the nine subs! My cognitive sibling"
agitator
I think this is a pretty interesting idea.

Someone mentioned why not just follow subreddits. I noticed that subreddits are often a collection of the extremes of a hobby or interest. I would say that I'm a collection of interest that make up my unique personality, while subreddits often have people that are really deep into a specific topic.

One thing to note about your idea, is I've used apps in the past that connect you with people that you share interest with, but I often flake when it comes to actually meeting with people in person... I wonder if this is a common trend? I feel like I almost ended up using them as a self validation.... but never followed through much with meeting people.

mjhirn
Hearing friends talking about flaking, I would say it is a very common theme. I would also think, that you may not want to meet up with that person, because either not in the same city, or because you may match with a lot of different people which also may change over time.

I also thought of it more like a self-validation thing, a source of more information, recommendations, etc. What you would get back may be an online conversation or a feed of relevant websites.

qnsi
What are examples of apps that connect you with people with similar interests? I mean, not dating, right?
arandr0x
The idea is to have a conversation with someone who's read as much of the same things you have as possible? What do you learn from this?
mjhirn
Good question! Could see that a conversation with that person may go very stale very quickly, but may have some other benefits?

- Great reading recommendations

- Great proof-of-competence like a 'badge' or 'degree' when hiring

omosubi
there's plenty to discuss whenever you've read something someone else has read. just think about book clubs that get together and talk about books that everyone has just read based on questions that they might have shared before hand. you can always share your insights into the book, your opinions on the content, connections to other things, etc. It's funny to me that people are saying that conversations around these things would get stale.

My tip would be to have a group of friends, potentially online in a group chat or in person, all read one or two _short_ pieces that you have selected so you can discuss them, and then have another person select pieces, etc. I highly doubt that you will find another person out in the ether that has read a lot of the same stuff as you have at the level you want or expect.

Regardsyjc
I read a lot but there aren't many people I know who read the same things I do- so I am unable to have deeper conversations about the things I read. Everyone adds something, their own meaning and context so they can see something you're not able to.

Do you agree or disagree? What did you think about this point? It reminded me of this instance. Have you also read that instance, do you agree? Etc.

hluska
This would either be a very good or very bad dating site. I'd like to be positive and say very good, but I've been online long enough to have concerns...:)
kspy
Wonder if spotify will ever release something like this as a feature
rboyd
Connecting with similar people would be good.

Getting relevant link recommendations would be great.

Similar ideas: delicious, prismatic, StumbleUpon.

Biggest issues are probably chicken-and-egg problem and privacy concerns.

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snazz
I like the browsing history concept, because browsing and search history really delves deep into who someone is, but you might get a more accurate image of someone’s real-life self by using an interests questionnaire alongside or in place of browsing history to better see the offline interests someone has.

For instance, I really like cycling, but my programming-related Google searches eclipse my cycling-related ones by a huge margin, so your hypothetical algorithm would rank programming as a much greater interest than cycling, even if I spend about equal amounts of time on each.