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Ask HN: Please rate my GF's startup

16 points by foysavas ↗ HN
My girlfriend does fashion blogging on the side and had been wanting to tag her blog photos for a while. Eventually, she decided it'd make a good service and asked if I could help her code up a site for it. In the past few weekends, we've put this up:

http://tag.loudly.com

For a demo, here's a blog entry where she's using it:

http://www.phosphenefashion.com/2011/02/today.html

Want to try out the actual site? Just use the invite code HACKER or follow this link:

http://tag.loudly.com/welcome?invite_code=HACKER

Anyway, I know the HN community is always ridiculously insightful when asked for its advice, so here I am.

* What do you like and dislike about the service? * How might you extend upon it? * How would you promote it?

17 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 48.1 ms ] thread
mattcurry
- Site is simple and clear. I like.

- I'd get rid of the Magic, eh? link. Doesn't really relate to the rest of the product and some people probably won't "get it".

- As for promoting the most obvious thing would be to email a bunch of high profile blogs (that would have use for this) and give it to them. If they use it others will notice. Maybe add a little "powered by loudly" link over the pic.

- Why the subdomain if the main domain just redirects?

[deleted]
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foysavas
We've subdomain-ed the site in case we extend the feature set significantly beyond tagging.
benwerd
I really like the idea. A couple of initial comments based on a test photo I uploaded straight from my camera (http://loud.ly/yqyqns):

I really didn't like having to install a piece of code in my site theme. Although I've done it for this test, I'm effectively giving you a bunch of analytics, and I'm loading JS I don't need on every page. I'd much rather have a single piece of JS (or similar) for each photo that I can just embed. That said, I do very much like that it's not a piece of Flash.

I was expecting to have to drag an area of the photo to begin with, so accidentally created a hotspot in the wrong place. It'd be great to be able to drag existing hotspots around.

Also, you've got this far - why not include buttons to share on Twitter and Facebook? Comments would also be a no-brainer - you could have the comment and share counts next to the "x like this!" hover-over.

foysavas
Because we wanted to get this done as quickly as possible, we choose to for now make the dynamic placement of tags via Javascript the only way to do it for now. However, making a standalone script plus data rich img elements that hold the tag data is definitely on the roadmap.

Thanks for the ideas though - they are going on the backlog!

tsanzer
I like the idea; I find it to be simple and compelling. The website has an equally simple and classy look to it.

As a side note, I didn't notice any tags in the photos on the blog post url you provided. Not quite sure why that is.

I agree with the earlier comment that the best way to get this promoted is through some clever networking with popular blogs/writers. They are often highly accessible and are willing to early-adopt a service. And, of course, they will spread the word if the service is good.

cschmidt
Looking at the photo, there isn't any visible sign that there are tags. I waved my mouse around to find them, but I imagine most people will miss them. Maybe you could have the rectangles initially show, and then fade. I think you need some visual clue.
foysavas
Great idea!

We're also considering making the tag boxes appear on scroll; what do you think?

agnesberthelot
Agreed with cschmidt about some visual clues that there are tags on the photos. The site mentioned you'll host the photos uploaded by the users ... is it for free? I'd imagine if the idea takes off this won't be for free for long. From my experience, I know one type of bloggers would love this idea very much ... hand-crafters, e.g. knitters, crocheters, quilters etc.
foysavas
It's free for now and the plan is to give all our early adopters unlimited accounts.

Later on, we'll set some limits on user accounts, but only if we have to. Sophia's had ideas for monetization from the start, but that said, we want to make sure that enabling our users at no cost remains permanently prioritized over revenue.

kerryfalk
I actually follow a number of blogs of some of the ladies in my city because they post interesting pictures that give me some inspiration because it's very foreign to the space my head is in all the time. I think they'll love this.

Visually I don't like how bold the boxes are when they show up, it detracts from the image. Would it be possible to either set CSS transparency on them or use a PNG-24 (Not IE6 friendly)? That way they're noticeable but not overpowering.

Otherwise, I like it.

EDIT: How would I promote it? Find some of the other fashion bloggers who have a decent following and try to get them to use it. After getting a few to use it there would be a bit of a network effect. If I were a fashion blogger and saw that on a photo I'd probably try to figure out how to do it. So maybe add a small watermark or something so other bloggers know how to get to you.

foysavas
Thanks so much for the positive words. We're going to look into making the tag boxes a bit more beautiful.

As far as IE6, what's that? :-P

strager
Three bug reports:

In Opera 11, the blog post doesn't show tags, but the main site does show tags. This may be the problem @tsanzer was experiencing.

When zooming (ctrl-scrollwheel, e.g.), the tags are not in their correct positions (at least in Chrome).

If I "unhover" sometimes, the application still thinks I'm hovering over the tag. I can reproduce this bug in several ways. For example, hover over a tag, and move the cursor up slowly.

Other comments:

I like that I can hilight a tag's text and even click links!

Flickr (and Facebook) integration would be fantastic!

Service looks really simple and fits a specific need. Don't bloat it too much or it'll lose its elegance.

> How would you promote it?

(Optional?) watermark on images (on hover). Flickr/Facebook integration.

foysavas
Nice catch with the zoom bug! I'll have to look into a way to either a) recognize zoom events and reposition the tags or b) from the get-go place tags that play nice with zooming.
tsanzer
FYI, I am using Firefox 3.6.13 on a Mac. I do not see any tags. I do see tags in the first photo when using Chrome or Safari.