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Ask HN:Review My Updated Side Project - ShelfLuv.com (250 invite codes)

36 points by wushupork ↗ HN
http://www.shelfluv.com (250 invite codes) use: HN

I initially submitted this project to HN back in September/October last year. At the time, it was a hackathon project that just did instant search on Amazon. It received great feedback so I decided to build on it.

Although it took a really long time since the hackathon, the new ShelfLuv is finally here and I would love some feedback. It is far from done, but as they say, if you are not embarrassed by your first version, then you've released too late. There are still many glaring holes in the functionality but those are coming.

I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback. What do you love about it? What confuses you? What would bring you back to the site. If you want to contact me personally it's pek at shelfluv dot com

Thank you

36 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 83.2 ms ] thread
brianbreslin
Love the design and use of the patterns in the background. What is the business model behind this? Amazon Affiliate commissions?

edit: Added my profile http://www.shelfluv.com/brianbreslin/

you have some css errors with the inputs and hover states over buttons in chrome 10 mac (borders showing, etc)

wushupork
Yes that is one obvious (and current) business model.
wushupork
Thanks. I dont do enough testing on Chrome for sure.
singer
Have you considered that not all book lovers are Facebook lovers?
wushupork
I have. This is the MVP. Down the line, I imagine people should be able to login using Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL or heaven forbid email.
aberghage
Non-facebook login seconded. I'd give it a go if it weren't for that.
wushupork
Can people tell me the order of preference? What alternative is most attractive after that.
mgeraci
I still use old school email for signups when I can.
mwdev
I'd ignore this feedback for now. I'm not saying that these people aren't important, just that you sound like you're solo like me. Stay focused on your product. These folks will eventually come in from the wild once the product is good enough and they realize that you're using fbconnect like they use the power company.
btmorex
Email followed distantly by twitter and openid. The only reason twitter is there is that I have an account, but don't use it or care about it.

More importantly I will never use facebook to signup somewhere else. I don't want random services anywhere near my facebook profile.

whimsy
I prefer e-mail far and away above others.
TimCourtney82
Very cool project, Pek. It's been great to see you iterate on the design over the last several months.
boushley
I really like the design, and the idea is nice. One suggestion I have is making some way to add books from your My Shelf page. I didn't see a way easily, and ended up just going to the browse page. I'm assuming that's probably the flow you want, but you may want to have a plus button or something on the shelf UI that links to the browse page for books.
wushupork
You should be able to. Once you are logged in, when you hover over any book on the shelf view, you click on 'Shelf it' to immediately add it to your shelves.
boushley
You might also try adjusting the number of books that load at one time from 10 to 12 or something divisible by 4 so that you load complete shelves and don't have half a shelf loaded.
wushupork
I wonder why this was not obvious to me. The original ShelfLuv had 5 columns of books which is why 10 loaded at a time. Great suggestion
duck
I like the design and idea. One thing you might think about is letting people put their own amazon referral id (for a cost or something). I recently asked Hacker Newsletter subscribers what books they were reading and had a great response, so I created a page to display the results (http://www.kaledavis.com/2011/03/25/hnl-book-list-vol1.html). Amazon astore's are just not what I was looking for, but something like this would work pretty well.
wushupork
I feel like that less than 1% of the people on there would be using this feature
mgeraci
I like the layout - the landing page looks pretty good. A few suggestions:

- While I like the script font in your logo, I think it's a little too hard to read. The letterforms of the "u" and "v" are very similar and could use some slight modification to differentiate them. The kerning is also off - the letters are suppost to connect, but the tracking is too wide.

- I think there's too much movement on the home page. There are three sections that animate (the slideshow, press, and recent activity). All that movement distracts from your call to action. Think about what you want a new visitor to focus on when they first see the page. (This is admittedly not as much of a problem for people with smaller monitors, but I can see below the fold)

- Why not make your search bar in the header wider? Longer titles are cut off.

- I'd shorten your overview sentence ("Share what you read with your friends and discover new books?") and maybe set it in a different color or font to help it stand out. I think this is a very important sentence.

Overall it looks great! Good luck!

wushupork
Those are all great suggestions. I do agree there is a lot of movement there. I need to simplify it a bit and bring the focus back on the call to action.
random42
Do you intent to make money of it? If so, how do you plan to do that?
wushupork
If people buy books through my site I get a cut
maukdaddy
No one has mentioned it yet, but I think the name is brilliant. Clever and memorable.

You might want to get shelflove.com if your site becomes successful, as I imagine lots of typos and word-of-mouth traffic will mistakenly end up there.

wushupork
I will try to get that if I can afford it
sc00ter
Can I equally suggest you try to get it /before/ your site becomes too popular - if you are seeing growth and anticipate it will do. Otherwise, the shelflove domain will get increasing type-in traffic as your site grows, and its value to the owner (hnce cost to acquire) will go up proportionally.
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sc00ter
Proof, if ever it were needed, that it's execution not the idea that's important. No doubt there are others too, as I have a half-backed prototype of pretty much this idea (including Amazon integration), however it's nowhere near finished (it was a Rails learning excercise), and even if it was, would never have looked half as good as this. Nice work!
wushupork
what sort of Amazon integration have you done? Be curious to know what ideas you had
mapster
smashing success! Great idea and awesome execution. I think this sort of 'display my favorites' is wide open for niche products, like maps, for map lovers.
mapster
and a shelf of wines for wine fans, beer for beer fans, etc.
sc00ter
CDs & DVDs might be a more obvious next step...
mapster
that's not true. those are big markets to compete with for small company. Its a strategy decision based on amount of funding you have to attack small or huge markets.
snitko
So wait, isn't it the same as Shelfari (bought by Amazon, if I remember correctly)? Even the design seems to be similar.
JoachimSchipper
Some random comments:

- the front page loads slowly (FF4).

- <title> in <body>?

- I expected the image to change if I moused over the buttons below; I needed to click. I usually hate "active" mouseovers, but it's still something to think about

- the 'log in with Facebook' text crosses the grey/white border, which is jarring

- I wouldn't use this anyway, but there'd be no way I'd sign up for Facebook to use this.

- do the "as seen on" logos do anything for your readers? I only recognized LifeHacker, and I've almost never read anything of theirs.

- the bar at the top is annoying; then again, I always find a bar at the top annoying.

- the per-book pages (e.g. http://www.shelfluv.com/ASIN/1430219483) contain a summary, but it's somewhat hard to find and the text is set in too narrow a column. Maybe place a sentence or two above the comments/recent activity, with a "(more)" button to expand?