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Ask HN: Review my startup: http://liveshowdown.com

6 points by realgt ↗ HN
Hi thx for taking the time to review our site:

link: http://liveshowdown.com

Its a simple game, kinda like facemash but with live video streaming. whoever gets the majority vote keeps streaming and faces the next person in line, hoping to make it to the "Hall of Fame" where they can get link off to their profile.

Our user aquisition strategy: if you have a webcam when you hit the site it will add you to the queue automatically, otherwise you can still vote / flag :)

It tries to playfully disrupt the "fame game" where you have to compete with thousands of youtube videos to go viral (eg. Rebecca Black).

we're not in the valley and bootstrapped... trying to see how far we can take it with low overhead. its nodejs + socket.io + p2p multicast streaming.

thx in advance

Fabio Rodriguez Co-Founder

9 comments

[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 33.7 ms ] thread
jaryd
what exactly am i voting for?
realgt
you would vote for the one you like more. if thats not blindingly obvious then we definitely gotta improve that
MichaelApproved
I think the problem is that there's no one to vote for right now. When I load up the site I don't see a video. Then I refreshed the page and only saw one video with no one to battle.

Maybe a placeholder when there's no battle going on?

captainchrisx
you are voting for whoever is more entertaining...it's a competition to see who can stay live the longest.
MichaelApproved
Great Idea but I don't like how I'm forced to participate right away. Having flash ask me to share my camera as soon as I hit the site is off-putting. I'd like to just watch what's going on.
realgt
yeah i get that ... we've considered an "add me" button or "i want to play" but you can still participate without streaming. thx for the feedback!
MichaelApproved
I clicked "Allow" and it's been saying I'm about to go live for a few minutes without actually doing anything. Meanwhile there's no battle going on right now so why haven't I gone live yet?

Good concept but very buggy and a lot of confusion. I would suggest you delete this now and repost when things work again.

realgt
hmm been seeing battles constantly...definitely a bug. thx for the tip. if you're behind a firewall blocking udp traffic you will be unable to participate.