HN Explorer

Ask HN: Please Review Our Project, TwoTruths

7 points by cjwake ↗ HN
Hey folks,

This is my first post for anything other than scattered blog entries or news article.

Two friends and I created TwoTruths over a weekend (46 hours + a few since then), using a custom PHP framework and integrating with Facebook and Twitter. Apologies upfront, because our login requires one or the other (questioning whether to add email sign up given the social element of what we do).

http://www.twotruths.me/

It is basically a conversation starter for you and your Facebook friends or Twitter followers. When you don't speak to people for a while, it can be intimidating or awkward to start that catch up conversation, so we built this to make that easier. Surprisingly, you even learn new things about friends (or significant others) you thought you knew well.

We'd love some advice or thoughts on the UI/UX. We've thrown around whether game mechanics could work (adding points or making it competitive to see "who knows their friends best"), whether comments should be included after you take a challenge (thinking this would create an ongoing conversation as more and more people take that particular challenge), etc. Again, we're trying to help drive conversation between friends, so any ideas or thoughts in that area would be great.

Thanks everyone for any feedback!

Chris, Michael & Elenor

6 comments

[ 6.8 ms ] story [ 24.8 ms ] thread
starter
It seems well built and is actually a pretty cool idea. Unfortunately, I'm not sold on the concept enough to actually sign up and return every day.

Have your considered building this into a social network that's more focused on forming good connections? I think the concept might work better as an app or a feature than a stand alone site.

cjwake
We had not considered that, just given the steep road ahead for those building full social networks, but you're absolutely right that it could work if focused on good connections over mass connections, or thinking about a Path-like experience on the web.

With the problem of returning every day, do you think this could be at least partially solved using the comments feature to drive conversation?

Thanks for the feedback, definitely appreciate it.

starter
I understand that but you should think about this: are you really passionate about solving the issue of "anti-social" social networking?

I really don't know. I do know that "partial solutions" won't take you far. I'd find a higher purpose for your project that allows you to reach more people.

Would it hurt to try making this into an app? If you can't build your own solution framework, integrate it somewhere people need it.

cjwake
Very good points. Success does mean commitment, and definitely if we're really interested in solving the "anti-social" social networking issue.

I like the idea of incorporating as an app, though it brings up some questions around direction/ interaction.

Thanks again for the feedback. If you have any more thoughts, we'd love to hear those; otherwise, we'll circle back here once we've made additional progress.