HN Explorer

Ask HN: Review my startup, Snapherd.com

22 points by endtwist ↗ HN
So I've just launched Snapherd, a mobile photo game. Basically, every 48 hours a new catchword or catchphrase is given, and the goal is to take a picture of what you think best represents the subject matter.

The idea is simple, but I'd love to hear what the Hacker News community thinks!

20 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 46.4 ms ] thread
alaskamiller
cute design. kind of an addicting concept. should make this into an iphone app. need to seed more, i only see two pics/words.
tialys
Wow... and iPhone (or Android) app could be great for this! Start the app, snap a pic and send it in with details about location and everything. It would certainly put the site in front of a lot more people as well.
petervandijck
I like it too. Nice design. Nice concept. I think you need to convince 10 friends to snap lots of pictures to get things rolling, because right now it looks pretty empty, and nobody likes an empty community site.
endtwist
It should start filling up quite a bit more today...the word had just rolled over last night (from "debate" to "absurd") and my friends have not submitted new images quite yet. I do very much appreciate the input, though!
mattjung
Simple, but appealing idea, nicely done. I'll keep an eye on it. How many users do you have already?
mwinters58
business model? grow traffic and sell ads?
kenver
Offer prizes/incentives to people who manage to incorporate a second "sponsor" type word.
tomsaffell
nice idea.

maybe you could try to tie the word of the day to current affairs in some way?

as for building traffic, maybe you could find a way for people to vote (or even submit) w/o needing to login. you might need to bring the login back ultimately, once it's popular - but do you need it now?

final thought - the home page runs off the bottom of the screen (at 1280 x 1024) by a good few hundred pixels. And the bottom is where all the real content is. Maybe reshuffle and/or shrink?

cheers

tom saffell

kenver
Really good idea and I like the site. You probably know, but when I tried to find it with a search engine there was nothing there. You should probably do something about that
walesmd
I like it - design is nice. What is the incentive for winning (other than community)? I think this is a prime opportunity to purchase (or get one donated) an iPhone or the T-Mobile G1 and give one away.
jsmcgd
I enjoyed the HL reference. I reckon all it needs now is some users and some content. Well done.
vaksel
did I see a sign for your site during last night's debate? Or was that something else?
endtwist
That was my sign during last night's pre- and post-debate, on MSNBC. It got me a few new users, but not quite as many as I'd have hoped.
Tapthat
where.com did this a couple years back... It got some response but you definitely need to find a way to get buzzzz
migpwr
I wish I didn't have to register to vote for a picture... i was about to vote for deep fried candy bars on "absurd"
joshu
Today's word is "mesothelioma"
calambrac
Why 48 hours? Would cycling catchwords in shorter increments do a better job of keeping people engaged with the site? What's the smallest period of time you can find that still yields decent photos?
pxlpshr
We tried to do this last year when the "Safari SDK" was released, but the side project died... I still think it's a great idea and you've executed it nicely. There's another iPhone application that does something similar called Scavenge built by the hosting company A Small Orange, however they currently do not have the website component as far as I can tell.

http://www.apptism.com/apps/scavenge

jcapote
openid support would be nice, but I love the idea.