When I first saw the site, I was hoping there would be a way to upload a picture, perhaps do some kind of feature-tagging (similar to the way you point out your pupils on photos on those try-on-glasses apps[1]) and have the site spit back a suggested face based on the features they had that most closely resembled yours.
Of course, this is complete spitballing, I have no idea if it's feasible.
Marketing the pet rock apparently involved custom packaging design and manufacture, and the creation of a 32 page "Care and training" manual. So not that trivial.
These sort of things discriminate against those of us who have no idea how to describe appearance! If only I could upload a photo and it would make a "closest match".
I've seen those mall photo booths that supposedly do something like this - takes a snapshot of you and caricature-izes it. I can't for the life of me think of what they're called or who makes them.. Only other thing I remember is it's adorned with a picture of a girl who wearing a beret who looks like an artist.
Maybe this could be a crowd sourceable feature. Someone on mechanical turk or crowdflower or 99 designs could take a photo and create your character and send the design back to you which you can print later.
On another note, I went to make a pair of them for a friend and her husband's anniversary, but he has very little hair and there is no kind way to not put hair on something like this.
I had a lot of fun with it, and the only way I could share myy creation was to screenshot.... Personally I look at it as another revenue model. Make a model of Keene Reeves and sell it to his fans etc.
Great work guys. Liked the video(s), the instructions are clear, you also set expectations well for shipping, etc. Plus, building your audience (and funding) through a kickstarter campaign is brilliant. I wouldn't worry about the "photo" style characters yet; scale first, excel at customer service, and then if needed, release a 2.0 foldable.me.
Yep. I agree. Folks seem caught up on "face images", but you may want to consider gaining licensing rights to work with professional and collegiate sports. Dropping a New York Yankees pin-striped-uni on a foldable.me would sell pretty well as an add-on price. (And you wouldn't have to give up quality control) Good luck!
From a wikipedia glance, "kanban" was used here in the sense of a particular process-control method, and although the term "kanban" here is pretty clearly derived from 看板, I suppose now it could be considered a distinct term.
Very nice. But your preview visualization uses what I assume to be close to final art, including all the flaps and all. With web inspector (and some curl) I was able to extract all the layers, combine them together, and get a printable file: http://cl.ly/JprN
I'm sure most of HN visitors would be able to do the same. Not sure if you should patch it, though: your target audience will surely won't do things like that, and visualization is already a complex beast.
The concept doesn't live or die on the everyone coming in contact with it having enough integrity to either pay for it or pass, if nobody paid for it that would be a problem of course but the fact that you, flixic, figured out how to not pay isn't really much more of an issue than someone jumping the gate at the subway, or sneaking into the back of a movie theater.
Oh wow. We never expected someone to go to those lengths. If you send us an image of your assembled Foldable we'd be happy to send you, free of charge, our version printed on laminated, high stock card, precision cut and pre-creased so there's no gluing or cutting needed. Just want to make sure you have something to compare against ;-)
What a refreshing attitude - someone finds a way around the paywall and your response is - "oh yeah!? well our execution is better! And we'll prove it too!" I would love if it all companies took this approach instead of DRM/litigation. Hats off to you.
Heh, the first foldable prototypes were made by cutting these things out with an exacto knife. If you ever saw someone do that, you'd know why we're confident that the die-cutting is valuable.
I know it is not a laser cutter (it uses a miniature blade), but you can take existing artwork or printouts and get really nice cuts with the software and USB. It can also score, for the folding portions.
I've used it for similar projects (kirigami - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirigami) and glass etching (making stencils). Not bad for less than $300.
Anyways, awesome site and a cool idea. I wish you guys much success!
XBOX 360 avatars can be extremely customizable and are stored in a 3D format on MS servers (and likely on the console itself). The recognize many friends online because of their avatar.
I'd pay $$ to have a 3d printout of my XBOX 360 avatar...perhaps even with articulating appendages.
You know, I personally wouldn't spend $11.99 on this, but I have no doubt that plenty of people will fork that out with ease. I love how you can create genuine value from virtually nothing. This makes people happy and doesn't waste tons of stuff in the process.
Next step: create a Facebook app that lets you export your foldable.me to a facebook profile picture, maybe with something that lets you do a nice integration of profile picture + timeline cover photo.
foldable.me goes viral as friends see their friends use the site. You end up with tons of people using the site who would never consider paying $12 for a piece of coloured cardboard...
but once they get an emotional attachment to their avatar you can follow up with some lifecycle emails to convert them into a purchasing customer.
You could also have a feature where friends could gift their foldable.me to other friends.
Most of the comments here are a bum-out. Firstly, I don't think this is as trivial an idea to execute as a number of folks are saying. If you haven't launched something close to this complicated, you should refrain from suggesting this isn't much of an effort. It's clear that a lot of thought and work went into the concept, site, video, and product.
Second, this is rad! Maybe we're getting cynical or a bit lost in history, but the idea that for about what lunch costs lately a kid (chronological or spiritual) can get a website to send them something totally custom is pretty awesome. Think hard about how long this has even been practical to do at all, much less as a tiny upstart.
Oh, and it appears to be a successful Kickstarter project... so it's nice to see evidence of those.
110 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 172 ms ] threadOf course, this is complete spitballing, I have no idea if it's feasible.
[1]http://www.coastal.com/glasses/frames/derek-cardigan-7016-br... (click Try It On View)
Not to say that this particular project is, although it does look a bit faddish to me.
Just like twitter "idea" of publicly broadcasting 140 chars is trivial to make, but the whole "twitter" isn't.
[1] http://fiverr.com/categories/graphics-design/create-cartoon-...
"Hmm, have I got a round face or a square face? What shape are my ears?" I HAVE NO IDEA.
Only smooth & silky hairstyles.
All girls have dainty little noses.
All eyes have folds.
My (interracial) kid felt very welcome...
Try again.
(!)Edit: I was wrong, skin tone selection is there. Hair/nose remarks stand.
As for the hair, we're aware there are some styles missing and we have more options in the pipeline.
If you want you can send through a photo of the styles you have in mind and I'll pass it onto our illustrator.
Hope that helps.
https://plus.google.com/116059998563577101552/posts/Up1kKojQ...
EDIT: You should also make some animal shapes for pets!
note~ "kanban" already includes the notion of a board, so "kanban board" is sort of like "PIN number".
看板 (kanban) = "signboard"; 板 (ita) = "board"
From a wikipedia glance, "kanban" was used here in the sense of a particular process-control method, and although the term "kanban" here is pretty clearly derived from 看板, I suppose now it could be considered a distinct term.
Still, "kanban board" really sounds redundant...
I'm sure most of HN visitors would be able to do the same. Not sure if you should patch it, though: your target audience will surely won't do things like that, and visualization is already a complex beast.
Anyway, thanks for the free foldable design (:
And since I have a hand down on the image, I can personnalize it to be me even more. Heisenberg is my go-to t-shirt http://i.imgur.com/BwQU9.png
Hah I tease, I tease. But seriously though.
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3952263
[2] https://getsatisfaction.com/adobe/topics/why_are_uk_prices_n...
The concept doesn't live or die on the everyone coming in contact with it having enough integrity to either pay for it or pass, if nobody paid for it that would be a problem of course but the fact that you, flixic, figured out how to not pay isn't really much more of an issue than someone jumping the gate at the subway, or sneaking into the back of a movie theater.
http://www.cubeecraft.com/template.html
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005Y1CPSU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
I know it is not a laser cutter (it uses a miniature blade), but you can take existing artwork or printouts and get really nice cuts with the software and USB. It can also score, for the folding portions.
I've used it for similar projects (kirigami - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirigami) and glass etching (making stencils). Not bad for less than $300.
Anyways, awesome site and a cool idea. I wish you guys much success!
I'd pay $$ to have a 3d printout of my XBOX 360 avatar...perhaps even with articulating appendages.
foldable.me goes viral as friends see their friends use the site. You end up with tons of people using the site who would never consider paying $12 for a piece of coloured cardboard...
but once they get an emotional attachment to their avatar you can follow up with some lifecycle emails to convert them into a purchasing customer.
You could also have a feature where friends could gift their foldable.me to other friends.
Bug report: the rotation and bottom scrolling buttons for lists didn't work for me in Chrome.
Second, this is rad! Maybe we're getting cynical or a bit lost in history, but the idea that for about what lunch costs lately a kid (chronological or spiritual) can get a website to send them something totally custom is pretty awesome. Think hard about how long this has even been practical to do at all, much less as a tiny upstart.
Oh, and it appears to be a successful Kickstarter project... so it's nice to see evidence of those.
Edit: Maybe remote teams can print out all your coworkers so they keep you company.
[1] http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?CardboardProgrammer
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
[3] Suggestion from [1]: "Uma Thurman's analytical, diagnostic, and motivational skills were amazing."
That was almost my first thought on seeing this :-)
Spock: http://blog.patokon.com/2011/08/spock-wobblehead-papercraft....
Spidey 50th Wobblehead and Old 52: http://blog.patokon.com/2012/06/spidey-50th-wobblehead-and-o...
Captain America and Conan: http://blog.patokon.com/2011/09/marvel-comics-wobbleheads-ca...
Yoda: http://blog.patokon.com/2011/07/yoda-papercraft.html
Putter King: http://www.slideshare.net/putterking/putter-king-wobblehead