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Rate my Startup: automated game news classification and monitoring

7 points by eatenbyagrue ↗ HN
www.automatedgamer.com Also posted to our blog at blog.automatedgamer.com

After 6 months of development, we’re proud to announce the 1.0 release of AutomatedGamer.com.

AutomatedGamer monitors your personal game list against video game news across the internet, and provides:

    * Personalized alerts and watch list
    * Game reviews compiled from multiple sources
    * Compiled game news and smart categorization
Behind the scenes, our game classification technology scans game news sites across the internet, automatically sorting the news by video game, and analyzing what type of news it is. We detect new game trailers, screenshots, reviews and other information; then deliver the latest updates to our members who are monitoring those games.

Our monetization plan is not adsense :) We plan on implementing something around revenue in 6 to 12 months.

Our technology is built using Ruby on Rails, Haskell for the classification algorithm and the Amazon EC2 platform. We’ll be sharing more details in future posts on our blog...

Love to hear thoughts, ideas for improvements etc.

8 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 33.1 ms ] thread
inerte
I didn't like the design, but it's hard for me to provide quality criticism on this area because it's not my cup of tea. It just seems that the information isn't presented tightly. Some things are hard on the eyes while others I have no clue why they are what they are.

For example on: http://www.automatedgamer.com/games/bestlist the plataform list is ugly.

While on http://www.automatedgamer.com/games/release I have no idea why some game titles are bold and on larger fonts.

Your logo reminds me of download. It looks like a logo for an application.

But anyway, moving from design, it would be cool to see an example of what I am going to get when I register. I dig that you're going to provide me information about multiple sources about some games that I choose. But I need examples of what kind of information I will get, and how they'll be presented. In other words, what's different than just going to Gamespot and checking its game page?

On a game page: http://www.automatedgamer.com/game/201/bioshock I have no idea what a "high alert" is.

The screenshots links open a new page... IMHO opening new pages is a complicated matter. Lots of users aren't able to understand exactly what this is, how to get back to the previous page, etc... This is mainly an issue for people new on the net, but the solution (opening on a the same page and with navigation links) doesn't hurt anyone, so why not do it? Even newbies know what the browser's back button does.

More navigation options. For example, on http://www.automatedgamer.com/game/201/bioshock you could have links on "First person Shooter", so your users keep on navigating the site. And on Take2, leading to a page listing the developer's games.

You could have a page showing what games most people are tracking. This is your service, so play its cards.

Your blog should have the same design as the main site.

The "All games" page http://www.automatedgamer.com/games/list is a huge list of confusion. Do you really plan to list thousands of games there?

Also, its ordered alphabetically, but "Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time" appears first. There's a space on the game title (I noticed the - as first character on its slug).

DISCLAIMER: I have a gaming website ;) But in portuguese, and with different goals than yours. And I haven't updated it for almost an year.

EDIT: Since you're already gathering this information, your alerts could also display new games of a determined genre, developer or keyword on a plataform. For example, "notify me when a FPS is added to the PS3 database".

inerte
Addendum: Did you write a program to crawl the webpages yourself?

And more importantly, would you pay someone to crawl it for you?

unalone
First off, I think you're not doing nearly enough. I already have RSS. I don't want another site to visit to find things. Your main page doesn't advertise emailings or RSS, so I'm not signing up until I have more of a motive.

Too many fonts. Too many styles. Title font, subtitle font, tagline font, subtagline font (why do you have a tagline for your tagline), blurb descriptor font, bullet list font, register font. All different. You have sizes that are too close together, and it makes the entire thing feel weird.

"Create a free account today!" should not be on a bullet list.

You mention my "personal game list" then mention "Personalized alerts and watch list". Too repeptitive.

Get rid of the underline around your "Register now" and "Learn more" boxes. Get rid of the [+].

Don't use a "skewed angular view of a picture" if it's a picture of a web page. That's just silly.

Your "username" and "password" bar is located in possibly the worst place I've ever seen on a web site, ever. I literally have never seen a worse placement on a site.

Your ONLY color background is located around the search bar. That's bad. That 2px border is also the thickest border on the site.

Your logo is far too generic.

Your "New and Upcoming Releases" looks bizarre with the multi-sized list format. Also, remove the bullet points.

The "gray tags" thing works (barely) for Delicious. It doesn't work for you. It's ugly.

Don't combine sans-serif fonts and serif fonts without a clear idea of what each means. You're using them merely for visual distinction. It gives me a feel of clutter.

Why does only Killzone 2 have a rating?

I haven't clicked anything. Once the front page looks good, I'll click further.

jfornear
Everyone has access to RSS, but so what? Most people don't use RSS.
unalone
The people who don't use RSS don't care enough about information to use a site like this. That's largely true if not entirely. Furthermore, obsessive gamers are more likely to use RSS. It's progressed enough to be commonplace amongst nerds.

I would use this site if it offered RSS. I will not use it because I don't care enough to visit a web site on my own, without prompting.

ErrantX
Disclaimer: this is intended as Helpful criticism :)

First off I 100% love the idea behind the site.

But am in agreement with the other posters here. You've ignored several basic design rules.

Firstly (and for me killer) the content is not centred on larger screens. In my experience this instantly puts users off.

Also, as people are saying, the typefaces are too mixed. You also dont highlight links particularly well (the [+] thing is a nice idea but a) doesn't work so well when done in text and b) doesn't seem standard enough).

I like how you've gone for minimal design: in fact I think it is almost perfect. Except on the main page (and probably other pages) the top sectuion (the one under the very top set of links and above the mian content) needs to contrast more. Some kind of "glossy" image style would work much better (especially on the main page). This example (http://codeigniter.com/) is the only one I can think of right now (and it is not the best one; but it suffices to illustrate what I mean).

I have some other thoughts/comments too but unfortunately don't have time (sorry) - others will definitely come up with them though :D

DanHulton
You are pretty clearly a tech guy, not a design guy. So outsource the design! Gamers are swayed by convenience, sure, but more than that, by fancy, flashy websites that appeal to them on a level of "Well THIS is cool, so if I USE it, I'LL be cool."

I'm in no way connected with this fellow, other than that I use and love his templates: http://andreasviklund.com/templates/commercial/ Check it out, there's PLENTY of good gaming-related templates there, and they're all rather inexpensive.

eatenbyagrue
Great point. We're definitely not a design oriented team... a lot of effort has gone into classification and monitoring, not so much on look. We'll probably be considering upleveling the design next (thanks everyone for the comments)