Ask HN: Please provide feedback on Sponty | be hangoutable. (thesponty.com)

Sponty has been in closed beta since the fall. We were at the MIT TechFair last week. Here are some of the pitches we used at the Sponty table (we also had chocolates!):

"Hi, we're Sponty and we want you to be hangoutable. You should see your friends more".

"Unlike other social networks that want you to sit in front of the computer to look at photos and comment on rants, we're trying to use the internets to get you off the internets so that you can see your friends more. You know, the old fashioned way where you sit with them and gossip over dinner. That way you'll actually be in those photos"

"We're different. Social networks want you to sit in front of the computer all day. We think that's wrong. You should be spending face time with friends."

"We sure are all busy. But we all have to eat at some point. It is more fun to eat dinner with friends".

Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Toss a small (TM) on either Sponty, "be hangoutable", or both. TM means trademark - but anyone can use it whenever they're using new descriptive language that doesn't infringe on someone else's mark. You don't need to register anything - the (R) in a circle means Registered Trademark, and you need to register that.

Kellogg's has a registered trademark, they paid the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office), and had a search done to make sure it didn't infringe on anyone. They have a very strong legal standing if anyone comes after them:

http://www2.kelloggs.com/

But look at Google - they just use (TM)!

https://mail.google.com

TM adds a bit of credibility. Split test it if you're not convinced, but it shouldn't hurt, and makes you feel like a real company. I'd definitely throw the TM onto "be hangoutable", because that's a cool phrase, and I'd want to own that after coining it.

Very similar to http://www.mixin.com/.

On the design: I love the clean aesthetic and color scheme. I would try to to make the page vertically a bit more compact, so the entire "Login using Google" is above the fold. I have a relatively large monitor, and yet only the top of "Login using Google" shows on my screen.

Then I'd test some descriptive instruction above "Login using Google" to explain why they should - the value to them. "Take a test drive and see how your social life improves - all you need is a Google account to get closer to your friends" - something like that, just make it shorter. Test different variations that answer the question, "why should I go to the next step?" It might seem obvious to you, but you're intimately familiar with your site. Me, why should I log in? The site looks nice, but what's the value here? What's the learning curve? Will this be a pain in the ass to get running? Mention how easy and fast they can do something cool, and then deliver on that promise once people log in.

Cheers mate, and best wishes.

Difficult to say if this will catch on, all I can offer is my own reasons why I would not use this. I wouldn't play Mob Wars either, but that hasn't stopped it from being a success.

- I'm not in USA.

- My friends are really reluctant to start using new services. It took ages for them to start using Facebook.

- My friends probably do not have Google accounts. In fact they would probably be more likely to use this if this was a Facebook app.

- As you say everyone needs to eat, so it is safe to assume that each of my friends will have dinner anyway. So if I want to have dinner with a particular friend, can't I just SMS them? I think they would find this more natural than me trying to talk them into signing up for something.

1) The front page has screenshots of HTML components. They look like you can interact with them, but you can't. This is almost always a bad design choice.

2) I don't want to use my Google account. I always use a site-specific email address when registering for a new site. I'll never give one of my actual gmail addresses.

As a non-english speaker, I actually Googled for "hangoutable" because I didn't know what it means and mentions of Sponty came on top :p

On the site itself:

- I have no idea how you're eco-friendly (sorry, the leaf conjures this emotion)

- Underlined blue words are links: I thought I could click on the main page "Katie" and "Dave"

- The logo on http://www.thesponty.com/about is different than on the main page (the beta word)

- About page "Got it." on the question list. Got what? None asks "Got it. So how..."

- "Speak your mind" is a poor choice of words indicating where I can send you feedback for a service that lets me type anything. It looked like I could click there and some page would come up that would let me do something.

But anyway, let's login!

- Can't you put your logo on the Google Account login page? (I honestly don't know). Like, "<logo> Sponty uses Google..."

- Can't you redirect to the main page instead of the /hn doorway? I logged in and had to go somewhere else to use the site. One extra step is bad :(

- I had to delete "Your name here...". onclick delete the input contents. (Firefox 3.0.6)

- My timezone is -3 gmt! Nowhere before it said the site is for USA people :( But let's fake and say I am Eastern;

- Network, same as above.

- Clicked Save, reloaded profile edit. I guess I have to click again to go to the home page?...

- Make your friends hangoutable: http://www.thesponty.com/Inerte_82 But I am not Inerte_82.

- Cliked on Post, form came up: You should put something like a datepicker on "When". It's 02:15 AM here, and 12:00 AM appeared on default. Clicking too much arrows...

- When I submitted the form, a spinning circle appeared on "12 - 3 am" box, but my entry appeared on "3 - 6 am". Spin the cirle on the time I've selected.

- The calendar opacity is too high, showing elements behind

Overall I liked the concept! But I am grumpy tonight I guess :p

When you click to add an item on the calendar, the set of icons appear without any indication to what they stand for until you click on one and see the description in the "what" field. I know some of them are obvious, but you should think about clearing the ambiguity by having the "what" field populated appropriately as you hover over the icons.

A few little things:

- don't capitalize by username in my URL (i.e. http://www.thesponty.com/Tlrobinson_94). Also, do you really need the "_94", can't it just be the username?

- clear the placeholder text from textfield when it's clicked

Very confusing. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do.

This is cool. Sorry don't have time to do a detailed test drive now, but I see others have done that, and I just wanted to add that YES this is a great concept and something I have been wishing for. Dodgeball was close, Twitter is OK for this but too noisy and not always followed closely enough, but this gets right down to a core use case that is near and dear. One nice thing is that since the use case is narrow, getting updated via SMS would work, at least for people with good SMS quota plans.

Also both the name and the subtitle are great, and I won't be surprised to see them inspire other -able and -onty names shortly.

A money maker? I don't understand how, but you have thought about it way more than me, so maybe you have a way.

This may sound paranoid, but I don't want to enter my Google passwort on a site that I have been forwarded to from another site.

I tried logging in to Google and then to login via your site, too, but Google still asked for my password.

Interesting idea, but you're gambling on a huge network effect there. I'd need to get a whole group of my friends using this for it to be worth it, and I can't be bothered to do that. Even if I could, each one of them would need to remember to update it before they went anywhere... what a hassle.

An idea: why not exploit an existing framework that people use for frequent updates? Add a facebook app (150m users), add twitter integration (another 800k users or so), and you're off to the races. I'd be much more easily convinced if instead of having to update your service I could just update my twitter with "eating at joe's diner tonight 6pm, hangoutable".

Also, do you have Google Calendar integration yet? If not, what are you doing? That's where I keep my calendar. I even have it set up to send me reminders and everything.

I like your hangoutable branding - there's not currently a good word for an ad-hoc social event, and you've picked a descriptive one that's also pretty catchy. Sponty is halfway between silly and awkward. Maybe you should consider rebranding?

Lastly, while I commend your Google account integration, I'd make it an "...or log in with your Google account" and get your own logins. Much as it pains me, the world's not ready to have all their services nestled in Google's ever-expanding bosom just yet.

Anyway, best of luck.

Very cool. As someone who is about to move into a new city (Montreal) I really like things like this because it makes it easier to get to know people.

I really have nothing to add that hasn't been said (damn!) but I figure a bit more kudos isn't going to hurt.

well most my friends and i already use google calendar for this type of thing. If we really want to schedule a day out or something. But I can see how this might be popular with like college kids. Try making it a facebook app instead, might be much more useful