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Ask HN: Review my startup - TwitterGrep.com : NY Times of Twitter

2 points by justinkelly ↗ HN
Hi Guys,

Just launched TwitterGrep.com - twitter + wefollow + disqus mashup

Aim: present the best of twitter in a clean and simple nytimes.com style with disqus.com to handle discussions

Target audience: people who don't twitter but are interested in twitter and the great info coming out of twitter

## PR breif ## Twitter Grep: Twitter powered news and discussion service

What TwitterGrep.com is

- Twitter Grep is a simple way to see and discuss all the latest news coming out of Twitter.

- TwitterGrep.com aims to be the New York Times/Bloomberg Terminal of Twitter. There's so much great information in Twitter, we're here to bring this information to you in the simplest form.

What TwitterGrep.com is NOT

- Twitter Grep is not some new fancy Twitter client

- Its not an Adobe AIR app

- Does not require you to have a Twitter account

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

Cheers

Justin

15 comments

[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 79.9 ms ] thread
pclark
lots of ads.
justinkelly
the add placement of http://TwitterGrep.com has been toned down

just one slot on the right in between user comments

thanks again for the input

Cheers

Justin

pclark
nice one. It's a nice site.
justinkelly
thanks pclark!

I'm a big believer in twitter (and socially created news) as news services - and created this startup to prove it can work

let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions

Cheers

Justin - http://TwitterGrep.com

notmyname
It would be nice to click on the links in the individual tweets.
justinkelly
agreed

thats a work-in-progress at the moment - should be out in a few days

just wanted to launch asap

cheers

justin

ObieJazz
I like how the pics page lets you see larger amount of data (pictures) at once than is possible just using Twitter, although you might want to check out the layout on that page in Chrome -- some of the text gets covered by ads.

Other than that, I'm not sure what the site offers me. Are the News / Tech / Gossip pages simply custom lists of people that are followed? Why do I want to use your lists instead of using my Twitter account, which I've already customized to include the people I'm most interested in following?

If your target audience is people don't twitter but might be into it, they're either going to end up moving on to actually using Twitter, or decide it's not for them. In either case, they won't keep coming back to your site.

jlees
Are the News / Tech / Gossip pages simply custom lists of people that are followed?

This - you don't seem to explain exactly what news/tech/gossip actually is or how you define breaking. Maybe for a non-twitter user they don't care but as a twitter user, I do. If that's your secret sauce, I still think you need to find some way of helping visitors understand just why your 'news' etc categories/lists are authoritative.

I like the idea of a lens on Twitter though.

justinkelly
thanks jlees for the info!

i'll add some details to what breaking/gossip etc.. all define

basically - breaking - is the latest news from the top x many twitters for given tag

each tag - ie. news/gossip/etc.. is the top x twitters for given tag

re lens on twitter - thats my main goal - just need to refine to display the best news to attract a userbase

cheers

justin

justinkelly
thanks Obie

news/tech/gossip are based off wefollow.com rankings for various tags

why use them instead of my twitter account - most people on the internet dont have twitter accounts - thus don't have a way to follow this tweets -- 200M facebnook users V 1M~ twitter users - twittergrep.com aims to present the best of twitter to the rest of the net population

re audience moving up - agreed could be an issue - but i think there will always be more people who dont use twitter and are after upto the second news than people with twitter accounts

thanks again for you comments - much appreciated

Cheers

Justin

owkaye
"most people on the internet dont have twitter accounts - thus don't have a way to follow this tweets"

Uh ... it seems to me that if people on the internet actually want to follow twitter tweets they will get a twitter account.

I cannot understand how they will find your site before twitter, or even why they would want to. ???

justinkelly
thanks owkaye

re people getting twitter accounts - if they do thats great - i see TwitterGrep.com more in the vein as channel surfing twitter - or like just looking at the front page of the NY Times to see whats happening - not as serious as getting a account and following all their tweets - just picking a bit hear and there type of browsing habit

re how will they find they site - good question - im doing my best at PR'ing the site :)

re why they would wont to - why do people go to nytimes.com, news,ycombinator.com etc.. - they want to see whats happening re stuff they are interested in - if you want to see whats happening in the tweetosphere check out TwitterGrep.com

cheers

Justin