Show HN: Amuzor, a new content curator we've been building(amuzor.com)
amuzor.com
Show HN: Amuzor, a new content curator we've been building
http://amuzor.com/submissions
18 comments
We're still experimenting with various ideas and the main point in our release was to get an MVP out as soon as possible. This is the first major publicly released website for the both of us so it's still a learning experience.
I appreciate that consideration. I guess that was my effort to offer constructive criticism as far as scope goes.
We're planning on trying to grow a more mature community than the ones you see on Tumblr with a focus on actual content and the authors rather on the users.
Tumblr has a plenty mature community — and one focused on very serious issues (Tumblr helped surface the Trayvon Martin story, for example). I know college professors who post there regularly. There are artists who do amazing things there (see: http://annstreetstudio.com/). They would probably benefit from a customizable approach as well.
I think this is a mistake and you may find it hard to find users willing to submit content because you're not giving them much encouragement to post.
EDIT: Upon reflection, this statement was a bit harsh and I tempered it a bit, but I do hope you consider ways to focus on the user as much as the creator.
I think this is a mistake and you may find it hard to find users willing to submit content because you're not giving them much encouragement to post.
EDIT: Upon reflection, this statement was a bit harsh and I tempered it a bit, but I do hope you consider ways to focus on the user as much as the creator.
I apologize if my comment came off as brash. I've had limited experience with Tumblr but my bias is the result of me taking a small subsection of it and extrapolating the (not great) experience with it to the whole of Tumblr.
To address your second point, we're now thinking up ways of how to engage users more into posting content on our site.
To address your second point, we're now thinking up ways of how to engage users more into posting content on our site.
How can you build what is essentially a subset of tumblr and then say you have little experience with tumblr? This would strike me as not being very serious about your show hn. At least look at the competition thoroughly so you can find an angle that you can differentiate your product by. The lack of mobile support is insane, and the lack of customization would to me make this an under thoughtout idea.
"Mobile devices are currently unsupported."
What, exactly, is there to support?
Is your site Flash or java based? If so, that's a decision that should be reconsidered.
Assuming its html and js like most other sites, it turns out my phone has a perfectly capable and modern browser on it. Indeed, I'm using it right now to leave this very critique.
Don't tell the user they can't do something because their browser "isn't supported". Of course their browser is supported if its anything made in the last 4 years.
I'm hypothesizing you think you need some dumbed down "optimized" mobile experience. That might be a nice thing to have down the road, but is absolutely no reason to put up a wall when you're trying to launch.
What, exactly, is there to support?
Is your site Flash or java based? If so, that's a decision that should be reconsidered.
Assuming its html and js like most other sites, it turns out my phone has a perfectly capable and modern browser on it. Indeed, I'm using it right now to leave this very critique.
Don't tell the user they can't do something because their browser "isn't supported". Of course their browser is supported if its anything made in the last 4 years.
I'm hypothesizing you think you need some dumbed down "optimized" mobile experience. That might be a nice thing to have down the road, but is absolutely no reason to put up a wall when you're trying to launch.
Sorry about that. I've deployed a fix that removes the mobile block. It seems to work fine on the Android browser, but on iOS if you zoom in any further than the default zoom level then the sidebar floats and gets in the way of the content. We'll work on fixing that, but at least you're now able to access the basic content.
That's an issue on narrower desktop browsers too (for me in Chrome at least). Kudos though, it looks really nice!
Looks great (again from a phone). Couple of minor things: you can't swipe to the top to expose the address bar, close button on overlays doesn't seem to work, changing options like Safe to Show only change if you hit them twice and the page reloads.
There's some zooming issues, but those are minor.
Ready liking the content. I do bread baking as a hobby and the first thing I saw was a time lapse dough rising. Very cool.
There's some zooming issues, but those are minor.
Ready liking the content. I do bread baking as a hobby and the first thing I saw was a time lapse dough rising. Very cool.
I don't know what it is, but there is something requiring a plugin as the first item in the page, I imagine they may be thinking of that kind of things (videos, audio)
You might want to check the rules on floating adsense/locking adsense position on scroll. Last time I checked it was not allowed. Yes 9gag does it.
Oops we weren't aware, thanks for the heads up!
The page looks really beautiful in general. A single scrolling list feels really old fashioned though compared to modern grids like Pinterest. The Google Ads are huge and white and ugly and don't fit at all as well. I'd rather even image ads, but don't think you should have ads at all while you are trying to build traction/users. You might be driving off 10% of users to earn a few pennies a week when starting out, and your product may have lots of bugs and be lower quality then it will be later on, so may not be strong enough to keep a user around despite the ads.
We've tweaked the ad color scheme so it doesn't clash as much with the rest of the site. As for having ads now, we plan to run off advertising income and we'd rather be honest about that up front, rather than launching without ads and potentially giving our users a rude shock when we add them in later.
A video consisting of a single profanity... A picture of a pink lake labelled "Nobody knows why" (it's fairly well understood that it's bacteria that gives the dozens of pink salt lakes around the world their color)... A picture of a harbor seal bizarrely labelled a 'manatee'
I realize this is more about the platform than the content, but the content kinda sucks...
I realize this is more about the platform than the content, but the content kinda sucks...
the whole thing reeks of being extremely poorly thought out.
Automatically downloaded a soundcloud file. It then told me "This site is requesting you download multiple files. Allow or Deny." Running Chrome for Android.
That's strange, I have never seen it happen. Could you please give me the URL it happens on for you? Thanks.
[deleted]
It happened to me on chrome on Windows on the front page. Kinda freaked me out as it started downloading a strange file immediately.
That would be a sound cloud issue, no?
Maybe code-wise but it makes the given URL look bad.
At first I didn't know what the site was about. There is no introduction or tagline to make it clear. And while the layout looks somewhat Bootstrappy it is not responsive at all. It scales very poorly to the point that the navigation slides away to the right as I resize my window. I wouldn't introduce a new site without first making it responsive. It does look like you've got some decent content, so you're off to a good start in that regard. It just needs to work on any size display.
Thanks for letting us know. We've added a quick introduction to the site for new users that appears on your first visit.
We're also currently working on bringing out a responsive/mobile interface.
We're also currently working on bringing out a responsive/mobile interface.
You should check this on an ipad. The layout is doing some squishy, floaty things.
You should check it on your phone. "mobile devices are unsupported"
Very nice. How can this be more helpful than the desktop version
It should work if you put it in landscape mode, but it's something we'll look into. Sorry about that!
I can't open it on an ipad 1 (safari or chrome). It crashes after a few seconds of trying to load.
Nice design. I'll add a few tag recomendations on the left menu so users can find them easily, and maybe even create their own list of tags they like to browse
Thank you! We already have a tab subscription feature, you can subscribe to a tag by visiting its page and clicking on 'subscribe'. We're also looking into new ways to present suggestions to our users.
1. URLs should update with the filters I choose. It looks like all of them are POST requests. This breaks bookmarking, backbutton and slew of other things. HTML5 makes it easier for webapps like this with their pushHistory feature. Take a look at that
2. When I hover on the item to see what it is linked to, I get a "fake" amuzuor/../outbound_link - I like to see where I'd end up, before I click. I couldnt find a place for that.
2. When I hover on the item to see what it is linked to, I get a "fake" amuzuor/../outbound_link - I like to see where I'd end up, before I click. I couldnt find a place for that.
I've replaced the outbound_link urls with the direct ones. The original intent was to track clicks so we could do some analytics on it but it's not worth it at this stage. I'll look into changing the behaviour of filters, thanks!
edit: Deployed a patch that will change the filters to permalinks.
edit: Deployed a patch that will change the filters to permalinks.
Can you share a bit about the technology behind it?
edit: Also one very very minor pet peeve of mine is when you have an activation code in email with punctuation around it, e.g.
> Your activation code is 123456.
Chrome actually does a good job of disregarding the period when I double click to highlight. Sorry for the bikeshedding!
edit: Also one very very minor pet peeve of mine is when you have an activation code in email with punctuation around it, e.g.
> Your activation code is 123456.
Chrome actually does a good job of disregarding the period when I double click to highlight. Sorry for the bikeshedding!
Sure. It's powered by a custom framework running on NodeJS. Links screenshots are taken by PhantomJS and images are compressed/optimised by ImageMagick, Jpegtran, Pngcrush, and Optipng. If you have additional questions I'd be more than happy to answer them.
edit: Ahh good point, I'll be sure to remove the dot.
edit: Ahh good point, I'll be sure to remove the dot.
Visiting in Chrome on OSX, it started a download of the SoundCloud widget HTML.
This was an unwelcome surprise for me too.
Does this happen to you when you interact with it or when the page loads?
EDIT: might it also be the effect of one of the extensions you might have installed?
EDIT: might it also be the effect of one of the extensions you might have installed?
It happens to me on Windows also, and the particular copy I was using is my sandboxed Chrome with no plugins (for sites I'm not sure of). It happened as the page was loading, I immediately got a DL requestor, and the same warning message. That pretty much had me closing the window ASAP.
I'm also a Chrome user on OS X, but I can't reproduce this... Maybe check if it's one of your extensions?
I've disabled all extensions, and the same thing happens. In fact, there's also a warning that "This site is attempting to download multiple files. Do you want to allow this?"
I'm on Mountain Lion, Chrome Version 23.0.1271.101
Edited to add: This happens on page load, before there is any interaction with the page.
I'm on Mountain Lion, Chrome Version 23.0.1271.101
Edited to add: This happens on page load, before there is any interaction with the page.
I like the site design - the darker them really makes photos pop. I am not a fan of the name though; I've always found that names that have ambiguous pronunciations are always the easiest for people to forget.
I like it!
I was gently confused by the "We put a feedback link on everypage" comment.
(http://imgur.com/YoB3G)
Is that only for people signed in?
I was gently confused by the "We put a feedback link on everypage" comment.
(http://imgur.com/YoB3G)
Is that only for people signed in?
Oh, yeah it is! We'll clarify it on the page. Thanks!
Awesome! I like the dark colours but I think it would be wiser to have a much lighter theme as a default.
Very clean, and I like the content. What platform did you build it on?
digistagram++
Clearly the site that this reminds people the most of is Tumblr (I also see shades of imgur and 9gag in this), and Tumblr has some distinct advantages in that it allows you to create a site around the stuff you curate, and also has a few other options. But — and here's something key — you can customize the experience as much or as little as you want.
Does this design focus too much on the centralized angle of the site as a whole and too little on the end user? It seems like the design of this site doesn't offer much in the way of customization and doesn't seem focused on letting end users make the content "theirs" as much as the collective whole. This is reinforced by the fact that you discourage repeat posts — a key difference between this and Tumblr, where they have a reblog button essentially designed to allow repeat posts. While that kind of approach makes sense for an individual blog, if you're looking to build this out as a wider content-curation tool, you should focus on the end user pages.
Now, this approach doesn't need to look like Tumblr. Look at what RebelMouse does. While it's somewhat Pinterest-y, it has a few key differences, such as the ability to customize HTML and embed on user websites.
I guess that, if you sold this as an alternative to imgur that can do a couple of extra things for Reddit users that imgur can't, that would be an angle. But I think the reason why people use curation tools is that they're trying to curate for themselves and not the site itself.
Let me know what you think.