Show HN: I have no friends so I created Strangers for Dinner to make friends(strangersfordinner.com)
strangersfordinner.com
Show HN: I have no friends so I created Strangers for Dinner to make friends
http://strangersfordinner.com
62 comments
When I go to your site, I feel like no one is using it, because I can't see any other users information. As a potential user, I want to see that other people are using the site (in my area) before I actually start using it.
Most excellent suggestion! I've always thought a Google Maps with pins showing the number of people in cities would be a cool idea.
Hmm, who knows, if I have the time tomorrow I shall implement it
Hmm, who knows, if I have the time tomorrow I shall implement it
Overall I like it. I do agree that hosting it at your house is going to be a big barrier of entry. I WOULD do a dinner with random people but NOT in my house! Also after I signed up and added a party, there was really no clear indication of where to go next. I didn't get any confirmation or messaging or next steps. I had to go back to the dashboard and figure out that I might get an email by the 15th of the month. Is it fully functionally? Am I going to get an email tomorrow with up to five people? And what about couples ? How are you appealing to them? Couples might be more likely to do this (for example if a new couple moved to a new town), might get rid of the 'brave' factor.
Hey Roy, good questions. Let me answer you now:
1) You don't have to have it in your house. It is very free form. After you have been matched up to your 5 strangers, you are shown a communications box, where you communicate with them as a host, on where and when you want to have the dinner party. It can be a lunch, it can be brekkie at the top of the hill, or it can even be a night out at the pub. That's where you describe it in the party description.
2. Not knowing where to go? That's a usability problem and it's our onus to fix it. We'll do that. The flash message that says your dinner party has been saved is clearly not doing enough. We WILL fix it.
3. Yes it is fully functional. You might get an email IF within your vicinty there are more than 10 people.
4. Couples. That's what the Plus One button is for. When you get a list of people to rank, you'll be notified if the potential attendee is bringing a Plus One.
1) You don't have to have it in your house. It is very free form. After you have been matched up to your 5 strangers, you are shown a communications box, where you communicate with them as a host, on where and when you want to have the dinner party. It can be a lunch, it can be brekkie at the top of the hill, or it can even be a night out at the pub. That's where you describe it in the party description.
2. Not knowing where to go? That's a usability problem and it's our onus to fix it. We'll do that. The flash message that says your dinner party has been saved is clearly not doing enough. We WILL fix it.
3. Yes it is fully functional. You might get an email IF within your vicinty there are more than 10 people.
4. Couples. That's what the Plus One button is for. When you get a list of people to rank, you'll be notified if the potential attendee is bringing a Plus One.
1) So after I signed up to host or join, it's really a waiting game until the 15th, right? Is there a way to make it stickier that would encourage me to come back? Some kind of game dynamics?
2) Great!
3) What happens if there are no matches? I would expect an email anyway to let me know it's still working on finding matches.
4) Okay great. Maybe it's just based on personal experience but I'd like you to flesh that out more. My wife and I throw dinner parties for our friends all the time but they are always "guests" and not "hosts" so the lack of reciprocation can be tiresome. Depending on how you figure out the secret sauce, I think people like us would be some of the early adopters/evangelists.
Have you guys thought about "ratings"? I guess you wouldn't want to introduce the idea of negatively rating someone but I think there's something to be learned from Facebook (gasp). After an event, can I like some of the other participants or something similar (+1 good dinner convo dude, etc) to rise those people to the top of the next matches and to start cultivating a community of leaders, etc.
2) Great!
3) What happens if there are no matches? I would expect an email anyway to let me know it's still working on finding matches.
4) Okay great. Maybe it's just based on personal experience but I'd like you to flesh that out more. My wife and I throw dinner parties for our friends all the time but they are always "guests" and not "hosts" so the lack of reciprocation can be tiresome. Depending on how you figure out the secret sauce, I think people like us would be some of the early adopters/evangelists.
Have you guys thought about "ratings"? I guess you wouldn't want to introduce the idea of negatively rating someone but I think there's something to be learned from Facebook (gasp). After an event, can I like some of the other participants or something similar (+1 good dinner convo dude, etc) to rise those people to the top of the next matches and to start cultivating a community of leaders, etc.
1) We will email you when you have potential matches to rank, and the subsequent matches. We designed the system to work around the lives of busy people (think young urban professionals). The whole point is for you to do your stuff and get you OUT of the site. Game dynamics would defeat the purpose. I've actually written a blog post about designing the user flow [1]. Is this a wrong decision? Probability says it is very likely that we're wrong. When the tests show so, we will pivot so.
3) We've given that some thought and we've decided against sending emails saying you're FOREVER ALONE (btw if you DO want to see it, head over to /rank-people to see how many potential matches you have. However, your insight has shown us that thought alone is not useful in making decisions. On this, I'd like a show of hands who think that it's a good idea to send update emails to tell you that the system is working on finding matches for you?
4) Haha, we've actually ran into this problem in our 2 week beta test. We're currently working on a system to incentivize users to host dinners.
5) Yes we have a post-facto rating system in place. It has questions about security, friendliness, our match qualities... In fact I can tell you there is a system that is pretty much like Xbox's TruSkill that is powering the rating system, except with more fun stuff.
[1]http://blog.strangersfordinner.com/2012/05/out-of-the-way-1-...
3) We've given that some thought and we've decided against sending emails saying you're FOREVER ALONE (btw if you DO want to see it, head over to /rank-people to see how many potential matches you have. However, your insight has shown us that thought alone is not useful in making decisions. On this, I'd like a show of hands who think that it's a good idea to send update emails to tell you that the system is working on finding matches for you?
4) Haha, we've actually ran into this problem in our 2 week beta test. We're currently working on a system to incentivize users to host dinners.
5) Yes we have a post-facto rating system in place. It has questions about security, friendliness, our match qualities... In fact I can tell you there is a system that is pretty much like Xbox's TruSkill that is powering the rating system, except with more fun stuff.
[1]http://blog.strangersfordinner.com/2012/05/out-of-the-way-1-...
Regarding 3:
I live in a smaller city, and it regularly takes a while for location based web stuff to catch on around here. I sign up for them, but since thresholds of usefulness take a while to be met, I completely forget about the service -- then one day I'll hear about it from someone local, decide to give it a try, and rediscover my existing account. As such I like the occasional email reminding me of the existence of these things. Preferably something in the form of:
Hey, thanks for signing up. We are still waiting for more people in your area to sign up, currently there are only n users, which doesn't quite meet our threshold[1]. We just wanted you to know we haven't forgotten about you. If you have any suggestions on how to get more users near you, let us know!
[1] alternately: n other people are using it, spread the word and get even more!
A frequency of once a week on that seems pretty reasonable, rather than once a day. In this particular situation I think a balance between "forever alone" spam and "hey, we still got your back" emails is a nice goal.
I live in a smaller city, and it regularly takes a while for location based web stuff to catch on around here. I sign up for them, but since thresholds of usefulness take a while to be met, I completely forget about the service -- then one day I'll hear about it from someone local, decide to give it a try, and rediscover my existing account. As such I like the occasional email reminding me of the existence of these things. Preferably something in the form of:
Hey, thanks for signing up. We are still waiting for more people in your area to sign up, currently there are only n users, which doesn't quite meet our threshold[1]. We just wanted you to know we haven't forgotten about you. If you have any suggestions on how to get more users near you, let us know!
[1] alternately: n other people are using it, spread the word and get even more!
A frequency of once a week on that seems pretty reasonable, rather than once a day. In this particular situation I think a balance between "forever alone" spam and "hey, we still got your back" emails is a nice goal.
I like this. It is a good suggestion. I'll look into it and discuss with the team on how to integrate something like that
I just wondered why it is that so many people complain about the app wanting a FB login - now here's a hypothesis: (Some?) People who are interested in this service don't like Facebook and look for other ways of finding other people to have fun with. I don't think anything is wrong with Facebook login only, but in this demographic it's obviously a bad approach.
Oh, normally I hate facebook logins too. There are apps out there who want you to login via facebook so they can spam your wall and your friends' feed.
Strangers for Dinner won't do that. The main reason we use facebook is as I mentioned below: authentication and a not-too-good verification system
Strangers for Dinner won't do that. The main reason we use facebook is as I mentioned below: authentication and a not-too-good verification system
Well if you really hate it, then I wonder why you did it. Stand by your preferences ;) As an enduser I do like FB login for apps which I trust (like Spotify) because I don't have to use a password manager for logging in. If an app asks only for conservative permissions this outweighs all the privacy could-bes and ifs for me.
One little thing: the ordering for "how far you are willing to travel" is a bit messed up. It goes 10, 5, 20, 30, 50.
This was actually a usability thing. We've started with 5,10,20,30,50 kilometres, and it turned out our initial beta bunch would typically select 10km as the distance they're willing to travel, so we've rearranged it.
In terms of usability, how does this compare to leaving the ordering unchanged and instead setting 10 as the initially-selected choice?
Ahhh, I see. Good thinking :) You've probably already considered it, but the other option is to put a SELECTED attribute in the element you want to be selected by default.
Yes grubwithus is doing something similar, nobody really owns this space yet though. I would reconsider the name, the word "strangers" doesn't help with people's anxiety towards meeting new people or hosting dinners. One thing is for sure, most people like to eat and most people like good company, good stuff.
Haha, that was one of the feedback we've received. A very good advisor of mine even suggested New Friends for Dinner. Ultimately though we hope the morbid humour of the phrase "Strangers for Dinner" or even worse: "Strangers for Donner "[1] would pull through.
[1] http://xkcd.com/30/
[1] http://xkcd.com/30/
This is a bit off-topic but I would encourage everyone to read Strangers for Dinner's privacy policy[1]. It is a fantastic example of being fully transparent about what they are collecting and why, and doing it with plain language. I like this example so much not only because of the execution but also because they are collecting some very sensitive information (gender, political preferences, etc.) and not hiding the fact.
The only nit I would make to improve it is to not bury the privacy policy link in the footer but say something like "We collect some sensitive data, please read our privacy policy for details." To make sure people see it up front.
Don't underestimate the power of building trust with new users.
[1] http://strangersfordinner.com/privacy
The only nit I would make to improve it is to not bury the privacy policy link in the footer but say something like "We collect some sensitive data, please read our privacy policy for details." To make sure people see it up front.
Don't underestimate the power of building trust with new users.
[1] http://strangersfordinner.com/privacy
Sorry. HN crashed the VPS. Trying to call the VPS hosting solution to get the server rebooted. This is the full text:
Our Privacy Policy
Your privacy is of utmost importance to us, and we would like to inform you about our policy for protecting your privacy online. As a business, we DO collect information from you, and we do it in two ways: Information we get from your usage of the system (see Google Analytics) and information you give us (see Facebook)
Google Analytics
We collect data using Google Analytics. We use it to analyze how users use this site, and make decisions to improve the website. Google Analytics uses 'cookies', which are not food, unfortunately. Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard information about users in an anonymous form. The information collected from site will then be transmitted to Google, which then compiles statistical reports based on user activity for Strangers for Dinner
We will never share this data with any third party. Google does not associate your information with any other data held by Google. Neither will we nor Google link or seek to link the collected anonymized information with the identity of the user. More information about Google's stance on privacy can be found here.
Facebook
We use Facebook to authenticate users. Asides from authentication, we also request some specific information about users. They are: Name, Age, Sex, Location, Political view, Religious View, Relationship Status, and Interests. As part of the terms of use, we require these basic information from users as those data are required for security purposes. These data are pulled from Facebook to reduce the need for users to fill in forms.
We will never share any of these information to any third party except for law enforcement, should the need arise. Your data is safe with us.
A Note on Personally Identifiable Information
We realize that we are storing personally identifiable information by virtue of you providing us those data. We work hard to protect them. Nobody has, and will have access to your name or your relationship status, even as part of the matching processes. In the place for names and personally identifiable information, we require nicknames, which serves a dual purpose of preventing personally identifiable information from being shared, as well as a barrier to lower discrimination. However, these data may be used for analytical purposes to improve performance of the site.
Last Modified: 30th April 2012
Our Privacy Policy
Your privacy is of utmost importance to us, and we would like to inform you about our policy for protecting your privacy online. As a business, we DO collect information from you, and we do it in two ways: Information we get from your usage of the system (see Google Analytics) and information you give us (see Facebook)
Google Analytics
We collect data using Google Analytics. We use it to analyze how users use this site, and make decisions to improve the website. Google Analytics uses 'cookies', which are not food, unfortunately. Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard information about users in an anonymous form. The information collected from site will then be transmitted to Google, which then compiles statistical reports based on user activity for Strangers for Dinner
We will never share this data with any third party. Google does not associate your information with any other data held by Google. Neither will we nor Google link or seek to link the collected anonymized information with the identity of the user. More information about Google's stance on privacy can be found here.
We use Facebook to authenticate users. Asides from authentication, we also request some specific information about users. They are: Name, Age, Sex, Location, Political view, Religious View, Relationship Status, and Interests. As part of the terms of use, we require these basic information from users as those data are required for security purposes. These data are pulled from Facebook to reduce the need for users to fill in forms.
We will never share any of these information to any third party except for law enforcement, should the need arise. Your data is safe with us.
A Note on Personally Identifiable Information
We realize that we are storing personally identifiable information by virtue of you providing us those data. We work hard to protect them. Nobody has, and will have access to your name or your relationship status, even as part of the matching processes. In the place for names and personally identifiable information, we require nicknames, which serves a dual purpose of preventing personally identifiable information from being shared, as well as a barrier to lower discrimination. However, these data may be used for analytical purposes to improve performance of the site.
Last Modified: 30th April 2012
I can't test it because when trying to register I get "internal server error".
What I would like from a startup like that would be following:
1) Post an invitation that you are interesting in meeting (x day, x time) 2) Choose a place 3) Choose a topic you want to have a conversation about 4) Meet up
So if you are in other city for an example and have a spare time, you would have a chance to meet new people to have a coffee with... maybe there are startups like that already but I guess it's always a chicken/egg problem when it comes to finding people to use the site.
What I would like from a startup like that would be following:
1) Post an invitation that you are interesting in meeting (x day, x time) 2) Choose a place 3) Choose a topic you want to have a conversation about 4) Meet up
So if you are in other city for an example and have a spare time, you would have a chance to meet new people to have a coffee with... maybe there are startups like that already but I guess it's always a chicken/egg problem when it comes to finding people to use the site.
Sorry if I perpetuated your anger, it turns out that I have limited number of processes that I'm allowed to use on the VPS so as a stopgap measure until I can move SfD somewhere else, I've written a chaosmonkey like script to randomly kill processes to throttle users. I'm going to bed soonish though, so, again, sorry.
'Host' and 'join' are identical apart from 'Tell us your dinner party idea'.
Why not just give one simpler option to 'attend' a dinner party? Each attendee can then submit an idea/vote on the best.
Why not just give one simpler option to 'attend' a dinner party? Each attendee can then submit an idea/vote on the best.
Similar idea is Tastytum (http://www.tastytum.com/), though not much has happened there lately.
I was a "beta tester" host last year, and it worked really well and was a very fun evening. The idea works if you're brave enough to try.
But Tastytum's site also seems a lot friendlier to me, has a less scary name ;) and it doesn't require a FB account. "connecting travellers with locals" just sounds safer than having "strangers" come to your house. :)
I was a "beta tester" host last year, and it worked really well and was a very fun evening. The idea works if you're brave enough to try.
But Tastytum's site also seems a lot friendlier to me, has a less scary name ;) and it doesn't require a FB account. "connecting travellers with locals" just sounds safer than having "strangers" come to your house. :)
Cool idea. Guess we're not original afterall.
Watching traffic live now. It seems many people drop out at How It Works. Anyone care to share some insights as to why?
I was hoping for another way to sign in.
I killed my Facebook account a couple weeks ago and would rather not reactivate. Also 'strangers for dinner' makes me think of cannibalism. Not something I particularly want to be thinking about when getting the opportunity to meet new people in my own home.
It also doesn't seem particularly safe.
I killed my Facebook account a couple weeks ago and would rather not reactivate. Also 'strangers for dinner' makes me think of cannibalism. Not something I particularly want to be thinking about when getting the opportunity to meet new people in my own home.
It also doesn't seem particularly safe.
I've always felt dark humour works. :P
As for safety, we've actually fretted over it for a few weeks before finally writing it. Facebook as it turns out, can be quite useful in terms of safety.
We've put in place a system where we will work with authorities should security and safety be an issue (for example, if someone gets robbed). This is where we figured Facebook information would be quite useful.
It's a debate we constantly have internally though, and we aren't quite clear about how far is too far yet
As for safety, we've actually fretted over it for a few weeks before finally writing it. Facebook as it turns out, can be quite useful in terms of safety.
We've put in place a system where we will work with authorities should security and safety be an issue (for example, if someone gets robbed). This is where we figured Facebook information would be quite useful.
It's a debate we constantly have internally though, and we aren't quite clear about how far is too far yet
Yeah, Facebook does make it quite safe. Personally, and I know that this is a bit silly, but the thought of all my actual Facebook friends seeing that I have signed up to this put me off at first. Then I was like "fuck it, I'm curious!" - but it doesn't mean that others will come to the same conclusion. It's similar to announcing on Facebook that you've just signed up to a dating site. Lots of people do it these days, even talk about it quite a lot, but it's not something you'd make a status update about.
Nope, your friends won't know about it. Facebook is used for authentication and verification only.
Great!
I am reminded of the IT Crowd episode, "Moss and the German".
I think that we each have our preferences for safety and our own internal model of how we perceive the world to work. Roughly to me this is a matter of initial expectations of other people - do you consider people good or evil by default, is trust earned or given? And certainly we evolve these stages as we age. My trusting nature toward strangers in my home might close if I have a child to protect, for example.
But, thinking of a website where people literally sign up to consume each other is not my first inclination at the website's name. As with the roughly equivalent 'friends for dinner', my first notion was exactly what the site intends to deliver.
But, thinking of a website where people literally sign up to consume each other is not my first inclination at the website's name. As with the roughly equivalent 'friends for dinner', my first notion was exactly what the site intends to deliver.
Was just thinking of that... I think 'Dinner With Strangers' would work better grammatically.
Killed my facebook account a half a year ago, so FB-required is a no-go for me. It's amazing how many new sites are requiring FB. But at least yours makes sense why you'd want to.
I don't sign into things with Facebook. I don't trust them, I don't trust what information is passed back and forth, and I can't access it from work (so I can't currently sign in, even if I wanted to).
Great idea, but I would never use Facebook to log into anything.
It sounded great, wanted to find other ways to sign up as I don't use facebook.
Two lists that are almost identical but with small differences. I can't be bothered to diff it. Then there is also a legend with some esoteric symbols.
How simple can you make this?
How simple can you make this?
I just wanted to know how it works. I don't think I have the courage to meet completely random people though.
Oh, and there's a whole bunch of periods missing (sorry).
Oh, and there's a whole bunch of periods missing (sorry).
Great idea, I'd really like to try it, join or host a dinner in Paris but I don't have a Facebook account and don't want to create one.
because I don't want to sign in with facebook.
I have no need for the service, was just curious about the details.
The Facebook login. Come on now.
Here's what you want to do:
Host these dinners at some local sushi place. Have the owner give you 10% off given that you're giving them 6-7 new customers. Maybe even do something where you collect some $$ from the restaurant as you're bringing them, say, 10 new customers every month...
Love the idea btw!
Host these dinners at some local sushi place. Have the owner give you 10% off given that you're giving them 6-7 new customers. Maybe even do something where you collect some $$ from the restaurant as you're bringing them, say, 10 new customers every month...
Love the idea btw!
www.grubwithus.com is doing this.
Besides grubwithus, that is exactly how Groupon got started.
Overall I agree with comments here - the site feels rather lonely. Take a look at GrubWithUs and see how they've solved this problem. Theirs is much more inviting - there's activity, social proof etc.
I recently realized I have the same problem.
Sign in with facebook
kthxbye
kthxbye
Facebook login only... will avoid.
I really liked the idea, too bad I'm too paranoid to host strangers at my home :(
I have had really great experiences inviting strangers into my home during the Eyjafjallajökull eruptions when they were stranded at my local airport, credit cards maxed out and with young kids in tow.
Then I tried Couchsurfing, where vetted strangers sleep in the spare room, and hang out and chat. Awesome, awesome, awesome - I have made new friends for life, people I never would have met otherwise, with different life stories and views on the world.
Even in São Paulo, a rather dangerous sort of city, I've made new and unexpected friends by visiting after a casual invitation, after assessing the risks and discussing it with local friends.
I suspect that most people, in most societies, are good and nice. There are some bad people though, and it is sensible to take reasonable precautions, but do try to ask yourself "what are the real chances of something going wrong?" and compare that to the risk of a car accident during your daily commute.
Then I tried Couchsurfing, where vetted strangers sleep in the spare room, and hang out and chat. Awesome, awesome, awesome - I have made new friends for life, people I never would have met otherwise, with different life stories and views on the world.
Even in São Paulo, a rather dangerous sort of city, I've made new and unexpected friends by visiting after a casual invitation, after assessing the risks and discussing it with local friends.
I suspect that most people, in most societies, are good and nice. There are some bad people though, and it is sensible to take reasonable precautions, but do try to ask yourself "what are the real chances of something going wrong?" and compare that to the risk of a car accident during your daily commute.
Understandable concern.
Ding ding ding, this.