Introducing human.io(joshua.schachter.org)
joshua.schachter.org
Introducing human.io
http://joshua.schachter.org/2012/08/introducing-humanio.html
104 comments
+1. I've spent 5x the amount of time trying to understand this than I would for anyone else-- because I think Joshua is brilliant. But I'm still flummoxed. Is it like mechanical turk? Tasty Labs could really benefit from a designer, methinks. Not just to make it pretty, but to empathize with/advocate for their audience.
Agreed. We are circling in on better explanations.
(FWIW it took a few YEARS before I was able to explain tagging and group behavior on delicious cogently. This process is not surprising.)
So, yes, it's a bit like mechanical turk. Hopefully some of the usage will be driven by participatory urges rather than getting 5c per transaction (though we will probably empower that sort of payment, and more. Offers etc.)
(FWIW it took a few YEARS before I was able to explain tagging and group behavior on delicious cogently. This process is not surprising.)
So, yes, it's a bit like mechanical turk. Hopefully some of the usage will be driven by participatory urges rather than getting 5c per transaction (though we will probably empower that sort of payment, and more. Offers etc.)
Holy crap, storytelling is way harder than people think. I just did YC this summer and on rehearsal day, it was pretty breathtaking just how few of the companies made any sense to me after a 2min pitch. These are handpicked-geniusfolk-by-YC and they still can't explain their idea to a room full of strangers. It was similarly amazing to see PG whip these pitches into shape over a week or two.
So if I were to give advice, I would say to have coffee with PG and give him your pitch. He's magical. Regardless, grats on the launch!
So if I were to give advice, I would say to have coffee with PG and give him your pitch. He's magical. Regardless, grats on the launch!
PG is too busy for us.
Having been to more than a few demo days myself, I think this is a much broader thing than YC cos tend to do.
Having been to more than a few demo days myself, I think this is a much broader thing than YC cos tend to do.
Suggested description:
"Human.io lets you to script with humans as easily as you would script with software. It does for the digital economy what the assembly line did for the industrial economy.
The software allows you to dynamically assemble ad hoc armies of virtual workers, who are then assigned to complete tasks in the real world using the sensors and input devices on their phones: GPS, camera, microphone, and so on.
Let's say you want to X. Human.io lets you..."
Still not perfect, but I think it's a little more clear than what you have.
"Human.io lets you to script with humans as easily as you would script with software. It does for the digital economy what the assembly line did for the industrial economy.
The software allows you to dynamically assemble ad hoc armies of virtual workers, who are then assigned to complete tasks in the real world using the sensors and input devices on their phones: GPS, camera, microphone, and so on.
Let's say you want to X. Human.io lets you..."
Still not perfect, but I think it's a little more clear than what you have.
Going along this, Human.io, "the Human API" enables you to recruit a virtual army's phones, GPS, camera, microphone, etc.
Sample human API tasks: 1. photo scavenger hunt 2. parking garage availability 3. male to female ratio in a club 4. collect blind auction bids
Sample human API tasks: 1. photo scavenger hunt 2. parking garage availability 3. male to female ratio in a club 4. collect blind auction bids
So do you think we should BUILD more examples or just talk about them?
I'd start by placing the ones that you do have more prominently on your site. Right now they're below the fold and are the very last thing on the page. However, to me they're far more descriptive of what the product is than a picture showing that you connect a mobile phone to a server. I also want to know why you're different. I can already connect a mobile phone to a server. Why are you better? Also, one thing that confuses the hell out of me is that the picture says "Create and instantly deploy mobile apps" and then later on you have text that says "The end-users (the humans in human.io) use our iOS and Android app". So which is it? Do I create a new app or do they use your app? I think what this may be is mechanical turk for mobile devices. That actually seems pretty cool. In any case, good luck!
Your target user is tech saavy, but this is a platform looking for problems. Describing examples with pictures should be good enough for now. When you have real examples from users, then you can screenshot and link them.
I'm imagining a headline like "Things that used to be really really hard, but are easy with Human.io" and then pictures and captions describing the use cases.
I'm imagining a headline like "Things that used to be really really hard, but are easy with Human.io" and then pictures and captions describing the use cases.
> Human.io lets you to script with humans as easily as you would script with software
That was our thinking when we first started working on human.io. If GMaps lets you invoke methods on a map, and Twilio on a phone, what would it mean to invoke methods on a person?
That was our thinking when we first started working on human.io. If GMaps lets you invoke methods on a map, and Twilio on a phone, what would it mean to invoke methods on a person?
"That was our thinking when we first started working on human.io."
I think it's important to have that first, otherwise you are burying the lead. Although I can see why you wouldn't want to prematurely niche yourself, I don't think the pitch about engaging your users is especially compelling.
"what would it mean to invoke methods on a person?"
I mean ultimately you want to be selling the benefits and not the features, so I think being able to communicate the implications of that statement are much more important than being able to come up with a snappy analogy for the statement itself.
If you're really committed to staying neutral on usage though, we already have the term HCI for human-computer interaction. So maybe you could describe it as an HCI programming language or something.
I think it's important to have that first, otherwise you are burying the lead. Although I can see why you wouldn't want to prematurely niche yourself, I don't think the pitch about engaging your users is especially compelling.
"what would it mean to invoke methods on a person?"
I mean ultimately you want to be selling the benefits and not the features, so I think being able to communicate the implications of that statement are much more important than being able to come up with a snappy analogy for the statement itself.
If you're really committed to staying neutral on usage though, we already have the term HCI for human-computer interaction. So maybe you could describe it as an HCI programming language or something.
FWIW you use whatever language you want on your end. It's more like a HCI RPC or something. With humans on the far end.
This is good stuff. Thank you.
Hire a dedicated storyteller like Twilio did with Danielle. If you want any help doing that, feel free to email me johnsheehan gmail
It is through criticism like this that we continue to hone the message. Thank you.
The problem is that what we have built is very, very broad, so narrowing it is difficult.
The platform lets you send people little bundles of UI and have them interact. That's incredibly broad and vague!
So here are some examples: You could get them to take pictures of all the storefronts in a town. You could send them realtime surveys to go along with a television show. You could have them rate sessions at a conference. You could have someone be notified when they walk onto a car dealership and offer them the chance to look up car prices.
Explaining this with one line has been very difficult so far. My favorites so far are: 1) Turn a passive audience into engaged particpants. 2) Turn your audience int your army.
The problem is that what we have built is very, very broad, so narrowing it is difficult.
The platform lets you send people little bundles of UI and have them interact. That's incredibly broad and vague!
So here are some examples: You could get them to take pictures of all the storefronts in a town. You could send them realtime surveys to go along with a television show. You could have them rate sessions at a conference. You could have someone be notified when they walk onto a car dealership and offer them the chance to look up car prices.
Explaining this with one line has been very difficult so far. My favorites so far are: 1) Turn a passive audience into engaged particpants. 2) Turn your audience int your army.
> Turn a passive audience into engaged particpants. 2) Turn
> your audience int your army.
That's marketing speak.
How about: "Let's say you want to build a website that shows the different rates for parking garages around San Francisco, but you don't have the pricing data. Human.io can help you get hoards of strangers to run around the city, snapping pictures of pricing signs at garages, and uploading the pictures to you. Viola, now you have the data."
Is that vaguely what human.io can do?
That's marketing speak.
How about: "Let's say you want to build a website that shows the different rates for parking garages around San Francisco, but you don't have the pricing data. Human.io can help you get hoards of strangers to run around the city, snapping pictures of pricing signs at garages, and uploading the pictures to you. Viola, now you have the data."
Is that vaguely what human.io can do?
Had no idea what human.io did until I read this comment. Then I was "Oh, wow. That's a good idea."
Yes, exactly.
You could do all sorts of things. How do I wrap it up into one sentence without marketing speak?
You could do all sorts of things. How do I wrap it up into one sentence without marketing speak?
I love pud's example. Come up with 2-3 more scenarios like those and put them on the home page.
Edit to add: "a Mechanical Turk for tasks not easily done at a computer" isn't a bad description either.
Edit to add: "a Mechanical Turk for tasks not easily done at a computer" isn't a bad description either.
> Come up with 2-3 more scenarios like those and...
...ask users to vote on them using human.io
...ask users to vote on them using human.io
<3. Wish I could come up with a short term use case for human.io now :(
As a developer, I would love to see what the API looks like and some sample scripting:
humans = init({ count:100, gender:male });
task_navigate = task({ type:navigate, uri:{latitude:123, longitude:456} });
task_photograph = task({ type:photograph });
for (human in humans) {
human->task(task_navigate);
human->task(task_photograph);
}
http://human.io/docs perhaps?
How might you use human.io to answer that?
Unartificial intelligence automation for the masses
Maybe this'll help? http://photohunt.human.io/
Human.io helps you embed photos into a long web page?
(I know that's not what it does. But just illustrating my point. Don't make me, the user, figure it out. Just tell me.)
(I know that's not what it does. But just illustrating my point. Don't make me, the user, figure it out. Just tell me.)
Oh, right on. The landing page needs to be optimized, but Joshua didn't do an Ask HN: post so he never got our amazing feedback :-)
(we did Show HN round once before. we did a bunch of polishing based on the feedback, and have more to do.)
Joshua,
I have been playing the Photohunt and am currently in the lead - it is very fun! Thanks for building the Human API - I have many great ideas using this and have been taking notes to help improve the process. Contact me Hacker @ myusername ORG
I have been playing the Photohunt and am currently in the lead - it is very fun! Thanks for building the Human API - I have many great ideas using this and have been taking notes to help improve the process. Contact me Hacker @ myusername ORG
This is an plain webapp where the data is coming from the photohunt app on human.io...
I gathered that much, but that page could really use a diagram (or brief example code!) to show how the product works.
It's still not clear to me whether the Human.io users are tagging photos you send them or taking new photos or what.
It's still not clear to me whether the Human.io users are tagging photos you send them or taking new photos or what.
Good idea.
Everything is generated by the client. The tasks, the photos, the voting, are all happening in the human.io client. The rest is just driven around by the script. They write to a database, and the web page is just pulling from that database.
This would be easier for you to see if you installed the human.io client.
Everything is generated by the client. The tasks, the photos, the voting, are all happening in the human.io client. The rest is just driven around by the script. They write to a database, and the web page is just pulling from that database.
This would be easier for you to see if you installed the human.io client.
I've long thought that something like this, combined with something like twilio, would be killer for letting companies build ad-hoc customer support teams, and letting end users work their way up a customer support ladder (think small ecom sites that don't need a fulltime helpdesk but do need to handle inbound calls occasionally). You could build out a CSR script and route calls accordingly when people call your support line, and use human.io to put the data into your ticketing system / whatever.
It seems like human.io solves a very rare problem: "I have a lot of people who will do whatever I ask them to, but organizing the result of their efforts is difficult".
This is a very real problem for the people that have it. Imagine you have a following of hundreds of thousands of people (like joshu actually does). You could do a lot to help yourself and others simply by posting one tweet. But then you have to deal with lots of replies from different people in different formats, keep track of it over time, set up consistent systems for recognition and reward, etc.
human.io turns all of that into an api like process. But you have to explain that idea to a very large number of people, when only a tiny percentage of people even understand what the problem is like. I can understand how this would be difficult to "explain". It seems like the problem isn't so much the message, but the fact that such a specific problem has to be explained to a wide audience.
This is a very real problem for the people that have it. Imagine you have a following of hundreds of thousands of people (like joshu actually does). You could do a lot to help yourself and others simply by posting one tweet. But then you have to deal with lots of replies from different people in different formats, keep track of it over time, set up consistent systems for recognition and reward, etc.
human.io turns all of that into an api like process. But you have to explain that idea to a very large number of people, when only a tiny percentage of people even understand what the problem is like. I can understand how this would be difficult to "explain". It seems like the problem isn't so much the message, but the fact that such a specific problem has to be explained to a wide audience.
I had the exact opposite reaction. I know that not many people interact with their community outside of a tweet so it could seem like a rare problem but this API makes it easier to interact which should make interacting on this level less rare. If that makes any sense.
Take his photo scavenger hunt, if that was the only thing this thing was good for it would be a great tool for any major brand.
Take his photo scavenger hunt, if that was the only thing this thing was good for it would be a great tool for any major brand.
There are lots of organizations that have a huge number of interested followers but relatively little organization. Examples that come to mind are newspapers, political parties, towns, schools, viewers of a sports event, etc.
That's why I keep using the word "audience" - it is the traditional word for this kind of relationship, I think.
Does that make sense?
That's why I keep using the word "audience" - it is the traditional word for this kind of relationship, I think.
Does that make sense?
I guess I was trying to say that someone already has to have a large audience before human.io is really valuable. I can definitely see how it would help organizations, even local organizations. The issue of how to organize and utilize that audience is a big deal. It's just something that the majority of people don't have to deal with. They might see the site from the perspective of "how is this useful to me?" and see it in the wrong context.
This is a problem I've been thinking about a lot. The trick is the audience we have comes to us through the channels we've created.
It seems unrealistic for us to get them all to use the human.io app.
It seems unrealistic for us to get them all to use the human.io app.
This is a great idea, but I had to read the blog post, read the home page, then re-read the blog post to fully grasp why I'd want to use it, and now I have a great idea for how to utilize it for something I'm building. There has to be a better way to get the idea across, but I'm not sure what it is. The "Some things you can do" part of the homepage was the most useful part for me. Emphasize that more?
> The "Some things you can do" part of the homepage was the most useful part for me. Emphasize that more?
That's a good idea, thanks. I'll move the section up higher.
We're trying to tell two stories on that page. The developer story: an easy way to write simple apps and target them at specific people via some criteria. The user story: join interesting activities by companies and developers you enjoy or want to help out.
That's a good idea, thanks. I'll move the section up higher.
We're trying to tell two stories on that page. The developer story: an easy way to write simple apps and target them at specific people via some criteria. The user story: join interesting activities by companies and developers you enjoy or want to help out.
That is good feedback. We will work on it more. Thank you.
I am excited by this for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it seems like a true joshu project--simple infrastructure that uses simple approaches to engage crowds in collaborative activities. With del.icio.us it was enabling structured discovery via folksonomy, with human.io it is enabling broadening the reach of crowdsourcing. (If only I could somehow coin the term turksonomy and have it make sense in this context.)
A couple of crazy ideas would be to use this to perhaps improve upon that niche that Flickr and Twitter are sometimes used for, which is crowd sourcing collection of digital media for some event (like a concert, conference or news event). Instead of showing live tweets as a screensaver at a conference, show images collected via human.io.
I also think there is a huge potential for creating interactive narratives and even games.
When I try to explain the idea to people, though, the question is always "what is in it for the worker?". With delicious, the creation of a good folksonomy that added value to the ecosystem was simply a side effect of the selfish benefit of keeping track of your own bookmarks. That's why I think for human.io to go viral to the point where you have a large and engaged workforce, you need to find its "win/win" proposition. It could simply be the game aspect (see games with a purpose) or maybe a give a little/get a little dynamic.
Great stuff...can't wait to see how this one evolves.
A couple of crazy ideas would be to use this to perhaps improve upon that niche that Flickr and Twitter are sometimes used for, which is crowd sourcing collection of digital media for some event (like a concert, conference or news event). Instead of showing live tweets as a screensaver at a conference, show images collected via human.io.
I also think there is a huge potential for creating interactive narratives and even games.
When I try to explain the idea to people, though, the question is always "what is in it for the worker?". With delicious, the creation of a good folksonomy that added value to the ecosystem was simply a side effect of the selfish benefit of keeping track of your own bookmarks. That's why I think for human.io to go viral to the point where you have a large and engaged workforce, you need to find its "win/win" proposition. It could simply be the game aspect (see games with a purpose) or maybe a give a little/get a little dynamic.
Great stuff...can't wait to see how this one evolves.
"what is in it for the worker?"
My first thought exactly. This could be epic for so many things that are not practical today. Maybe the incentive could just be: To get the data, you have to participate in creating it.
Would love a "how long are the lines at the nightclubs" task
Edit:
Maybe it's worth looking at how private torrent sites do this, there has to be an incentive to seed or it doesn't work. There's basically a ratio that can't drop too low, or a point system where you start >0. So you have to give X to get Y. Maybe let the users pay for "points".
My first thought exactly. This could be epic for so many things that are not practical today. Maybe the incentive could just be: To get the data, you have to participate in creating it.
Would love a "how long are the lines at the nightclubs" task
Edit:
Maybe it's worth looking at how private torrent sites do this, there has to be an incentive to seed or it doesn't work. There's basically a ratio that can't drop too low, or a point system where you start >0. So you have to give X to get Y. Maybe let the users pay for "points".
Credit where credit is due - Paul had the idea. I kept talking about labor pools and mturk etcetera being the future.
Your ideas (conference photos, narratives, etc) are really good ones. Want to prototype some?
I'm not sure that viral is necessary. Delicious was never viral in any way. Just useful.
("turksonomy" - hee)
Your ideas (conference photos, narratives, etc) are really good ones. Want to prototype some?
I'm not sure that viral is necessary. Delicious was never viral in any way. Just useful.
("turksonomy" - hee)
Okay, not viral, but I think there has to be some psychological hook for the worker that gives them benefit for the small barter of time and effort. Novelty gets you in the door, maybe boredom, but then again if I am bored, I can always just start answering election year push polls.
Some way for workers to see value besides karma or a pay rate of $3/hour is what I haven't figured out yet.
Viral in the classic sense might not have described delicious, but I will say that I had a much richer and more interesting and more professionally useful social network of followers and followed people on delicious than any network since...Twitter is the heir for this kind of network-filtered firehouse of interesting stuff, and Quora almost could get there, but delicious had more impact per byte than either of those. I always considered it somewhat viral in the sense that I had maybe a dozen coworker colleagues I followed plus a smattering of random people who turned out to essentially be high-signal, curating SMEs for various interest areas I needed.
I am working on prototyping ideas as time allows, but still working though the examples so far.
Some way for workers to see value besides karma or a pay rate of $3/hour is what I haven't figured out yet.
Viral in the classic sense might not have described delicious, but I will say that I had a much richer and more interesting and more professionally useful social network of followers and followed people on delicious than any network since...Twitter is the heir for this kind of network-filtered firehouse of interesting stuff, and Quora almost could get there, but delicious had more impact per byte than either of those. I always considered it somewhat viral in the sense that I had maybe a dozen coworker colleagues I followed plus a smattering of random people who turned out to essentially be high-signal, curating SMEs for various interest areas I needed.
I am working on prototyping ideas as time allows, but still working though the examples so far.
This looks very intriguing but I have a bunch of questions.
Do all the end users, the "humans" have to have the human.io mobile app in order to run "apps"? Is there a way to embed the human.io app/task UI somewhere else?
Is the intention to mostly have lots of people use the human.io mobile apps? Or is this going to be more API based where developers can embed human.io apps into other places?
Is the photo scavenger hunt example an app or a task or is it an app with a single task?
Do all the end users, the "humans" have to have the human.io mobile app in order to run "apps"? Is there a way to embed the human.io app/task UI somewhere else?
Is the intention to mostly have lots of people use the human.io mobile apps? Or is this going to be more API based where developers can embed human.io apps into other places?
Is the photo scavenger hunt example an app or a task or is it an app with a single task?
Currently, the users must have the app to run the tasks. We don't currently have a way to embed the task UI. I worry that if we whitelabel it we won't see network effects.
For what it's worth, people coming in to do the photohunt app are doing other people's tasks, too.
We want to start with getting people to use the mobile apps. We are looking at other targets in the future (browsers already work. televisions? cars?)
The scavenger hunt is an app with a single task. Apps are really a developer notion - users don't see apps in the UI currently, only tasks.
This may change in the future; inside the one task are several subtasks: suggest a hunt, rate a photo, take a photo. and the "take a photo" part lets you mark a hunt as inappropriate.
In the future these could be four or five simple tasks once you have accepted the larger "task."
For what it's worth, people coming in to do the photohunt app are doing other people's tasks, too.
We want to start with getting people to use the mobile apps. We are looking at other targets in the future (browsers already work. televisions? cars?)
The scavenger hunt is an app with a single task. Apps are really a developer notion - users don't see apps in the UI currently, only tasks.
This may change in the future; inside the one task are several subtasks: suggest a hunt, rate a photo, take a photo. and the "take a photo" part lets you mark a hunt as inappropriate.
In the future these could be four or five simple tasks once you have accepted the larger "task."
I think that you should consider white labeling. Or perhaps not necessarily white labeling, but releasing SDKs to allow to use the platform from third-party apps. Obviously many app developers and companies could benefit from having it available from their own apps.
I can also see value for it in the academic world. Academia is starting to dip their toes in the crowd research and this could be very valuable. But again, I don't see a benefit to actual users to download the human.io app, it seems as an unnecessary hassle. Having it available from other apps allows third-parties to offer their own benefits.
I like the idea, but it isn't clear to me what motivates the users to participate. Can the developer offer some sort of financial incentive to the users?
I agree, I'm unsure of what the hook is for someone to download the mobile app and use it. Perhaps it would make sense if human.io came as a framework developers could import in their existing apps?
With this, they could potentially send out notifications to just their audience when participation would be useful. Completing tasks could also be a micropayment allowing the developer to give the user some sort of reward (like unlocking bonus features).
With this, they could potentially send out notifications to just their audience when participation would be useful. Completing tasks could also be a micropayment allowing the developer to give the user some sort of reward (like unlocking bonus features).
This is exactly correct. We expect publishers to talk about the task to be done and the motivation for doing so as the primary thing (and the fact that it happens to run on the human.io client or in a browser or whatever as secondary.)
I think there are going to be different kinds of users and different kinds of task publishers. Each will utilize different motivations around what they do. We are working on a way to allow this. I think that payments are good, but there's also coupons/offers, gamification or social standing, participatory privilege, etc.
I worry that if we do micropayments for microtasks we'll end up in a very specific pigeonhole that isn't insanely interesting.
I worry that if we do micropayments for microtasks we'll end up in a very specific pigeonhole that isn't insanely interesting.
This is really cool, and I'll definitely be checking it out, but "If Twitter is HTML, then Human.io is CGI." has to be the worst pitch line ever.
I'm not in love with it. It's hard to come up with a good line.
Hit me with some better ideas?
Hit me with some better ideas?
Human.io: The real-world interaction engine.
Human.io provides a robust platform for creating mobile activities for people to perform in real life. Quickly create interactive apps that take full advantage of mobile GPS, video, and photo capabilities, promoting rich responses to surveys, games, or contests. Plus, using our integral filtering API, you decide exactly who gets to see and run your app. Push out your app to people based on location, demographics, or your own custom filters.
Human.io provides a robust platform for creating mobile activities for people to perform in real life. Quickly create interactive apps that take full advantage of mobile GPS, video, and photo capabilities, promoting rich responses to surveys, games, or contests. Plus, using our integral filtering API, you decide exactly who gets to see and run your app. Push out your app to people based on location, demographics, or your own custom filters.
This is pretty great. Thank you.
Yeah, nice, that is much better -- and joshu, hope the original comment didn't make it sound like that was the focus of what I got out of checking it out -- I really like the idea :).
It was good feedback. Don't apologize.
I think this is awesome! As soon as I saw the photohunt I knew the massive implications of this. I feel like this could be one of those things 'cell phones were made for'. I'm curious about how people will use it.
The UI on the android app could use a little work though. I'm sure you'll get to that soon enough. Nice job!
The UI on the android app could use a little work though. I'm sure you'll get to that soon enough. Nice job!
Thanks!
What's specifically wrong with the android app, so I can make sure Paul & co see them?
What's specifically wrong with the android app, so I can make sure Paul & co see them?
Nothing specifically, just feels like it needs a little more UI loving. I felt like tapping the results on the survey widget was a little cumbersome. Maybe the buttons could be wider or more responsive.
super excited about this!
we run a small organization that picks fruit growing on trees all over atlanta and donates it to local homeless shelters. we have many fruit picking events that are logistically tough to organize as the trees are all over the city and in all different stages of ripening. if we had a way to break it down like: "you go check this one tree (here's the address), you go check that one, etc, and we'll build the pick around that" it'd be much much easier on us and way more engaging with folks (people love what we're doing, but we have a limited number of events and spaces within those events).
we run a small organization that picks fruit growing on trees all over atlanta and donates it to local homeless shelters. we have many fruit picking events that are logistically tough to organize as the trees are all over the city and in all different stages of ripening. if we had a way to break it down like: "you go check this one tree (here's the address), you go check that one, etc, and we'll build the pick around that" it'd be much much easier on us and way more engaging with folks (people love what we're doing, but we have a limited number of events and spaces within those events).
Yeah. If you have geocoded points you could have them check nearby trees. When one person does the task, you pull the task etc. do you want to try prototyping it?
The more I look at what is happening with technology the more I am likely to declare Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End a prophetic book.
Yeah. I hope this is a good thing.
It'd be nice if you could pay users so you don't just become another bothersome mosquito in their pocket.
For example: Say I need something from the county records of some place far from me but I need them quickly. I place a human.io call to pay $50 to whomever takes a picture of a series of documents first. That could be huge.
For example: Say I need something from the county records of some place far from me but I need them quickly. I place a human.io call to pay $50 to whomever takes a picture of a series of documents first. That could be huge.
Human.io's job is to sell the developers. The developer's job is to sell the humans. I think I have that right.
Imagine if the Chicago Tribune wanted to build data-driven apps from people on the streets downtown. Just like if they wanted to do telephony apps they'd have to spend $300k getting Asterix wired up properly and Twilio makes it work out of a Sinatra app; similarly, my sense is, Human.io is trying to do that for people-driven apps.
Imagine if the Chicago Tribune wanted to build data-driven apps from people on the streets downtown. Just like if they wanted to do telephony apps they'd have to spend $300k getting Asterix wired up properly and Twilio makes it work out of a Sinatra app; similarly, my sense is, Human.io is trying to do that for people-driven apps.
This is exactly correct. We need to make it easy for developers to sell the humans.
(In my parlance, publishers are the people with audience, developers are the people who code, and audience are the people that use the phone. In the wacky future, they may only be indirectly connected.)
(In my parlance, publishers are the people with audience, developers are the people who code, and audience are the people that use the phone. In the wacky future, they may only be indirectly connected.)
It's like the question you're asking developers is, "what if your app could be on every block in Chicago, in real time, right now? What would you do with that?"
Also, I think the emphasis on "humans" in your messaging obscures the point a little. You're not so much programming humans are you are transforming them into sensors.
In that sense, a little surprised the words "eyes and ears" appear nowhere on your front page.
Also, I think the emphasis on "humans" in your messaging obscures the point a little. You're not so much programming humans are you are transforming them into sensors.
In that sense, a little surprised the words "eyes and ears" appear nowhere on your front page.
That's a good point.
Gigwalk has been doing this for quite a while.
Isn't that Zaarly?
Or taskrabbit.
Think of human.io as more of the platform you might build one of these on. We're not reselling a labor pool, we're making it possible to stay engaged with one, especially for folks that have large audiences that aren't particularly engaged (newspapers, etc.)
Think of human.io as more of the platform you might build one of these on. We're not reselling a labor pool, we're making it possible to stay engaged with one, especially for folks that have large audiences that aren't particularly engaged (newspapers, etc.)
My suggestion for human.io description:
We provide brains.Scalable and real.
Need data to prove something?
Need feedback on your idea?
Need an idea to work on?
Human.io can help.
You create a task we provide crowd.
Don't need any of these?
Join and help others.Fun is guaranteed!
The same basic thing seems to exist as an open source platform as well: http://pybossa.com/ - if you're going to base it off the interest of people to participate, why not apply that to the full stack?
I was hoping to see a more polished, more native UI in the iOS app. I was also hoping to see faster iteration of the app (more updates) early on.
The API sounds good but I may not actually try it until the UI is more compelling.
The API sounds good but I may not actually try it until the UI is more compelling.
We've made a lot of progress in the app. Did you take a look? The UI is quite a bit more polished.
It seems to be Mechanical Turk for mobile users.
It's a great idea and I hope the term "publishers" isn't limited to businesses. I always wanted a little service like this I could ask questions to: "I parked my car at the corner of Housten and Orchard, can someone confirm I don't have any tickets." "I heard XYZ closed down, can someone tell me if they're still in business."
But in my opinion:
>> It allows you to script with humans as easily as you would script with software.
Is a disgusting phrase.
But in my opinion:
>> It allows you to script with humans as easily as you would script with software.
Is a disgusting phrase.
Publishers -> someone who publishes tasks or has an audience of some sort. Not necessarily businesses.
Hmm. It allows you to get people to do a sequence of actions (provided the right motivation.) What would express it better?
Hmm. It allows you to get people to do a sequence of actions (provided the right motivation.) What would express it better?
Interesting project!
What is the first idea which you realized this kind of app is really needed for?
What inspired you to build this? It might help us understand it better.
Mechanical Turk + Twilio + Phones.
We built it first. Now we're figuring out what it can do, exactly :)
We built it first. Now we're figuring out what it can do, exactly :)
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But I wish there were a specific example of what it does.
Something that starts with, "Let's say you run a site and need [x]. Here's how human.io can help you with that..."
Otherwise it's too much work for me to try and figure out what it does, or how I'd use it. Even though I'm sure it's great - because Josh made it.