Show HN: Wriber – Idea Generator(wriber.com)
wriber.com
Show HN: Wriber – Idea Generator
https://www.wriber.com
26 comments
2 cents from the CEO of a content marketing company:
One thing that humans will continue to be better at than machines for a very long time is creating interesting stories for other humans. There is no machine that has nearly written a Faulkner novel, or even written up anything more complex than a baseball game (which is itself impressive, though the template is not much more complex than a complicated madlib). When you read machine written stuff, it stinks of the machine that made it. The wriber software is little different at this stage, as evidenced by some of the mangled "ideas" it's generated for others on this thread.
Software and data absolutely have a place in any good editorial strategy, but presuming an algorithm can furnish ideas that will perform better than humans armed with data-driven insights is a mistake in my opinion.
Our content strategists are armed with boatloads of social data, they identify trending topics, top performing articles from competitors etc., and all of that informs the human decisions they make as the editors of their brand publications about what gets written.
At the end of the day, though, I'm going to leave the decision making (and a good part of the ideation) to the talented humans that make up the L&T Co. team.
I'm more compelled by software that helps my team come to data-driven insights themselves than by software that purports to "do the hard part" for them.
One thing that humans will continue to be better at than machines for a very long time is creating interesting stories for other humans. There is no machine that has nearly written a Faulkner novel, or even written up anything more complex than a baseball game (which is itself impressive, though the template is not much more complex than a complicated madlib). When you read machine written stuff, it stinks of the machine that made it. The wriber software is little different at this stage, as evidenced by some of the mangled "ideas" it's generated for others on this thread.
Software and data absolutely have a place in any good editorial strategy, but presuming an algorithm can furnish ideas that will perform better than humans armed with data-driven insights is a mistake in my opinion.
Our content strategists are armed with boatloads of social data, they identify trending topics, top performing articles from competitors etc., and all of that informs the human decisions they make as the editors of their brand publications about what gets written.
At the end of the day, though, I'm going to leave the decision making (and a good part of the ideation) to the talented humans that make up the L&T Co. team.
I'm more compelled by software that helps my team come to data-driven insights themselves than by software that purports to "do the hard part" for them.
This is really good feedback, landtco. I want to make sure that we don't give off that impression. One of our customers is a digital agency that creates content for companies.
The ideas provided are meant to prompt thinking. Sometimes they provide the actual content, but the majority of the time, they help you research your topic (we include a URL in the paid version and allow you take snippets out of sources really easy). This is especially useful if your writers are not all subject matter experts for niche content.
We also do a lot more than provide ideas. For instance, if you're writing for a lot of companies, they may all have style guidelines that you have to follow. Instead of having to remember all the rules, you can customize Wriber to check for them.
The ideas provided are meant to prompt thinking. Sometimes they provide the actual content, but the majority of the time, they help you research your topic (we include a URL in the paid version and allow you take snippets out of sources really easy). This is especially useful if your writers are not all subject matter experts for niche content.
We also do a lot more than provide ideas. For instance, if you're writing for a lot of companies, they may all have style guidelines that you have to follow. Instead of having to remember all the rules, you can customize Wriber to check for them.
I'd be interested to check out some of that functionality. We should connect. Drop me a line at [email protected]
Well said landtco. If you are looking for data analysis tools to help you with your business in this regard my company can help to solve this problem.
http://theenginuity.com/analytics
I tried with some niche content and got some weird combinations, but it still gave me a good ideia on how to write something about it in bullet points, which is really nice. Keep it up, I'll definitely keep checking.
Cool tool. Worked pretty well for a specific niche that I am in. Might want to better identify why someone would want a demo? Are there additional features? Is there something that costs money that does more than the free version? Is there a way to sign up without getting the demo?
Agree on the demo points here. I saw the video and want to try the product. I don't need a demo at all. Just let me sign up. Or request a beta invite, or something.
I definitely don't want a sales call to show me everything I just saw in the video.
I definitely don't want a sales call to show me everything I just saw in the video.
Wow, this tool is really... smartdumb? I don't mean that as an insult, it generates ideas that are 90% complete and requires you to fill in the rest yourself. It's almost like a mind-mapping tool: start with a central topic, and branch out to related material.
Pretty cool. Returned some gibberish, and some solid sparks for topics. I wonder if you could tweak it to rank the relevance somehow. Maybe have users train it by clicking/removing crappy results, or some such. Not really my specialty - just thinking out loud.
Love it. I would love to know how this works.
'Generating your ideas'.
This copy made my future hurt.
This copy made my future hurt.
Not working for me. Maybe we gave it the HN hug?
Our servers are blowing up right now. Fixing.
I kind of upvoted this in principle, but I can't try it. Look forward to when it gets a little later.
It's working now!
Not working for me. Sounds interesting though, make a beta signup for notification till it is down?
I like it already. I typed in some words related to my startup and it proposed some really good prompts I could turn into articles. Other content-generation sites have given terrible results and suggestions, usually in a Buzzfeed style "6 things you'll never guess about art!".
This site I could take a few of these and go write a few paragraphs about off-the-cuff. Looking forward to playing more when the site comes back up.
This site I could take a few of these and go write a few paragraphs about off-the-cuff. Looking forward to playing more when the site comes back up.
Works fine for me. Pretty impressive results (I used the pre-populated query; "peanut butter alternatives").
Curious about the tech behind the site...
Curious about the tech behind the site...
Thank you! There's some information retrieval, NLP, semantic analysis, and machine learning going on. All of our stuff is proprietary (4 non-provisional patents are filed).
Wow, this was very impressive. I tried "inverse document frequency" since it was related to the report I'm working on and it came back with surprisingly good questions on the topic albeit a little broken ("How did the number of times a term appear?") in some places.
What I really need at the moment is a service that tells which of my ideas is the least stupid.
I'd pay a lot for that.
I'd pay a lot for that.
Super duper shit mate. You should definitely have a beta signup or some other form for folks who either visit and its down or don't want to demo right away?
I was skeptical, but it really works. It is going to help a lot of folks with content marketing.
Hey, just had a go at this for five minutes, and here's what I thought. I'm probably not your 'target customer', but here's my feedback anyway!
First impression: I'm not really sure what the site does.
The first thing I see is the logo, and I don't really know what 'Write better content' means. It's too vague.
I'm then asked to 'Enter three keywords for better content creation'. I still don't know what this means, or why I'm doing this, but I do it anyway, because I want to see what happens.
I searched for 'free online education', at which point it spent a bit of time loading, before coming up with ideas for blog posts (I think!). However, some of these were a bit nonsensical, e.g. 'Whose the inclusion of links to items do not reflect their importance', 'May students also search for courses by subject, language, and institution?', 'Did a few other universities offer online textbooks?'
Conclusion: I don't mind that the algorithm is a bit iffy at the moment, becuase some of the ideas for blog posts were fairly sensible. But the messaging on the site is unclear.
Just my opinion, of course -- and one that doesn't seem to be shared by others here!
First impression: I'm not really sure what the site does.
The first thing I see is the logo, and I don't really know what 'Write better content' means. It's too vague.
I'm then asked to 'Enter three keywords for better content creation'. I still don't know what this means, or why I'm doing this, but I do it anyway, because I want to see what happens.
I searched for 'free online education', at which point it spent a bit of time loading, before coming up with ideas for blog posts (I think!). However, some of these were a bit nonsensical, e.g. 'Whose the inclusion of links to items do not reflect their importance', 'May students also search for courses by subject, language, and institution?', 'Did a few other universities offer online textbooks?'
Conclusion: I don't mind that the algorithm is a bit iffy at the moment, becuase some of the ideas for blog posts were fairly sensible. But the messaging on the site is unclear.
Just my opinion, of course -- and one that doesn't seem to be shared by others here!
Tried 'waterless car wash', and got some incoherent and grammatically erroneous results like:
- Which organization will make their car look?
- Did dry Wash help someone to clean their car without using water?
- Explore what sort of organization green Shine is?
- Explain how Eco Auto Clean is back at it Again Hey there waterless car wash fans.
I'm guessing its using NLP and some knowledge graph and picking top terms. But still needs work.
- Which organization will make their car look?
- Did dry Wash help someone to clean their car without using water?
- Explore what sort of organization green Shine is?
- Explain how Eco Auto Clean is back at it Again Hey there waterless car wash fans.
I'm guessing its using NLP and some knowledge graph and picking top terms. But still needs work.
I did Donkey Friend Time and got:
- Discuss what sorts of organizations donkey Kong, Diddy, and Cranky are?
- Did Diddy Kong refuse to hand over the banana hoard after what?
- What did the more someone know about miniature donkeys before someone buys?
- Discuss what sorts of organizations donkey Kong, Diddy, and Cranky are?
- Did Diddy Kong refuse to hand over the banana hoard after what?
- What did the more someone know about miniature donkeys before someone buys?
"What the fuck" got me:
1. Explain what this blog is.
2. Did the storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing someone call their life?
3. How is someone fucking desu, kid?
4. Are someone sharkbait, fool?
5. What place featured the use of fuck someone in print?
6. How many reason that the word fuck is so hard to trace etymologically is?
7. Explain why fuck was considered the third most severe profanity and its derivative motherfucker second.
8. What are several urban-legend false etymologies postulating an acronymic origin for the word?
9. How did adulterers lock the stocks in village squares sported `FUCK?
10. What times when conquering forces have engaged in rape has been there?
1. Explain what this blog is.
2. Did the storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing someone call their life?
3. How is someone fucking desu, kid?
4. Are someone sharkbait, fool?
5. What place featured the use of fuck someone in print?
6. How many reason that the word fuck is so hard to trace etymologically is?
7. Explain why fuck was considered the third most severe profanity and its derivative motherfucker second.
8. What are several urban-legend false etymologies postulating an acronymic origin for the word?
9. How did adulterers lock the stocks in village squares sported `FUCK?
10. What times when conquering forces have engaged in rape has been there?
A few of those could make legitimately interesting articles. Idea 7 is very subtle clickbait - I might click just to see what is rated as #1.
"dog eats software"
- Examine why dogs will eat poop.
- In what way did many dog owners get very upset when their dog eats poop?
- Is this a wonderful opportunity for their dog to interact with someone?
- Talk about what some dogs are.
- How do some dogs have instincts to carry stuff in their mouths?
- What is the cloud?
- Examine why dogs will eat poop.
- In what way did many dog owners get very upset when their dog eats poop?
- Is this a wonderful opportunity for their dog to interact with someone?
- Talk about what some dogs are.
- How do some dogs have instincts to carry stuff in their mouths?
- What is the cloud?
"cold embrace death"
- What showing a large black bird sitting between candles?
- Talk about why those burning eyes spoke of terrible things that have been done.
- What is fuck all?
- Did daylight blind their way the sun will never shine through someone?
- Was the military encampment calling to them like a bitch in heat?
- Describe how it was not long before they were under assault by infected.
- Did the boy sprint towards the doors that would answer his questions?
- What did the strain of making ends meet and paying for?
- How does someone not know too much helpful spells yet?
- What showing a large black bird sitting between candles?
- Talk about why those burning eyes spoke of terrible things that have been done.
- What is fuck all?
- Did daylight blind their way the sun will never shine through someone?
- Was the military encampment calling to them like a bitch in heat?
- Describe how it was not long before they were under assault by infected.
- Did the boy sprint towards the doors that would answer his questions?
- What did the strain of making ends meet and paying for?
- How does someone not know too much helpful spells yet?
dang, some of those are deep...
[deleted]
i thought this was a joke, it is not.
I am really confused on what excatly it does. Does it generate ways to solve a problem?
I would personally would like to know how many other people have searched what I was looking for. Say I was allergic to peanuts and looking for alternative and I find out there are so many other guys are searching for the same thing....then I know its a common problem.
I would personally would like to know how many other people have searched what I was looking for. Say I was allergic to peanuts and looking for alternative and I find out there are so many other guys are searching for the same thing....then I know its a common problem.
Hi, it's meant to give you ideas to write about in an article or blog post. If you're every wondering what to say, this can prompt you.
Would be useful if there were more examples of what to search for on the landing page. I'm stumped for ideas of what to enter. I saw there was one example in the textbox but I need more for context.
Any chance of an API? I'm working on a head mounted display software system that could integrate something like this, not as a writing prompt, but as a conversation prompt with someone.