Looking for feedback on Startup: Buddify

[Stevenup7002]

Hey guys

So we launched our social networking site Buddify into public beta about 3 weeks ago, and we've received a lot of positive feedback from our userbase of about 40 daily active users now (~230 total). We got bumped by a few websites including killerstartups and thrillist a few days after we launched and we were absolutely stoked to see people actually using the site, it's a really great feeling :). Now we're in that nice quiet period after the influx of sign ups from a bump has mostly died out, which has given us a chance to quietly fix a few of the silly bugs that managed to get through alpha testing, and also change around several parts of the site. So far so good.

Here's what we've been trying to do to differentiate ourselves from the competition:

- Develop a clean, simple, easy to use interface - Give the users clear, concise privacy options and choices - Make it so profiles that actually have a degree of customization - Implement a private comments system instead of yet another inbox to manage - Create a very simple sign up process - Give users the ability to completely hide every trace of your profile from the site temporarily - No annoying applications, ever. - Badges (Because everybody loves badges, right?)

Our future short term goals are to implement syndication with Twitter (Once I can get my head around OAuth's processes) and facebook and get a mobile version of the site up and running. We also want to see what else we can do with comments instead of just plain text. Is there anything you guys think we should do/shouldn't do?

I'm a long time reader of hacker news and a first time poster. I'm posting here because I'd love to hear your feedback, insights, suggestions on how we can improve Buddify.

http://www.buddify.com/

Thanks guys, -Steve :)

[pedalpete]

The first test I give for any Ask HN feedback is, 'if I open the site without reading the description first, do I know what it does'.

Sorry to say, you fail miserably on this test (possibly the worst yet, though I do like the look of the site).

Even clicking your '5 great reasons' link, I get 'simple, private, customizable, fun, community'. Ok, it's a community site? Maybe I need to read more. - Simple - connect with friends, so it's a social networking site. Private - fanbase??? oh, so it's a site for musicians???

Ok, so now I've finally gone and read your long description here on HN.

You're building another social network, and as far as I can tell, you haven't defined a clear target market. I kinda get where you're doing things a bit different than facebook, but is that really enough? No annoying applications, but lots of people seem to like those applications, so you are limiting what your users can do. Badges, because people like them, but what are the badges for?

I'm not saying there isn't a market for a different social network, but I think you need to do a better job of defining your market or target. It's great that you've managed to get yourself some publicity from thrillist (doesn't everybody get on killerstartups), but to take it to the next level, I think you need to differentiate yourself.

[Stevenup7002 → pedalpete]

Great feedback, thank you for taking the time to check us out :). I guess the reason that we haven't necessarily defined that we're a social network on the homepage itself, is because since we've launched, most of people heading to the homepage already know what we're about, as most of the referrals either come from articles written about us or friends telling each other about the site. But I completely agree, we do need to figure out a way to address this.

To answer your question, our target market is anybody who loves being social, but feels limited because of the restrictions and issues imposed on them by other sites. Buddify is for anybody who just wants something different than what they already have, and from what we've found, there are a lot of people in this position, and so far, a lot of people who come from that audience love the site.

Regarding applications, I personally feel that applications do not internally belong on a communication platform, and that they take away from the social experience. A lot of people would argue that applications on Facebook such as Farmville bring people closer through "Social responsibility". I disagree, I find that in a lot of cases they do exactly the opposite (there are exceptions though). Buddify is all about pure, unhampered conversation, and I think if people just want to tend their virtual crops all day then facebook serves that purpose well, and if people don't like how they're handling that, then I'm sure another site will come along to fix that issue too. You make the point that a lot of people love applications, but at the same time, there are also a lot of people that hate applications with a passion. We're really not into the idea of applications, that's why we're staying away from them.

Badges are a very interesting topic. At first sight, they just seem like just another gimmick that nobody needs, but in hindsight, they're a lot more than that. Badges say a lot about what that person is like. For instance, if someone who requested your friendship has a badge for posting over 10K comments and also has a badge to indicate that they've been blocked by 20 different people, it says that the person is potentially just an annoying spammer that you'll want to stay away from.

However, another example would be where a user has also requested your friendship and also has a badge that says the user has made over 10K comments, but they have another that says they're a member of over 100 groups, and have over 100 friends, and that their friends primarily consist of geeks and nerds. You then look over to their comment box and see that there's a lot of interesting conversations going on about stuff you're interested in. This could potentially be somebody that you'd actually like to add as a friend. It's something that you have to learn to interpret on your own, based on your own instincts.

The badges also encourage people to participate in other areas of the site that they might not normally use.

As for differentiation, what can I say other than we're starting off by taking a bunch of old ideas and doing them the way we think they should have been done in the first place. We have some cool ideas floating around in our heads right now that will hopefully soon start crystallizing when the time is right, and hopefully there are still many more ideas yet to come. By all means, if you have any cool ideas for the site, please let me know.

-Steve

[chrisdes]

Nice layout. I do want to point out a lot of text on the home page are images. "Join Buddify" "See 5 great reasons ..." "Cool people on ....". They can be replaced with texts and themed with CSS

[Stevenup7002 → chrisdes]

Thanks! Yes, we did this for 2 reasons: -Helvetica Light was the best fit for the page, which isn't a web font. -I wanted the text to be anti-aliased, which windows doesn't like doing.

If there are ways around this, pleas let me know :).