I won't be signing up purely based on that photo of a "programmer".
Marketing guy: should I start a social network for marketers, showing a guy who's adding two and three together and getting six as answer? Would you sign up for that? No? But you expect programmers to sign up when your marketing portrays them as idiots?
I agree. I think they're completely underestimating how strong a first impression that stock photo leaves. I'd wager that in a few months they'll be scratching their heads and wondering why they have so few female members.
This was my first thought. Flicking through the rest of the site though it doesn't look bad. Surprising number of members from Iran.
I do feel the home page needs to change. Why not rotate the image and show a random community member. This would be a better representation of what a 'programmer' looks like.
They seem to be going for the modern cutesy "nerd" label more than actual programming, their Facebook page is the same type of content: https://www.facebook.com/ProgrammingCom
The content posted on that Facebook page plays into the public stereotype of "programmer". Why would they think any of that would appeal to actual programmers? They must know some, someone had to make their site. It's embarrassing really (lol this shoe has a keyboard on its sole. It must be for programmers!!!11!!one!).
Github is already my favorite 'social' network. No need for cheesy photographs. I realize that it's probably considered humorous among some, but to me the landing page is really cheesy and off-putting.
I wish Github had some sort of discussion system. At the moment everyone seems to be using google groups but that'sa pretty awful place to discuss code.
I agree. Although it seems they recently (a few months ago, anyway) took out the ability to message members on the site, which seemed odd. Why would you not want people communicating? Now if I want to get in touch with someone I have to either track them down outside Github to find a Twitter or email address, or I have to comment on a Pull Request or create an Issue or something.
This doesn't feel as much a social network as an unstructured dumping ground of noise vaguely related to "programming", in an insultingly naive sense of the term [1].
Maybe there's some grand plan here, but I don't see it. As it stands no self-respecting "programmer" is going to use this site because it serves no purpose, nor does it solve any problems. We'll use StackOverflow because it does.
After all HN is a forum with lots of programmers, which may feel that this landing page image is insulting.
It's not that I'm against the concept itself, since I wanted to test the product immediately after I read the headline here, but that image instantly killed off any desire to try it.
Wow, I must say the comments on this post are a great example of the vitriolic nature of HN recently. I hope you guys don't get too discouraged by them.
The site looks well designed, and I think there's definitely room for a social networking site for programmers, that offers more than what Github and HN can provide to the community. Whether this site succeeds will depend entirely on what its actual features are, which is very unclear from the landing page ("Our mission" links to "#"...not exactly informative.) I would suggest putting up more information ASAP, because even a landing page just to gauge interest needs to contain enough info to capture people's interest. Also, as others have said, please change the photo.
Best of luck, I'm excited to see where this project goes!
The design of this site looks like it's off to a good start, there are a few suggestions/issues I have, though.
* The links on the bottom of the front page don't go anywhere (href="#") and don't open anything for me.
* The pictures of the members sorta get out of alignment with each other in the user info page.
* considering that Stackoverflow exists and is immensely popular with programmers, what does programming.com do that's so different that would make a regular user of Stackoverflow (like me) to come over. What exactly is the 'social networking' aspect that would make me want to leave LinkedIn+Stackoverflow?
Lastly, and this is not a criticism but just a curiosity, are the makers of this website Iranian? I noticed a lot of the members in the people section were based out of Tehran.
This is a good idea. And sprinkled in all the hate comments are a few good bits of constructive criticism.
1) Remove the stock photo asap
2) Clearly define why someone using Github or Stackoverflow would want your service.
3) Tell us about your service on your home page.
What kills it for me is a personal bias though. We have a stigma here in the states about Iran's Gov't. I'd be fearful to give my data to a company who is at the mercy of the Iranian Government.
I don't see any constructive comments except few for this post. Why is it so? If you don't like this sort of site , you can help them improve it by giving some helpful comments . They must have worked hard to came up with this .As a fellow programmer , we should respect their work first .
It's also unusable on an Android phone. There's a problem with the meta tags I think; the site doesn't allow scaling and it doesn't adjust itself to small screen sizes. You have to allow one or the other for your site to work well on a phone.
My constructive comment: people would be more inclined to test the site and provide feedback if they didn't have to request and wait for an invitation to even look at it and get a basic idea of its features.
Try to ignore the majority of comments from people offering nothing more than a self promotion of how much of a cynic they are.
Some thoughts on the site:
1. That photo needs to change, I personally like it in the same way I love parody twitter accounts like hipster programmer. However, some will view it as condescending.
2. While you're in private alpha and that's all good, if someone is singing in with a Gtihub profile it's more than likely they're a value to what you're working on. Don't make them jump through hoops to obtain an alpha code, just let them on.
3. I think you should integrate with Github on an individuals profile to browse someones repos and comment on these.
4. When I see the profile I think of CV, I'm not sure why but I keep looking for an export to PDF button. Maybe it's the recommendation feature or the layout, either way if you're not trying to become a programmers CV something needs to change here. If that is your focus then I'd say mission accomplished.
Just my thoughts and kudos on launching as opposed to sitting on HN putting down others work.
I think Jeff was always very keen not to make it a social network and focus on pure Q&A. Ie there is no ability to follow people/friend them etc which you can do on Quora for example.
I was interested in http://geekli.st/ until the OAuth login required me to allow "Update your public repositories (Commits, Issues, etc).". What's up with that?
Clearly they've goofed and don't get their own market. Http://Geekli.st is by developers for developers. Even designed mostly by its co-founders. (I'm one of them: disclosure)It's the only open communication platform for programmers or developers/geeks. A way to share links and resources, achievements, etc... Sitting in the middle of Github, Facebook, Reddit (with links that can be categorized, upboted, high fived and shared) and GeekCred.
I don't think they are going for the HN type programmer market, but other types of programmers will not see anything wrong with it. I am thinking more hobbyist programmers and enterprise programmers etc. The closest they get to an online community is Facebook and they perhaps discover answers on stack-overflow after googling but have never thought of creating an account. They probably think, facebook is cool, now here is something like facebook for programmers!
I am so much annoyed by narrow minded skill choice "c/c++/sqlite/java/...". I have used quite a few technologies, yet my best skills are that I can learn new things and I know how to use a bug tracker (and others of course).
Those skill choices are OK in a technical forum, but not on a "recruiting" site. There is so much more to life than a technical skill.
That sounds like a good idea. Some potential users could potentially do like me, though, and close the page right after seeing the cliché "nerd" image.
No matter how great your domain name (programming.com) is, and how well designed your landing page is: As long as you don't offer something that is significant better than Ohloh, I don't see how this project could gain any traction.
I looked at Ohloh but could neither find "a real social network" nor something "actually useful for programmers". It seems to be just a collection of more or less well-known Open Source projects.
I don't get it, really, I don't get it. Is it combination of GeekList, Stack Overflow and LinkedIn? Not a single word of explanation anywhere on the site.
Marketing guy: should I start a social network for marketers, showing a guy who's adding two and three together and getting six as answer? Would you sign up for that? No? But you expect programmers to sign up when your marketing portrays them as idiots?