They might not even have a specific goal. It could be one of those cases where they want to track and store the data, because it's available. It would be similar to being a developer, and wanting to track user information (user ip addresses, when they last logged in, which articles they viewed, how many times they viewed them, etc). Even if you don't have a need for that information now, it might be a key piece of data for an upcoming feature you develop a few years down the line. It's difficult to predict the future, but saving the data you have available is a good way to be prepared.
Now, I don't agree with what they're doing, but I could easily see something like this happening.
You definitely need to rethink this idea, because it's insulting at the moment. Don't ever use the below phrase.
For people who want to get their significant other in shape
If you want to focus on this niche, use the name in your link, stay fit together. You encourage people in relationships to get healthy together. You do that because they're a team, they're partners. They both decide to take up a challenge to improve their health and overall physical fitness.
For example, you create an app that has a 30 day challenge, where it has a daily workout for him, and a daily workout for her. Mix in couple exercises and stretches too, since they would be a great way to bond. It would help them get in shape, and grow their relationship.
I'm sorry the way I phrased it offended you, and I really appreciate your willingness to spell out what you think about the idea and even provide some suggestions for improvements! I'll take these to heart. I think your suggestions is a really good one with solid positioning.
I think you're being downvoted because life isn't just about creating something. Basic accounting is an important tool for any adult living in this world. I would argue the knowledge of managing finances is more important than programming, because it applies to everyone, regardless of your career path.
Debt, loans, mortgages, interest, investments, retirement plans, etc. These are important things for everyone to understand. When I look around, I think a lot of people would be better off if they had a better understanding of finances, but I rarely look at people and think their lack of programming know-how is holding them back.
I have run successful companies and been fine without ever knowing basic accounting.
We are not talking about what is most important we are talking about what is most useful powerful for someone who today is in school and need to have some skills for the future.
Are you seriously telling me that if you had to choose for your kid you would tell them to learn accounting and not programming?
You're missing the point, we're not talking about career paths here, no one is advising anyone to become an accountant over a programmer. We're talking about an introduction to these subjects.
If you had one week to sit down with every person in this world, I think that time would be better spent discussing finances, investments and retirement, instead of an introduction to variables, if/then statements, and loops.
I am not missing the point since I was the one making it.
It doesn't matter what you think would be better what matters is whether programming contrary to accounting can be seen as a language or not and is the reason why it should be taught.
Just putting some arbitrary other field in there is what is missing the point whether that is accounting, CPR, sports, history and so on.
You can put anything in but programming is different since it potentially can contain all the other fields in it's ability to simulate them all.
Using the latest version of Firefox, this is what happens...
1. It loads up and I'm on the casino floor with some slot machines, blackjack, poker etc. I assume I'm the character that's just standing solo in the room (woman in yellow), so I try to move. This does nothing.
2. I mouseover the games, and they say play slots, or play poker, so I click them, and nothing happens.
3. A box appears in the top left saying create character. I click that, and an error flickers saying the connection was lost.
4. Instantly I'm forwarded to a page that looks like an advertisement for the game, with a big button to play now.
5. Before I can do anything, it forwards to the original loading screen, and I'm back to number one in the casino room.
Chrome...
1. It loads and I actually see other players and their names in the casino room.
2. Similar to above, the buttons do nothing, and should at least have a popup asking me to register.
3. The create character button doesn't display an error, but forwards me to the game advertisement, and then loops back into the game like Firefox before I can click anything.
In both browsers I'm in an endless loop. You should really consider letting the user play for 5 minutes or 10 minutes without needing to register, and then once they're hooked, prompt them to register to continue.
Thanks, looks like there's an error in the guest view from a recent update, should have the updated soon. As to the looping you are referring to, that one is stumping me at the moment as none of us here are able to get that behavior to happen. Still digging...
Edit: Okay, the bug with clicking on things not working is fixed, still haven't been able to reproduce this looping issue.
Thanks, I'm in now. I used Chrome, and during the loop, I clicked the create a goldfire account button before it automatically forwarded. Then I created an account, and it gave me the option to select one of three games. I selected the casino game, and it loaded and went back to square one, in the casino room, with the create character button. I clicked that button and went into the loop again, clicked the goldfire button once more, and then it loaded the game and I was suddenly logged in.
I played around for 20 minutes, but I don't think I'll return. It's clear a lot of time and effort went into this game. It's missing the two most important things I enjoy in a game though, it needs to be fun, and it needs to be simple. I'm likely not your target user though, since I've never been too involved in online casino games. Congrats though, I'm impressed at how much is built into this game, and how much you achieved here.
Sorry you had to go through all of those hoops, had never seen that issue or had it reported before. I think I've found the problem and fixed it now anyway. Our early player flow certainly has some issues that we are putting a lot of work into redoing right now (mainly it takes too long to get into the meat of the game). If you don't enjoy casino games then true, you probably wouldn't enjoy the early gameplay. Thanks for the feedback, we really appreciate it!
Agreed, it's an incredibly popular word, and even if calls were just being dropped in train stations, it would still be widely known. Plus, what would be the advantage of dropping the call, and allowing the person to redial? If the call is being monitored, wouldn't it make more sense to send the audio to security for review? If they're calling from a public phone, you could activate a silent alarm so they're randomly selected by security, or simply redirect security cameras to their location.
Isn't everything in the media designed to manipulate our emotions? I mean, those commercials to sponsor children in Africa, trying to make you feel guilty, and how for just the price of your morning coffee you can keep Timmy off the streets, and eating well?
You can argue FB relies on user content, but then I can compare that to reality TV shows, and how they'll take real-life footage, and manipulate it to trigger emotions.
For example, American Idol will paint a picture of someone struggling their whole life, and how this is their one opportunity for success after being fired from McDonalds and having their cat pass away. Then just as you're feeling sorry, they light up the stage, and you rejoice. Meanwhile, they forgot to tell you that person had professional training twice a week for the past 10 years, they won two other singing competitions earlier in the year, and live in a beautiful neighborhood, but that doesn't play into the emotions they want you to feel, and that doesn't get you to watch next week.
Or a show like Survivor, and how they'll take footage, and try to fabricate relationships and drama out of thin air. This way you become angry towards one character that'll be in the finale, and are likely to tune in to ensure they don't win.
Why can't Facebook do the same? Why can't they analyze and manipulate user emotions to increase business?
Watching a show and getting emotional is something that we do of our own will.
In my lab, a PhD student had to get permission from the IRB to conduct a simple study that looked at how good people were at critical thinking. There are reasons why this is regulated.
We do at our own will? So if I'm watching a movie and everyone in the theater is in tears, it has nothing to do with the director trying to create a sense of emotion and sadness, but it was just our own choice?
I'd think Facebook has even less control, and more difficultly predicting emotions. For example, if Facebook displays a post about Jane having a bad day and losing her job, that's bad news. However, it's difficult to determine how I'll react. It might be comforting for me to know someone else is having a bad day, it might make me angry that Jane lost her job, when I lost my job at the same business the week prior, it might make me happy because Jane is always bragging about her job, and I no longer have to hear about it.
When it comes to a movie, I think there's a lot more control since you write the script and characters from start to finish. Every person in the audience has the same relationship with those characters, and knows them for their entirety. You also have fine grain control over the visuals, combined with carefully selected music. As I said earlier, all of this can lead to a room full of people leaving the theater in tears, so I don't see the difference.
Or, when you say we do at our own will, you mean we make the choice to visit the theater in the first place? That would be no different than making the choice to visit Facebook. If anything, you should be questioning every advertising campaign in existence. They're carefully crafted to evoke a certain emotion, and they work specifically because they can manipulate people. At the same time, people have no choice to view them, they're constantly exposed to these manipulations just by walking outdoors or visiting the store to buy groceries.
Going to the theater is our choice. We want our emotions to be changed when we go to a movie. In Facebook, I want the raw feed from my friends, not some emotionally filtered feed. I don't want to get into a debate on free will. Do you think laws on human experimentation should be removed?
You argument is basically a milder analog of "Humans die from all kinds of causes so let us let murderers walk free."
Right, you want the raw feed, but it's up to Facebook whether or not to provide it, and it's up to you whether or not to consume it.
This is no different than a television series like I mentioned earlier. You can argue you want the raw footage from a reality television show, and not the heavily edited version designed to manipulate your emotions, but that's not your choice.
Where does it say they provide the raw feed? Everywhere I look in the Facebook help, terms and privacy policy it mentions how they use algorithms to determine what stories appear, and how they use information provided by users to pick stories. They also mention using user information for internal testing and analysis.
They seem to be following those terms, they were choosing positive and negative stories for feeds, and then analyzing the data to see if users then posted more positive or negative posts in return.
1. '...we may make friend suggestions, pick stories for your News Feed, or suggest people to tag in photos...'
2. 'The News Feed algorithm uses several factors to determine top stories...'
3. 'How we use the information we receive... for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.'
The UK is free to look into the Facebook experiment and to pursue the case. That alone doesn't make Facebook guilty of anything. They didn't go to a court of law, Facebook wasn't proven guilty of breaking the UK Data Protection Act, they're just investigating whether proper precautions were taken.
Facebook should obviously be bound to the same laws as everyone else. Which human experimentation laws did they break? Users registered on Facebook and agreed to the terms of service, and how Facebook will choose which stories they view, and analyze their response.
Same here, I was excited for about 30 seconds. I'm a designer and developer myself, and I'm 95% finished a new project, but I'm stumped with a few design aspects. I've been working on them on and off for months, and these few parts of the design don't measure up to my standards. I feel like I need a fresh set of eyes to review things, and I can't ask my users because they're not designers.
I thought I could select a few designers on this site, submit screenshots of my WIP with notes about the areas I'm questioning, spend $50 or $100, and get feedback. When I say feedback, just some brief suggestions, some photoshop scribbles over my work, and links to other work that might offer some inspiration for what I'm trying to achieve. Most importantly, quality designers helping to point me in the right direction.
How this would ideally work in my mind...
I create a request for feedback, and select the designers I'd like to invite (perhaps 10). I choose the amount to invest, say $100. It basically starts a discussion, and any of these 10 designers can jump in, write feedback, post images, talk back and forth, etc. This lasts maybe a couple of days, some designers participate, some don't bother, and in the end, I choose how to split the money between them. So, maybe I give one person $40, and three people $20. Now, that doesn't sound like much, but they could easily give feedback on a dozen requests a day and make a few hundred.
Seems like a win/win situation. It's great for designers because it gives them a break from their typical work, and it's social, giving them a chance to network and chat with other designers in these feedback discussions. Only problem, you'll likely have 1,000 designers trying to signup to provide feedback, and only a few dozen people posting requests.
Throwaway0812 thanks for the suggestions! The "group feedback" feature seems an interesting idea. Since we don't have that feature implemented I would suggest that you find a good designer and ask him for feedback. I am sure that with your budget you can get some helpful feedback.
How does this work exactly, because I can't find any info along with a number of other people in this topic.
1. Pricing. Do I specify a price? Does the designer give a quote when I ask them for feedback? What's a typical price range? How are payments handled?
2. What's the turnaround time? Should I see feedback in 24 hours? 1 week?
3. What can we expect for feedback? Is there some kind of tiered system, so I'll receive X for $50 and Y for $100? If not, are there any examples of what I'll receive? I wouldn't want to pay $100 for someone to write a short paragraph of generic feedback I could expect anyone off the street to provide in 5 minutes.
1. If you Sign Up and click "Get Feedback" on the designer's profile page, you will see some notes the designer left about his pricing. Then you put together the materials needed for the feedback request (images/notes) and offer a price based on the designer's guidelines. If the designer accepts your request, you'll get charged once the designer delivers the feedback.
2. You should agree on that with the designer when you are requesting the feedback.
3. It really depends on the designer. Some people might tweak your designs on Photoshop/Illustrator, others might send you hand drawn mockups or just notes. Our designers have been curated by the community, based on the quality of their previous work and so you should expect insightful feedback. Also if you're looking for something specific, like Photoshop edits for instance, you should mention that when requesting the feedback.
Thanks for the response, but you really need some examples. That's the only thing holding me back at the moment. Pay a bunch of the designers to give feedback on pixelfold, and let's see what they come up with, how much time they put into the feedback, whether they focus on recommending pretty design changes, or if they make an effort to understand the business and suggest edits to increase signups and revenue.
Keep in mind if you gave everyone 20k/yr, a lot more money would be spent in the economy, and a lot more money would be coming into the government through taxes.
20k will go a long way. If you're single, you can spend 1k/mo on an apartment, which will get you a furnished place with television and wifi in a number of Canadian cities, and even downtown in some bigger cities like Montreal. You can toss $100/wk to groceries which will allow you to eat great food, and use the remaining 5k for renting a car when you need it, traveling, going out, etc.
If you're a couple, double that, $2k/mo will get you a wonderful place to stay. It'll be difficult to build a savings, or to have a few children, but it'll go a long way, and I think it'll highly discourage people from working after graduating.
Now, I don't think everyone needs to work in our society, but that's another can of worms.
Took me ages to find the license, I ended up clicking documentation and still having to search for the word license to find it. I wish it was more prominent on the landing page.
FusionCharts can export charts to PNG, JPG, PDF and SVG. I've been trying both FusionCharts and HighCharts for past few weeks and I can say that I am a bit inclined towards FusionCharts. Had this discussion the other day as well when Epoch[1] was released.
Now, I don't agree with what they're doing, but I could easily see something like this happening.