I made this in the course of a couple weekends and wanted some feedback on how I can make it better. I've heard email notifications for comments and easier social sharing features so far, but I would love to know what else I can do to make it better.
Great idea and great domain name, but I would suggest that monospaced fonts and #6A6A6A text on white are not exactly the best thing ever for readability.
You can probably leave the colors the same if you just switch to a proportional font, add a smidge more of padding, and bump up the line-height just a bit: http://cl.ly/3x1n103K472Z1J2t3Q3k
Please drop the "s around everything. The picture being there and the context forces me to associate it with a person and not the site, the "s are redundant. Especially in comments. Also scrolling is insanely laggy for me, I have no idea why, but I assume it's all the JS.
I think the key missing feature is being able to register interest or activity for an idea.
It would be extremely useful to see if anyone else is working on an idea, who they are and what their focus and status is.
e.g. When seeing the idea about selling twitter names, it would be helpful for everyone if I could say "Oh yes, Twitter are launching this next Friday" or "Like the idea, have a prototype, need a designer."
Comments do help, but a structured solution would make things much easier.
Ideally this wouldn't be only first-person, so that people can report other projects which seem similar. You'll need moderation either way (votes or active moderation, whatever.)
If implemented well enough, this could breed a sort of communal start-up site. Maybe the originator of the thread gets to choose from respondents and splits equity among them, at which point the idea is locked.
I love this idea. Good implementation too, the only thing i'd change is:
1) Add an overview page with a much bigger list of ideas.
2) Decrease the font size a bit. I could only see two or so ideas at once on the home page.
3) Perhaps add a voting system of some type?
You also might want to seed it with a bit more content, otherwise you'll have a hard time breaking out of the chicken and egg problem (that's what ended up killing me).
EDIT: I'd also add some indication that you aren't going to tweet as me.
Voting and tagging are on my roadmap. I'm working on seeding it with more content too (just posted an idea myself!)
As for your comment in the EDIT - does it make you think you're going to end up tweeting your idea without a chance to opt out? Currently it doesn't tweet anything out if you comment or submit an idea, so if that's not clear I'd like to improve it.
@CaptainObvio.us: There's always room for another great site about ideas, but check out halfbakery.com. You might get some ideas from their site. It's good, not great, but has an active user base.
I had something built that is VERY similar (architecture - blobs of text with titles, twitter login, comments, voting, tags, flask+mongody) except for another completely different use: http://cluedb.com/
Are you tying the resize of the background directly to the window resize or scroll event? You might want to consider using setTimeout(customResizeFunc, 100) just to keep the scroll event from blocking
Could you let me know what browser you're using and what your machine specs are? You're not the first to report the issue, so I'm trying to see where I should begin testing.
I also love this - funny cause I think that every creative/idea-generating mind with any regard to the internet has had this idea before, but I'm glad that someone is finally making it happen.
My guess to your idea's success is that you need to wire in with the right people and it'll explode.
This is really a lot of fun, and could even be a great tool for teams that are brainstorming ideas. I also love all of the feedback you are getting here and your receptiveness to it. I look forward to seeing how it grows. Nice work!
Just a tiny, trivial, aesthetic/grammar change: on http://captainobvio.us/auth/login you say "Login to Captain Obvious". I'd change that to "Log in …".
I had this, err, idea! Congrats for doing what I wouldn't do and implementing it. Perhaps I should have just put the idea on CaptainObvio.us and let someone else implement it ;-)
Love it! Not sure if I'd remember to come to the site everyday, but I'd definitely follow a CaptainObvious twitter account if it tweeted newly submitted ideas.
[+] [-] Eliezer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jarin|15 years ago|reply
You can probably leave the colors the same if you just switch to a proportional font, add a smidge more of padding, and bump up the line-height just a bit: http://cl.ly/3x1n103K472Z1J2t3Q3k
[+] [-] elbrodeur|15 years ago|reply
EDIT: Here's a screenshot preview: http://cl.ly/022H381a2N2p1N0h3q0k
[+] [-] citricsquid|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] auritus|15 years ago|reply
It would be extremely useful to see if anyone else is working on an idea, who they are and what their focus and status is.
e.g. When seeing the idea about selling twitter names, it would be helpful for everyone if I could say "Oh yes, Twitter are launching this next Friday" or "Like the idea, have a prototype, need a designer."
Comments do help, but a structured solution would make things much easier.
Ideally this wouldn't be only first-person, so that people can report other projects which seem similar. You'll need moderation either way (votes or active moderation, whatever.)
If implemented well enough, this could breed a sort of communal start-up site. Maybe the originator of the thread gets to choose from respondents and splits equity among them, at which point the idea is locked.
[+] [-] awfulcoder14|15 years ago|reply
1) Add an overview page with a much bigger list of ideas.
2) Decrease the font size a bit. I could only see two or so ideas at once on the home page.
3) Perhaps add a voting system of some type?
You also might want to seed it with a bit more content, otherwise you'll have a hard time breaking out of the chicken and egg problem (that's what ended up killing me).
EDIT: I'd also add some indication that you aren't going to tweet as me.
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|15 years ago|reply
As for your comment in the EDIT - does it make you think you're going to end up tweeting your idea without a chance to opt out? Currently it doesn't tweet anything out if you comment or submit an idea, so if that's not clear I'd like to improve it.
[+] [-] BobKabob|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netmau5|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshu|15 years ago|reply
I had something built that is VERY similar (architecture - blobs of text with titles, twitter login, comments, voting, tags, flask+mongody) except for another completely different use: http://cluedb.com/
Might be interesting to share code?
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|15 years ago|reply
Absolutely - I'd love to show you what I'm running under the hood. My email is aaron AT aaronstannard.com - what's the best way to get in touch?
[+] [-] pero|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mviamari|15 years ago|reply
Are you tying the resize of the background directly to the window resize or scroll event? You might want to consider using setTimeout(customResizeFunc, 100) just to keep the scroll event from blocking
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GVRV|15 years ago|reply
Just thought I'd let you know that if you ever need an official Tee (weekly best idea?), there's a good one on threadless: http://www.threadless.com/product/2537/Captain_Obvious
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doctororange|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spines11|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thecroth|15 years ago|reply
My guess to your idea's success is that you need to wire in with the right people and it'll explode.
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|15 years ago|reply
I'm going to start hacking away on this the instant I get off of work on Friday - I can't wait to get started. Thanks, Hacker News!
[+] [-] mtran|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelcgorman|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tophat02|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toufique|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sarp|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aaronontheweb|15 years ago|reply
:P
Probably an error with my controller that does writes to MongoDB - I'll check it out.
[+] [-] karterk|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p0ppe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hucker|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swlkr|15 years ago|reply