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After traveling to over 25 countries I created an app I wanted

105 points| pjsullivan3 | 14 years ago |tripl.com | reply

56 comments

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[+] DanielN|14 years ago|reply
A few small things:

- you seem to have some crazy js loading on the facebook auth page. In chrome/mac it resized my window to fill my screen length wise. I would recommend going with facebook's default auth popup. Then again maybe you are and their js was just acting goofy.

- the image resources on the autocomplete for your location suggestions do not load.

- the video explanation after you sign up could be more clear. Maybe have some steps to go through in order to "complete" my signup process like making my first recommendation and planning a trip.

- when I create a trip and select that "me myself and I" are going on the trip (ie. I am going alone) the trip shows that two people are going on the trip.

- A lot of the encouraged interaction on the site seems passive. I suspect people are going to be good about setting up their own trips but lazy about making recommendations for other people's trips. Whether it's gamification or something more you should find some way to encourage or even force people to interact.

[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
Daniel seriously big thanks on all the feedback. - I think chrome is having a bug, its been a pain in the ass - ok cool we will look into it, it should have been flags - we are enabling more of a guided tour using png over lays soon - thats just me be some bug, looking into it - we have a light gamification aspect that we want to highlight, our vision is the more you help set up recommendations, introductions and interact with people comeing to your city or helping your friends, you earn points that translate to great discounts or freebies when you do get to travel!
[+] dritanm|14 years ago|reply
Could you please remove the 'sign in with facebook' option? or at least allow other methods of authentication (I prefer Google but ideally people should have the options).

As an avid traveler, I've been relying on friends' friends wherever I go. I could see your app flying!

[+] patangay|14 years ago|reply
The site needs the information from a social graph to be useful. I can see it being hooked up to G+ in the future.
[+] sontek|14 years ago|reply
I'm also not willing to use it until I can authenticate without giving this information:

Your profile info: birthday, hometown and location Friends' hometowns Friends' locations

I'm taking a year off work and traveling across the world for 2012 and would love to use the app but I see no reason for it to want that information.

My friends are already my friends on facebook, so I don't need them on the site, I need to find new people.

[+] micheljansen|14 years ago|reply
Cool idea. The user experience of adding tags is pretty terrible compared to the rest. The placeholder text in the input field suggests you can use commas and judging from the tags it suggested such as "Design, Food, Movies" "Beer,Tech,Music" a lot of people noticed that. The suggestion pop-up is also kind of awkward sometimes as it occludes the input field and won't go away when you expect. You'll have to do some serious deduplication on this even after you fix the interface.

Also, it got stuck on me a couple of times after clicking "let's get started", with no way to re-do (it's all AJAX) and refreshing the page required me to do everything over.

[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
I know :( we noticed that yesterday, and are now manually having to separate the user generated tags that include commas, we are going to try and push these changes ASAP.

What do you mean it got "stuck on you", it wasn't processing correctly?

[+] stevenou|14 years ago|reply
I can definitely see this being very useful but man is it slow right now... Every time I hit a "Loading..." it never finishes. I end up having to refresh the whole page and trying again. Perhaps it should at least throw an error if the server's getting overwhelmed?
[+] thiagosilva|14 years ago|reply
Things are really slow on chrome at least. It takes forever, but sounds promising the idea.
[+] langsamer|14 years ago|reply
Great idea! It would be awesome to couple this with a planner type system as well so you can plan your adventures with your fellow travelers. A hook into AirBnB or another service to get discounted room & board with other people might be another cool idea.

Nice work!

[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
All good suggestions that we are already working on :) hence why they are so good!
[+] rhizome|14 years ago|reply
A "dating" site for travel partners, nice!
[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
haha use it as you want ;)
[+] hvass|14 years ago|reply
My only criticism so far is that I really dislike the font colors of the FAQ page
[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
hahah yeah we didn't much love into these pages for our MVP, need to redo them big time. Putting it pivotal tracker!
[+] pbnjay|14 years ago|reply
couchsurfing already does this and has a much larger network. how are you different/better? couchsurfing is about quite a bit more than finding a place to stay, so you can't really say that.
[+] endian|14 years ago|reply
You might want to improve the page load speed. Some quick thoughts:

- load above-the-fold content first

- combine the JS to a single file

- include the country flags and other small icons as inline base64 PNGs

[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
By the way I should be replaced by we. Although I'm the co-founder this project would be nowhere without our awesome team of designers and developers!
[+] shawnjan8|14 years ago|reply
Not loading on Chrome for me... I can sign in with Safari but it seems really slow, right now its just stuck on loading... I want in! Arg.
[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
I have no idea what this issue is, it seems to happen to me on every facebook auth window like on turntable fm as well
[+] sontek|14 years ago|reply
Did you do all the design and development yourself?
[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
no I am lucky to have a kickass team of designers and developers building this with me. the team is everything!
[+] bliss|14 years ago|reply
Why so cryptic... was it 26 countries?
[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
hahah cause I never finished counting! I think its below 30 though
[+] anon2011|14 years ago|reply
I would use it if it wasn't for the facebook thing, I already use couchsurfing, bewelcome, etc
[+] pjsullivan3|14 years ago|reply
we feel the facebook integration creates a better social experience than couchsurfing already provides. I've been a coachsurfer for many years but I really enjoy knowing that this person is somehow connected to me, ie friend of friends.
[+] AznHisoka|14 years ago|reply
I only got 10 friends on FB... so i doubt this would be useful for me, right?
[+] sontek|14 years ago|reply
I tried to type in Maui as a trip i'm planning and it doesn't find it?
[+] sontek|14 years ago|reply
Ahh, if I type a specific city on the island (Makawao) it finds that. So its just ignoring the island itself.

It might be nice to define a general area. "Spain", "Maui" and not a specific city, since I plan to travel around the whole area not just a specific city.

[+] kitsune_|14 years ago|reply
Loos nice, but, I'd rather just talk and meet people when travelling.
[+] megablast|14 years ago|reply
Most of the time, that is easy to do. But sometimes it is not. Sometimes you are so remote, and just stuck in the wrong hotel/hostel and head out at the wrong times. That is fine, but you may want to meet people during those times as well.

As someone who is traveling around SEA at the moment, I will definitely check this you.

[+] jurre|14 years ago|reply
it's been saying this for over 4 hours now: Hold on, we are just loading... :(
[+] jurre|14 years ago|reply
working now!