Show HN: Storylane - People sharing things that matter

[roam]

Fantastic!

What the hell does it do? I'm not signing up without knowing a single thing about this service.

[evoxed]

From the welcome email...

Hi Ian, Welcome to Storylane, a place for great inspirational life stories. So that we can help you get started, here are some of things you can do on Storylane:

Share stories Everyone has amazing life stories to tell, and so do you! Sometimes the only thing you need to get started is a good suggestion for some inspiration. Start sharing stories »

Ask anyone to tell a great story Whether it's your friend or someone you look up to, everyone has amazing life stories. Storylane makes it easy for you to ask people to tell their stories. Find people and ask them for stories!

Save the ones you love Storylane is full of great stories, and it's easy to discover those close to your heart. Show your love for great stories, save them for later and then get back to them in times of need. Find stories to love!

-----

Once you're logged in, it looks sort of like a Kickstarter full of... blog entries. Some could be considered actual essays while others have pretty much posted lists, extended anecdotes, there's an iPhone 5 review, etc... The main feature I guess is that you can cycle through prompts from an array of categories to give you something to write about. Of course in the early stages they're pretty hit or miss, but I imagine there is potential if users ended up carving out their own niches– you might start to see more things like "How did you start programming? What do you think were the most important things that helped you grow?". Of course they're just prompts, and you should be able to write about anything you want.

[spking]

I second this. They need to at least provide a sentence explaining what I can do with it.

[mikeland86]

Here's a sample user page http://www.storylane.com/gauss

[sejje]

+1--I'd like to be able to see an example.

I read the page twice trying to figure out what it is before I nixed it.

[atas]

I also don't want to "sign up with Facebook".

[blvr]

Amazing design. But if I'm totally honest, it just looks like a blogging platform. I can't tell what's unique about it.

[evoxed]

1) Make that ol' fashioned signup link just a little more obvious... 2) Could the two welcome emails be combined (can't the activation link come as part of the second if the subject line makes it clear)? 3) I couldn't help but laugh when "What are your best memories of graduate school? Worst memories?" came up as a prompt under "Life". There's something amusing about this question being posed so innocently after "Did you have a pet?".

Anyway I think the site is actually pretty fun, and I'm glad I signed up despite not being able to tell what it was just from the homepage (might want to change that). I was just about to go to bed and jot down a few things I wanted to write about the coming morning but after poking around I may just spend some more time poking around with some of the topics here.

[jongs]

Glad to hear that you liked it! And I hear you on combining the welcome emails

[erenemre]

Recommendation to the founders: Change the flow:

1. Story writing. As a guest, let me write my story right away. Give a few story ideas.

2. Sign up. Make it optional. Tell me I can share my story anonymously but if I want to keep it forever, allow me to sign up then.

[icebraining]

Nice design and concept. I could see myself using this, no doubt.

That said, I have some suggestions:

- Let me remove stories I don't like. Bonus points if:

-- I can drag them out to remove them (it was my first instinct, and I think it'd work well)

-- The system learns from that, after some time.

- Please, let the "bar" stay fixed. It's only distracting when I'm reading a story or enjoying a photo.

- Let me read more of a story in-place, by expanding the "card" (downward?).

Good work, and I'll be looking forward to what you build from here.

[jongs]

Thanks for the feedback.

- Like the idea od removing what you don't like

- I hear on fixing the bar.

Again, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts

[flexxaeon]

With no info at all it feels like a dare.

[jongs]

Storylane is an effort to create a library of human experiences. technically it works like a publishing platform built socially from the ground up.

[nashequilibrium]

Please, this is how you execute this idea......http://cowbird.com. I did not sign up because i have no idea what the product does and the alternate to Facebook login blends into the background and is hard to notice.

[musHo_sk]

Some of those stories are pretty intense Ex: Nick Slater (Palantir's designer in Palo Alto) http://www.storylane.com/nickslater

[frozenport]

It would be nice to see an OpenID login.

[antidoh]

It would have been nice to have seen OpenID succeed into no-brainer non-geek use. As it is, it's like an artisan pencil that's really useful and no one's heard of, made of renewable bamboo pulp and non-toxic "lead" that can be erased with the non-point end which is merely an extension of the bamboo, shredded at the factory into a small brush. (Hey, did I just invent something?)

[a9entroy]

Your logo is similar to: http://codegram.com/

[diggan]

And also 8Tracks [1] if you say that a infinitive sign is similar to another infinitive sign.

*[http://8tracks.com/]

[ergo14]

This sound like g+ - ppl sharing things that matter to me.

[syassami]

On your fb tag line you have padding that ruins your y's.

[jameshsi]

whoa, this site is looking good! love the use of subtlepatterns and conservative use of gradients on the buttons. who designed this?

[pushtheenvelope]

this talented person is to blame for the design: http://dribbble.com/mhrescak

[lukeholder]

looks like a clone of http://www.remenis.com/

[adamkiss]

Simple WHOIS shows that storylane.com is online since 2003 (although this service probably wasn't there, but I am a user of storylane since about march 2012) and remenis.com was created on 18-Jun-12, so you've got that clone the other way around.

[thatusertwo]

Both of those look like a clone of http://cowbird.com/

[ww520]

How do you compete with subreddit?