Show HN: 60 Minutes Chat – Anonymously chat in self-destructing chatrooms nearby

[nodata]

Is it anonymous?

Permissions:

Identity Uses one or more of: accounts on the device, profile data

Contacts/Calendar Uses one or more of: calendar, contact information

Location Uses the device's location

[wellboy]

Ok, it seems that the update hasn't gone through yet, where it only asks for location now. Should be through soon.

[fooqux]

While perhaps an interesting mechanic in larger cities, the core feature of this product will ensure minimal adoption in rural towns like mine. User will install, see there are no active chats, create one, never get a response, and uninstall.

Perhaps add the ability to expand your area?

[jiggy2011]

It might make sense to define the area based on population density rather than just geography.

[RankingMember]

I'm ambivalent on the name, though I do like that the name says what it does without any silly made-up gibbrish name.

[ForHackernews]

Reminds me of "60 Minutes" the long-running television news program. If I didn't know better, I would assume this was an app for discussing recent 60 Minutes stories.

Maybe I'm just old, though.

[chaghalibaghali]

I've been using this for around 10 minutes now and it seems fairly buggy, the main ones I've hit are:

* Messages appear in the wrong conversation, then move back to the correct one on close/open. * I get notified about new chats that then don't appear in the list

[wellboy]

Thanks, working on it! Didn't expect that to directly take to be honest.

[intellegacy]

Interested in collabing with you on this. I had the same idea and vision.

any way to contact you

[wellboy]

Sure, iOS and possibly also Android developer would be helpful! Shoot me an email, it's in my bio.

[wellboy]

Some stats two hours after submission if someone is interested:

- 92 new users

- 88 chatrooms were opened

- 14 users from London, 10 Amsterdam, 8 Berlin, 8 New York, 8 Chicago, 6 Toronto. It seems like because it's so early, mostly Europe has seen it so far.

[ThomPete]

SF is just waking up so that is probably why you don't see more.

[cpncrunch]

Hasn't this 'chat to people near you' been done to death already? I was thinking of doing an app like this a few years ago, but discovered that there were many similar apps.

[wellboy]

In fact, there was Popcorn Messaging, which is anonymous chat within 1 mi radius. I loved the idea and checked the app quite often. However, the chats on there were almost never relevant to me, because there was no curation at all and this way, there was almost no way to communicate with people on there or to get an answer on anything.

So, I thought what if you add topics to the app, so that if I have a specific question, everyone in the area would get alerted by it and I could have my answer within just a few minutes. Giving the chatrooms a self-destruct timer would make them even more ephemeral. This way, the user knows that content on 60 Minutes is relevant and current at all times.

[discardedrefuse]

App v1.0.1 keeps asking me turn on the GPS to start a chat. My GPS is on and Google Maps doesn't have an issue with it. Nexus S running 4.4.4

[ambiguator]

I would use this. I could see it really catching on.

[hypron]

No iOS version in case anybody is curious.

[tomjen3]

That seems stupid. This is an app that needs all the network effect it can get.

[qzcx]

I downloaded it on my Galaxy S3 and it kept crashing. Cool idea, but there are definitely some bugs in it.

[antonio0]

Stop cloning Yo's UI

[tomjen3]

Didn't we have this discussion back in Microsoft vs Adobe? I seem to recall that the conclusion was that look and feels were not protected by copyright.

[nodata]

It's from the same company.

Edit: oh no it isn't! (thanks!)