Breakup Notifier

Consumer and social

relationship notifications

SHOW HN2011

264points
118comments
#19of 1,097 in 2011
Top 2%of 2011 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

12 positive, 24 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 13 critical, out of 52 comments about the project. Thread score -0.05.

Idea: 4 for, 6 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 3 againstDesign: 2 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 2 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Funny and well-timed idea

    From 3 comments
    • This is the most pointless, trivial, absurd, creepy app I've seen in a while. Signed up. I think it will be massively successful!
      jarin on HN
    • I literally laughed out loud when I saw this... great project. I'd start checking the Twilio blog (http://blog.twilio.com/) for contests and implement their API to do SMS and…
      kersny on HN
    • This is hilarious. And fits nicely with the expression, "girls are like parking spots; the good ones are always taken."
      jmm on HN
  • Story of how the maker came up with it

    From 1 comment
    • Hah! Love the idea and story behind the building of it. Thanks for all the details about how you are sending out the mail. I'm the Product Manager of PostageApp, would you mind…
      JonLim on HN

Objections

  • Creepy and invasive to privacy

    From 4 comments
    • This is the most pointless, trivial, absurd, creepy app I've seen in a while. Signed up. I think it will be massively successful!
      jarin on HN
    • Way way down in the TOS fine print: "You agree to Creepyest Web Service Ever Pty Ltd sharing your social graph and stalkee selection with our business partners including but not…
      bigiain on HN
    • As a lot of people said already, this is very creepy. Yet, there will be tons of users who would use this... By the way, can you get notifications on multiple people? (now,…
      bkhl on HN
    • A fun app but really is this the "kind" of choice we want to make? I'm worried about these forward-focused apps mean to privacy in the long term.
      freddealmeida on HN
  • Facebook may ban or restrict it under API terms

    From 3 comments
    • Didn't Facebook kill something like this a few years ago?
      kenmck on HN
    • I'm thinking the app would have to store the present status on its server in order to know of a status change. But isn't storing profile data server-side a violation of FB TOS?
      zaidf on HN
    • You can store data for up to 24 hours, so all you have to do is look for a change on two consecutive days. Edit: That was the old policy, the new one lets you store it forever as…
      jarin on HN
  • Polling every 24 hours is too slow to be useful

    From 2 comments
    • Only every 24 hours?!? But when the window is open, you RUN! Did Ted Mosby teach us nothing?
      phirephly on HN
    • +1 for HIMYM reference, I thought the same :) 24hrs is not 'be the first to know', probably all her/his friends will know that before. When I changed status I had a dozen…
      zalew on HN

Requests

  • Add SMS or call notifications

    From 1 comment
    • I literally laughed out loud when I saw this... great project. I'd start checking the Twilio blog (http://blog.twilio.com/) for contests and implement their API to do SMS and…
      kersny on HN
  • Filter people by gender or orientation

    From 3 comments
    • Awesome idea! Do this please: look at my "Interested in" info and only show me people of that gender.
      CWIZO on HN
    • very badly phrased, but a filter by gender option would probably be a good feature.
      user24 on HN
    • gender and orientation! what's the use to browse the opposite sex persons if they won't be interested in you!
      fedd on HN
  • Notify on relationship creation or unfriending

    From 2 comments
    • Well, if Facebook unblocks you, you might want to look into adding another feature: relationship creation notifications for specific users. Target user: People like me that don't…
      jfriedly on HN
    • Good way to jump the queue. Would work well with facial recognition on beauty. Another idea: an unfriend notifier. (like with a twitter unfollow notifier)
      adrianwaj on HN

Questions

  • Does Facebook allow this data access under its terms?

    From 2 comments
    • I'm thinking the app would have to store the present status on its server in order to know of a status change. But isn't storing profile data server-side a violation of FB TOS?
      zaidf on HN
    • Er wait, that was an old policy. Here's the new one: "You may cache data you receive through use of the Facebook API in order to improve your application’s user experience, but…
      jarin on HN
  • Can it notify on multiple people?

    From 1 comment
    • As a lot of people said already, this is very creepy. Yet, there will be tons of users who would use this... By the way, can you get notifications on multiple people? (now,…
      bkhl on HN

Alternatives named

  • SingleStat.us for MySpace

    From 2 comments
    • David Weekly did this for MySpace a while back. It was called SingeStat.us: http://techcrunch.com/2006/06/05/find-out-when-your-friends-become-single/
      paulschreiber on HN
    • Who else remembers the singlestat.us? IIRC, facebook killed the service.
      slig on HN
  • Defriend Alert

    From 1 comment
  • Facebook birthday automation apps

    From 1 comment
    • I thought of that, too, a few months ago. But several people had beaten me (and you) to it. (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=egsisas&xhr=t&q=facebook+birthday+automatic).
      jaredsohn on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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