Show HN: Our app - FourSquare for Beer | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Our app - FourSquare for Beer

beerby.com

27 pointsry0ohki23 comments

I was JUST thinking about how there should be something like this last night after picking up a six pack. Big picture ideas I thought of (without really thinking through everything:

- Would be cool to track check-ins on beer via photos of labels. Recognize label to check in. As someone else said below maybe a barcode would be better.

- Partner with bars to give out coasters that include QR codes which match up to the beer served to handle draft beers.

- Start offering notifications for recommended beers in your area. If Beerby notices that a user really likes Dogfishhead IPAs, maybe they get a push notice when x bar has 90 minute on tap.

It looks like http://untappd.com has some competition now.

Untappd seems like the better of the two. I tried to use Beerby a few times and it was hell. The signup was a pain, and then the app didn't load properly.

I wish Untappd was on Android! :(

Not sure what issues you had but we'd be happy to debug with you, have tons of Android users that like the experience but Android never surprises me to have some device specific issue :) beerby@levlr.com

While I do recognize that the social nature of drinking for a lot of people will pull popularity around this, something worries me about the health implications of the service. Seeing what crazy things happen with the legal system, it wouldn't surprise me to see someone with a liver issue take legal action, stating that this service encouraged them to drink more than they should. Not a lawyer, so maybe there is a way for you to protect yourself, but this really needs to be taken into consideration.

This was a big concern of ours, we thought long and hard with our lawyers and got a rather detailed terms of service to mitigate the risk in this, and we don't ever make badges that are like "Drink 10 beers in one night"

Untappd does something like prevent you from checking in more than once per 10 or 15 minutes with a lighthearted message along the lines of “Slow down!”

I’m not a lawyer either, but I think the Beerby ToS does cover this from a strictly legal standpoint. Disclaimers and Liability in http://beerby.com/tos.html -- the Section (ii) bit mentions damages from use or misuse of the app and related content.

Legal craziness aside (would be nice if people could just have a drink, track it, and not blame a website for their problems), would their Terms page cover them?

The problem is it's hard to "check-in" for a beer you're drinking. FourSquare is a bit easier because you don't really need to type anything out, it's location based. Not only that, but the more beer you drink the harder it will be to successfully "check-in"

Maybe the app needs a barcode scanner for beer in bottles or cans...for beers on tap, maybe use crowd sourcing to identify the logo on the tap?

Isn't there a google app to take a picture of certain items/places and it's supposed to be able to identify? That could definitely come in handy if there's an API for that.

Google goggles. http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/

A lot of people have suggested this, we certainly have the technology, it's getting the database of barcodes that's the hard part!

Create your own database, let the users submit barcodes.

You should also make the Four Lokator app.

Actually a site is using our API to do just that: http://www.fourlokostories.com/lokator

I love it! As someone who -loves- to try new/weird beer, this is awesome! All you need to do now, is make a way for me to buy X from the comfort of my computer. (most countries have a local beer/wine website, so you could set up some sort of affiliation)

"Top Beers" is probably more appropriately labeled "Most popular beers", otherwise people may think you mean the most highly rated beers.

Isn't this more like Last.fm for Beer? In what way does location have anything to do with beer? It makes more sense to "scrobble" them.

Do you live in a place where every bar has the same/every beer?

I love beer. Instant download, Very interested too see how you "check in" for beer , and if the model actually works for this.

LivingSocial’s beer community is another competitor.

Looks like your mobile app is your leg up.

Untappd is pretty cool too, will be interesting to see these 2 duke it out.

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