Rate my startup: AFAR Connect | Hacker News Reader

Rate my startup: AFAR Connect

afar.com

9 pointserickhill13 comments

Hey Guys,

We're a small startup in SF focused on the experiential traveler. We've built a Q&A community where we match you (psycho-graphics, interests, knowledge, aversion to risk) to other locals and travelers. You ask a question and we'll map it to someone with a like-minded sense about travel. We also route questions we think you might be a good fit to answer for others in the community. Thanks in advance!

http://www.afar.com

This is cool! I've tried to do this sort of thing before by asking people with a high OKCupid "friend" percentage in the city I'll be visiting, but I'm always afraid it comes off as disingenuously concealing romantic interest instead of just wanting advice from locals.

I don't know if this will really help, but since you mentioned quora-like discussions about travel, the following might be an interesting discussion.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2040132

Opinions vary. And sometimes they are not written as carefully and politely as possible to avoid offending others. My exchange with HN user 'petercooper' could have been written a lot better but as you'll see, it seems offense was taken.

I like the hunch.com-like quiz, but the site itself feels very corporate, somehow, in its design. Also, I started with the quiz, but soon got bored and left. That may be a common problem.

Thanks for the feedback, Peter. Do you ever use Q&A sites like Quora, for instance? It requires a little bit of effort for us to pull some basic info, but the real magic comes from the current community that's being grown inside (assuming you want to talk about travel).

Yes, I use Quora. They didn't make me go through an endless questionnaire before showing me the goods (content).

Not sure what you mean by "It requires a little bit of effort for us to pull some basic info"?

It'll be interesting to see how they evolve - there is def a need for this type of service especially for non Frommers/ LonelyPlanet types. If they can close the loop and make the Q&Advice experience meld with a real social experience at the end then I think there is value.

I really enjoyed the quiz as well. The look of the site is very professional rather than consumer friendly. It could look a little more "fun". As for the question answer part which is probably the core part of the site, I didn't enjoy it as much as the quiz portion. Try to tie these two together.

I really like the idea and hope you guys will succeed. Here are some specific suggestions:

* Allow the user to customize Q&A list they see, perhaps through filtering tags.

* Indicate somehow about the number of questions still ahead. Some sort of progress bar might help. As of now, some people may not have the patience.

* Leave out some questions from the signup form. Ask them later, eg put location box at the top of the question list.

Hope this helps and congrats for the launch!

Thanks for the feedback, nopinsight. Technically, the "filter" should get smarter based on the more activity you do (answering questions about specific locations, etc.) but yeah - calling out "here are my main areas of knowledge" somehow would clean up the list, especially as the community grows. Thanks again!

Your "Try a Risk–Free Issue" link is resulting in an error.

https://w1.buysub.com/pubs/AF/AFA/Error.jsp?cds_mag_code=AFA...

  Error
  Sorry, the page you're looking for has moved, or is no longer in service. Please select a different customer service option.

Ack!! Thanks, jcr

Odd, I just clicked it and it worked for me. https://w1.buysub.com/pubs/AF/AFA/Connect_freetrial-US-v2.js...

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