Show HN: Cheers, our "like" button for the real world
chee.rs
chee.rs
We've been working on this app for the last few months as a pivot on top of our last app idea (gri.pe). We distilled out just the positive aspects of the good/bad reviews of places, and added the ability to "cheer on" random things and people you know on top of places.
On top of that, we focused on building out a social network inside the app, and building in a really simple user score called "cheerfluence". People can build cheerfluence by either posting in the system, or can increase someone else's cheerfluence by clicking the "cheer" button on someone else's cheer. This works really well to motivate people to connect to other people and interact with their content in the system.
I'm really proud of how the app turned out, and we've got some excited users in the system. I'd love to hear what the HN folks think too.
Still don't get it. Is it Instagram + Foursquare? There is a lot of iteration on this idea of feedback on and sharing about places and the return is getting less and less interesting to the consumer. Without a network of people to see what I "liked" in the app, why would I want to like anything? Isn't the purpose of a "like"--to show that I enjoyed a place?
Bootstrapping an app like this without your friends in the system is definitely tough, but we've tried to encourage a model where people will interact with other strangers in the system by trading 'likes' (we call it 'cheering on') on each other's content. You can give 'cheerfluence' to other users by just interacting with their content.
This turns out to work fairly well - lots of people in the system are following other people in the system, not necessarily those who they need, who just happen to be in the system and are putting content in.
My first thought actually was "Meh, I hate it when sites can't get their message across in 2 simple sentences."
Out of pure coincidence of me laying on my couch sick I did click the video and I really loved it. Text is so much better than people explaining.
That said, I'm not won over to the concept, this is typically something I'd post on Twitter or Facebook directly. (Physical things or checkins at places or photos).
Or does it not matter because it looks like everyone working on this project has a ton of money already from previous successes (congrats btw).
Also, the ho-hum is not a Cheer.
Finally, some people oink (wanna be critics / raters), but all people love. Cheers lowers the barrier to expressing love and appreciation publicly, and for those who do, it's a very different feeling / feedback loop than having simply rated something.
That said, Oink / Stamped are very good for ranking / rating things and as such both should give Yelp a run for it's money.
The difference between Cheer and taking a photograph with your point-and-shoot is that the photographs are uploaded after the ceremony has happened and therefore it is "let's remember what happened on this day" rather than "this is what I thought of this particular moment, like if you also agree this was a particularly wonderful moment".
Sorry if this is out of line, it's a very pretty site. This is just something that stuck out to me.
With that said, we all do narcissistic things. Narcissism is only a problem when it gets out of control. That is why we have expert psychologists and psychiatrists to take care of this, and define what is and is not an acceptable level of narcissism (in the DSM-IV definition for narcissistic personality disorder)
Sure, there are reasons to be for, or against narcissistic behavior. If you like, you can personally hate narcissism every time you see it. But if you are so quick to jump the gun and call this novel little app "narcissistic" and declare you don't like it, because you must hold yourself to some higher moral standard, then you are probably very, very blind to much of your own narcissistic behavior.
We are all narcissistic. Some of us are more narcissistic than others, and some of us are more aware of our own personalities than others.
The bottom line is that regardless of the motivation for "cheering" (liking, or any other form) something, the end result is likely going to be fun times clicking shiny buttons for everyone, so just live it up.
As such, the cheering someone elses wedding example is not really a common usecase. Unless you're cheering the couple to wish them well or something.
More common is cheering the stuff in your own life that you appreciate. Cheering your pets, loved ones, favorite apps, beautiful concepts or great design are much more common.
As you cheer things, what happens is that you reveal what you appreciate, and thus a little part of your heart, which makes it easier to connect with you (always along positive lines).
Anyway... I hope you give it a shot and let me know what you think after. Cheers! Farhad - ceo Cheerful, inc.