11 ms·

Show HN: HourlyPuppy

118 points by jfi 15y ago

rglover 15y ago
Make sure to check out the little message with the paw next to it in the top right corner on refresh. Nice touch.
- jfi 15y ago
  thanks :) if you have any other tag lines to add to the rotation, let me know!
bobbles 15y ago
It wasn't until after 'Version 1.0' that I realised this was about pictures of puppies and not actually letting people hire puppies for cheering people up in the hospital or something
johnnyn 15y ago
This would actually be great if I could rent a puppy for an hour for my kids or something. Maybe you should turn this into an AirBnB for pets. I'm sort of kidding, but sort of serious. I bet PETA would love you ;)
- BasBenIk 15y ago
  I think you can "rent" a puppy/dog for an hour at your nearest animal shelter. I think the people who work there would be more than happy if you walk a puppy/dog with your kids and give it some love for an hour.
  - planetjoe 15y ago
    But then you have to go to the animal shelter. What about a startup that brings the shelter puppy to you for a fee, which is then split with the shelter? Win Win Win?
    - jfi 15y ago
      I'd actually like to eventually enable it so shelters can put their pictures up for free. That way a visitor could view and then own a pup.
      - enmaku 15y ago
        And that is how brilliant cross-promotions are born.
  - gavingmiller 15y ago
    Different animal shelters will vary on their policy, some being more open than others. For example a shelter where I volunteered put in a policy that volunteers had to commit to (something like) 15 hours/month. Needless to say volunteerism dropped significantly the next month...
    - cynest 15y ago
      Hours or number of volunteers?
    - blhack 15y ago
      Did you work at the luckiest shelter on the planet? The one I used to volunteer at [moved away] was usually clamoring for volunteers (at least in the summer). That seems like a very odd policy.
      - gavingmiller 15y ago
        They certainly weren't overflowing with volunteers if that's what you mean.
  - prawn 15y ago
    I hired my cat for the weekend about 10-11 years ago, fell in love, and we've been partners in crime ever since.
- marquis 15y ago
  Something like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_cafe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_cafe
  - scott_s 15y ago
    That's like the cat equivalent of a brothel.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - aristus 15y ago
      A cathouse, as it were.
- atte 15y ago
  DAAS - Dogs As A Service (in the cloud of course). I'd be all over it - great chick magnets in the park :) I remember half-seriously looking for something like this a few years ago and found these guys: http://www.flexpetz.com http://www.flexpetz.com
  - elektronaut 15y ago
    You mean DACHS - Dogs As a Cloud Hosted Service?
- dho 15y ago
  You could ask a neighbor whether you could get their dog for a walk.
steve8918 15y ago
Can you actually copy someone else's images and serve them from your own website, or does that violate copyright? If you find someone else's images, should you instead link to the original site? I'm actually asking because I'm curious, I don't know what the actual answer is.
- epochwolf 15y ago
  > Can you actually copy someone else's images and serve them from your own website Short answer: No Long answer: It depends. On your personal site that has ads, a donate button, or products/services you sell: highly unlikely. See links below. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_States_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_... * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Sta... This is not legal advice. IANAL, etc.
- slig 15y ago
  Before getting to the site, my first guess was that he was pulling the images from flickr CC search.
- danso 15y ago
  This is most definitely a copyright violation? And it is one that would unlikely be protected by fair use laws. Or, by even providing a link to the site. So while thhe project is neat and further shows why hackers make good partners, virtually all of its inherent value is derived from the photos themselves.
ericd 15y ago
I would love to be able to sign my girlfriend up for hourly email updates... (I was planning on doing that, but I ended up having to just tell her about it)
- jfi 15y ago
  so a subscriber could get an email with a link to the current pup? I'd suspect not many people would want an email from me every hour. perhaps making it easy to toggle on / off would make that option more desirable? I could also integrate the site better with @hourlypuppy on tw. thoughts?
  - Vindexus 15y ago
    Maybe have it send them a daily email with links and thumbnails of the past 24 puppies.
  - ericd 15y ago
    The email would preferably contain the image itself - an hourly shot of happiness. On my own site, I offer hourly/daily options for alerts, and a surprising percentage opt for hourly - I think you could do the same. It would get expensive using a third party mailing service like sendgrid - just sending mail from your server via Exim is pretty easy and costs nothing extra. I have a feeling you could get a surprising number of subscribers, especially since the puppies would be super-forwardable...
  - femto 15y ago
    Some digital picture frames will accept an RSS feed. Why not make your site able to automatically update such a frame every hour? Are there any companies out there offering RSS based image feeds, intended for such devices? One can imagine a digital frame hanging on a wall and the owner can subscribe to themed RSS streams. Owners might be householders, or companies looking for attractive wall art. A set of free streams could be offered, based on the Commons. There could also be paid or ad supported streams, based on proprietary images.
    - 15y ago
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I thought this was touching. I wonder if you could hack one of those picture 'frame' gizmos so that it just came up with a new picture of a puppy every hour. No browser, just a sort of 'happy fun time pictures' picture frame.
- essayist 15y ago
  Or a private Roku channel - streaming puppies FTW!
  - marquis 15y ago
    Sadly, not economically viable in TV form: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppy_Channel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppy_Channel I'm not sure how well their website does either. http://www.thepuppychannel.com/ http://www.thepuppychannel.com/
    - enmaku 15y ago
      Came here to post this exact thing. I think the trick to viability is small doses at intervals. The Puppy Channel was all puppy all the time - puppy overdose. Hourly Puppy delivers a picture, not video, at one hour intervals so you can go "d'awwwwww" and go back to your day. Or I could be wrong, time will tell...
      - wladimir 15y ago
        The fun with young animals for me is seeing how they move and play, the activity, the energy... A picture doesn't convey this as good as a video. Still, I love the idea of the OP's site.
    - dhugiaskmak 15y ago
      There's a great This American Life act about the Puppy Channel. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/233/starting-from-scratch http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/233/s...
jobby 15y ago
I love you. You are a hero.
whackedspinach 15y ago
I need one every minute.
rwar 15y ago
In addition to e-mailing for Submit Puppy, have you considered adding a Drag-and-Drop or a Browse/Upload? (You could even add a captcha!)
- jfi 15y ago
  yeah, the submission via email is not ideal, but for the mvp I wanted a basic submission feature so mailto fit the bill. I'll look to make it submit via browser this weekend! Appreciate the feedback
joshmanders 15y ago
Awesome job! I sometimes see great ideas like this and smack myself. "Why didn't I think of that?!"
raheemm 15y ago
I want a new puppy with every refresh.
angryasian 15y ago
you should check out http://www.dailypuppy.com/ http://www.dailypuppy.com/ http://cuteoverload.com/ http://cuteoverload.com/
cperciva 15y ago
Can I have an HourlyKitty instead?
- palish 15y ago
  Hmm! You've contributed a lot to HN / BSD / world, so I wanted to give you a gift. But, alas, HourlyKitty would be too much of a time investment for me right now. (Getting my family's cell phone service turned back on is perhaps more important.) But! I present, for you, my next best effort, "YearlyKitty": http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/random_pics/scuzzle.JPG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/random_pics/scuzzle.JPG Thanks for everything you've done Colin. I hope you're able to maintain your drive and ambition throughout your lifetime, and I look forward to seeing "your next thing", whatever it turns out to be. (For example http://www.daemonology.net/papers/cachemissing.pdf http://www.daemonology.net/papers/cachemissing.pdf was especially cool IMHO, but all of your projects have been interesting.)
  - cperciva 15y ago
    YearlyKitty Awww... I look forward to seeing "your next thing" It hasn't received a huge amount of attention yet, but my guess is that kivaloo will end up being my "biggest thing" in 2011.
- xd 15y ago
  The hourlypuppy concept is so freaking good I couldn't pass up the challenge so have set to work on hourlycat ..
vvertex 15y ago
t
dubrie 15y ago
Whoa, I've been working on something extremely similar for my wife: http://www.pupgrade.com http://www.pupgrade.com It's not strictly about cheering people up but kinda the same thing. It's like we were reading each others minds!

118 points by jfi 15y ago

rglover 15y ago

Make sure to check out the little message with the paw next to it in the top right corner on refresh. Nice touch.

jfi 15y ago
thanks :) if you have any other tag lines to add to the rotation, let me know!

bobbles 15y ago

It wasn't until after 'Version 1.0' that I realised this was about pictures of puppies and not actually letting people hire puppies for cheering people up in the hospital or something

johnnyn 15y ago

This would actually be great if I could rent a puppy for an hour for my kids or something. Maybe you should turn this into an AirBnB for pets. I'm sort of kidding, but sort of serious. I bet PETA would love you ;)

BasBenIk 15y ago
I think you can "rent" a puppy/dog for an hour at your nearest animal shelter. I think the people who work there would be more than happy if you walk a puppy/dog with your kids and give it some love for an hour.
- planetjoe 15y ago
  But then you have to go to the animal shelter. What about a startup that brings the shelter puppy to you for a fee, which is then split with the shelter? Win Win Win?
  - jfi 15y ago
    I'd actually like to eventually enable it so shelters can put their pictures up for free. That way a visitor could view and then own a pup.
    - enmaku 15y ago
      And that is how brilliant cross-promotions are born.
- gavingmiller 15y ago
  Different animal shelters will vary on their policy, some being more open than others. For example a shelter where I volunteered put in a policy that volunteers had to commit to (something like) 15 hours/month. Needless to say volunteerism dropped significantly the next month...
  - cynest 15y ago
    Hours or number of volunteers?
  - blhack 15y ago
    Did you work at the luckiest shelter on the planet? The one I used to volunteer at [moved away] was usually clamoring for volunteers (at least in the summer). That seems like a very odd policy.
    - gavingmiller 15y ago
      They certainly weren't overflowing with volunteers if that's what you mean.
- prawn 15y ago
  I hired my cat for the weekend about 10-11 years ago, fell in love, and we've been partners in crime ever since.
marquis 15y ago
Something like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_cafe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_cafe
- scott_s 15y ago
  That's like the cat equivalent of a brothel.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - aristus 15y ago
    A cathouse, as it were.
atte 15y ago
DAAS - Dogs As A Service (in the cloud of course). I'd be all over it - great chick magnets in the park :) I remember half-seriously looking for something like this a few years ago and found these guys: http://www.flexpetz.com http://www.flexpetz.com
- elektronaut 15y ago
  You mean DACHS - Dogs As a Cloud Hosted Service?
dho 15y ago
You could ask a neighbor whether you could get their dog for a walk.

steve8918 15y ago

Can you actually copy someone else's images and serve them from your own website, or does that violate copyright? If you find someone else's images, should you instead link to the original site? I'm actually asking because I'm curious, I don't know what the actual answer is.

epochwolf 15y ago
> Can you actually copy someone else's images and serve them from your own website Short answer: No Long answer: It depends. On your personal site that has ads, a donate button, or products/services you sell: highly unlikely. See links below. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_States_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_... * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Sta... This is not legal advice. IANAL, etc.
slig 15y ago
Before getting to the site, my first guess was that he was pulling the images from flickr CC search.
danso 15y ago
This is most definitely a copyright violation? And it is one that would unlikely be protected by fair use laws. Or, by even providing a link to the site. So while thhe project is neat and further shows why hackers make good partners, virtually all of its inherent value is derived from the photos themselves.

ericd 15y ago

I would love to be able to sign my girlfriend up for hourly email updates... (I was planning on doing that, but I ended up having to just tell her about it)

jfi 15y ago
so a subscriber could get an email with a link to the current pup? I'd suspect not many people would want an email from me every hour. perhaps making it easy to toggle on / off would make that option more desirable? I could also integrate the site better with @hourlypuppy on tw. thoughts?
- Vindexus 15y ago
  Maybe have it send them a daily email with links and thumbnails of the past 24 puppies.
- ericd 15y ago
  The email would preferably contain the image itself - an hourly shot of happiness. On my own site, I offer hourly/daily options for alerts, and a surprising percentage opt for hourly - I think you could do the same. It would get expensive using a third party mailing service like sendgrid - just sending mail from your server via Exim is pretty easy and costs nothing extra. I have a feeling you could get a surprising number of subscribers, especially since the puppies would be super-forwardable...
- femto 15y ago
  Some digital picture frames will accept an RSS feed. Why not make your site able to automatically update such a frame every hour? Are there any companies out there offering RSS based image feeds, intended for such devices? One can imagine a digital frame hanging on a wall and the owner can subscribe to themed RSS streams. Owners might be householders, or companies looking for attractive wall art. A set of free streams could be offered, based on the Commons. There could also be paid or ad supported streams, based on proprietary images.
  - 15y ago

ChuckMcM 15y ago

I thought this was touching. I wonder if you could hack one of those picture 'frame' gizmos so that it just came up with a new picture of a puppy every hour. No browser, just a sort of 'happy fun time pictures' picture frame.

essayist 15y ago
Or a private Roku channel - streaming puppies FTW!
- marquis 15y ago
  Sadly, not economically viable in TV form: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppy_Channel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppy_Channel I'm not sure how well their website does either. http://www.thepuppychannel.com/ http://www.thepuppychannel.com/
  - enmaku 15y ago
    Came here to post this exact thing. I think the trick to viability is small doses at intervals. The Puppy Channel was all puppy all the time - puppy overdose. Hourly Puppy delivers a picture, not video, at one hour intervals so you can go "d'awwwwww" and go back to your day. Or I could be wrong, time will tell...
    - wladimir 15y ago
      The fun with young animals for me is seeing how they move and play, the activity, the energy... A picture doesn't convey this as good as a video. Still, I love the idea of the OP's site.
  - dhugiaskmak 15y ago
    There's a great This American Life act about the Puppy Channel. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/233/starting-from-scratch http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/233/s...

jobby 15y ago

I love you. You are a hero.

whackedspinach 15y ago

I need one every minute.

rwar 15y ago

In addition to e-mailing for Submit Puppy, have you considered adding a Drag-and-Drop or a Browse/Upload? (You could even add a captcha!)

jfi 15y ago
yeah, the submission via email is not ideal, but for the mvp I wanted a basic submission feature so mailto fit the bill. I'll look to make it submit via browser this weekend! Appreciate the feedback

joshmanders 15y ago

Awesome job! I sometimes see great ideas like this and smack myself. "Why didn't I think of that?!"

raheemm 15y ago

I want a new puppy with every refresh.

angryasian 15y ago

you should check out http://www.dailypuppy.com/ http://www.dailypuppy.com/ http://cuteoverload.com/ http://cuteoverload.com/

cperciva 15y ago

Can I have an HourlyKitty instead?

palish 15y ago
Hmm! You've contributed a lot to HN / BSD / world, so I wanted to give you a gift. But, alas, HourlyKitty would be too much of a time investment for me right now. (Getting my family's cell phone service turned back on is perhaps more important.) But! I present, for you, my next best effort, "YearlyKitty": http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/random_pics/scuzzle.JPG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/random_pics/scuzzle.JPG Thanks for everything you've done Colin. I hope you're able to maintain your drive and ambition throughout your lifetime, and I look forward to seeing "your next thing", whatever it turns out to be. (For example http://www.daemonology.net/papers/cachemissing.pdf http://www.daemonology.net/papers/cachemissing.pdf was especially cool IMHO, but all of your projects have been interesting.)
- cperciva 15y ago
  YearlyKitty Awww... I look forward to seeing "your next thing" It hasn't received a huge amount of attention yet, but my guess is that kivaloo will end up being my "biggest thing" in 2011.
xd 15y ago
The hourlypuppy concept is so freaking good I couldn't pass up the challenge so have set to work on hourlycat ..

vvertex 15y ago

dubrie 15y ago

Whoa, I've been working on something extremely similar for my wife: http://www.pupgrade.com http://www.pupgrade.com It's not strictly about cheering people up but kinda the same thing. It's like we were reading each others minds!