7 ms·

Wait, WUT?

63 points by socmoth 12y ago

cottonseed 12y ago
from the App store: > WUT SENDS A MESSAGE TO ALL FRIEND WHO HAVE WUT. > ** Requires Facebook right now, sorry. **
- socmoth 12y ago
  Paul here. Happy to answer any questions you may have. facebook login is annoying but did get us out the door. poor grammar is intentional. We used to have the words "WUT" repeated 200x in the app store copy, but Apple politely told us that wasn't good enough. We had more than a couple people tell us it was great though.
  - ethanhunt_ 12y ago
    Are you both the creator of WUT and the author of the original piece? EDIT: posting too fast, so I'll just edit this post. I think you should edit your blog post with a disclaimer that you're a creator of WUT. It's not that I don't like reading about the products created by HN members (I like it a lot), but I (and I assume others) do want to know when the author has a vested interest in what he's writing about. The piece is interesting, thank you for writing and posting.
    - socmoth 12y ago
      Naveen is the cofounder of 4sq. I'm Paul. One of the creators of WUT.
  - lobotryas 12y ago
    >facebook login is annoying but did get us out the door Do you plan to allow for a truly anonymous registration option that doesn't require anything beyond an email address (no facebook, no scanning my contacts, no phone number)? If so, when should I look for it because that's the feature that would make me try out WUT.
- ryandrake 12y ago
  Not sure how you can call these apps anonymous or "semi-anonymous". I tried Secret a month or so ago, and the first thing it asked me for was my phone number. So, this one requires Facebook? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the meaning of "anonymous".
  - ethanhunt_ 12y ago
    Agree on Facebook, but how would you get around the phone number for Secret? I don't have the app, but as I understand it, it uses your contacts list to find out who to send messages to (i.e., the phone number is the username that it uses to know to send your friends' posts to you).
  - socmoth 12y ago
    You probably don't (but you knew that). But that is why we explicitly call it semi anonymous not anonymous. (with no quotes) It isn't a contract just a word choice that guides people to the expectation of how the app works.
deepinsand 12y ago
I've never used WUT, but was intrigued by the anecdote at the end: "Sun’s out; in Washington square park. Who’s around?” I've seen tons of apps that try to solve the "I want to hang out" problem. They all fail because cool people don't use those apps. Psuedo-anonymity can potentially solve this. Some tried to do anonymous matching, but those had cold-start-network-effect problems. Psuedo-anonymous social networks might be able to back into a solution by attracting early adopters with their "gossip network" use case. This reminds me of how Facebook backed into essentially being a status, photos, and events platform when it started life as a networked address book.
- socmoth 12y ago
  You are totally correct on the cold start problem. ;)
- tormeh 12y ago
  I think some of it may simply be that hanging out is with strangers is not a way most people want to meet people. Meeting at events or places where simply by being there you have a mutual interest is more attractive for many.
  - deepinsand 12y ago
    Sorry, I should have said "pseudo-anonymous". At least in Secret, I can see how many degrees of separation I am to someone via our phone address book. I've since edited the original post. It's anonymous enough that you don't feel the consequences of making a FB status update that no one comments on, but with enough identity to not be creepy.
    - ForHackernews 12y ago
      > you don't feel the consequences of making a FB status update that no one comments on Wait, what? What's the consequence of that? You expect people to comment on every one of your status updates? Kids these days...
  - Dewie 12y ago
chadwickthebold 12y ago
Stuff like this is great. It's like watching kids who grew up in the Twitter/FB age rediscover anonymous internet forums and imageboards like 4chan. People like anonymous services because you literally don't need to filter what you are saying. That can lead to a whole lot of bad, but some really, really great nuggets of truth and goodness coming out - it feels like tapping into the collective subconscious of the internet.
- socmoth 12y ago
  IRC! Usenet! BBSes! The last era of the net (since 2004) a lot of stuff went full real names, after facebook made it ok to put your name on the internet. We've started (re) discovering ways to connect which are less about real names.
pantalaimon 12y ago
It would be incredibly useful if there were a link to the App in question. WUT isn't very googleable, it wasn't entirely obvious from the article that it's an iPhone exclusive App, not a website or available on Android.
- grinich 12y ago
  If you Google "wut app" it's the first hit.
  - compare 12y ago
    I'm working on a search product now. I find it really fascinating that many people immediately know and have adopted this "specific-type general-type" query structure, whereas many others have no idea. It feels like we're on the verge of slowly evolving a new human-computer communication language. Definitely within the next 20 years it will happen. Not just a list of instructions or model descriptions like programming languages are, for example you can't translate an arbitrary Engish sentence into a programming language. No, I think this time we're watching a full language, in the linguistic sense, evolve in front of us. Of course, search engines will also have to evolve beyond the "do-know-go" communication types that they're married to now, to get to the next stage.
- justin 12y ago
  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wut-semi-anonymous-chat./id781488867?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wut-semi-anonymous-chat./id7...
aniro 12y ago
I am not really sure what people mean when they say "anonymous" anymore. This app requires a Facebook account. Facebook is a service that all but defines itself on identity verification.
- kennywinker 12y ago
  Anonymous to your friends, not anonymous to the service or law enforcement. There should be a word for this... maybe "pseudoanonymous"?
  - ganeumann 12y ago
    Contingently Anonymous.
  - mahyarm 12y ago
    I would call it curtain anonymous.
    - Raphael 12y ago
      curtainymous
  - krapp 12y ago
    'pseudonymous' I believe.
    - jarman 12y ago
      'pseudonymous' is pretty much opposite of this. Identity local to service, but not bound to anything beyond it's scope
  - pit 12y ago
    Anonymity theatre?
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Because this is the default case, we need another word for the hypothetical "anonymous to all, including law enforcement and intelligence agencies". perfect anonymity?
chippy 12y ago
What we need is a form of anonymous / pseudo-anonymous reputation brokerage. Tokens that identify not a person, but how trusted or how well liked that token has been used. You control your tokens, what networks, where they are used. An older token is worth more to you, and to others that see it. The values associated to a token varies depending on the tokens around it. Upvotes, downvotes, activities, flags from the various places where the token is uses contributes to the values attached to the tokens. It's a fuzzy concept at the moment, but I think as these new generation of applications grow, one that we may see evolve.
- uaygsfdbzf 12y ago
  You're missing the point, it's about not even having a reputation to follow you about
- stephengillie 12y ago
  That token breaks the very anonymity in the first place. The very essence of anonymity is having no reputation, no information whatsoever.
  - wtbob 12y ago
    No, the very essence of anonymity is have no tie to one's physical identity. No reputation or information is a recipe for meaninglessness; as a reader I have neither the time nor the tools to fully evaluate every statement ever made to me; I must use heuristics to aid my reading (e.g. I will almost certainly ignore anyone who claims the moon landings were hoaxes; it's not worth my time to investigate his claims). I'm actually very excited by the idea of anonymous reputation, as it could enable all sorts of the things needed to have a well-run global network without enabling physical assaults on persons.
    - dobbsbob 12y ago
      Many, many forums use a feeble ratings/trust indicator for pseudo-anon users but then you end up with a clique of highly rated posters and the circle jerk is complete. The whole point in anonymity is every post has it's merit in what it says not who wrote it. I can easily skim the various *chans, filtering out shitposting pretty quick. For trading pseudo-anon there is already this reputation system which has worked well http://bitcoin-otc.com/trust.php http://bitcoin-otc.com/trust.php
joshu 12y ago
I quite enjoy WUT.

Wait, WUT?

63 points by socmoth 12y ago

cottonseed 12y ago

from the App store: > WUT SENDS A MESSAGE TO ALL FRIEND WHO HAVE WUT. > ** Requires Facebook right now, sorry. **

socmoth 12y ago
Paul here. Happy to answer any questions you may have. facebook login is annoying but did get us out the door. poor grammar is intentional. We used to have the words "WUT" repeated 200x in the app store copy, but Apple politely told us that wasn't good enough. We had more than a couple people tell us it was great though.
- ethanhunt_ 12y ago
  Are you both the creator of WUT and the author of the original piece? EDIT: posting too fast, so I'll just edit this post. I think you should edit your blog post with a disclaimer that you're a creator of WUT. It's not that I don't like reading about the products created by HN members (I like it a lot), but I (and I assume others) do want to know when the author has a vested interest in what he's writing about. The piece is interesting, thank you for writing and posting.
  - socmoth 12y ago
    Naveen is the cofounder of 4sq. I'm Paul. One of the creators of WUT.
- lobotryas 12y ago
  >facebook login is annoying but did get us out the door Do you plan to allow for a truly anonymous registration option that doesn't require anything beyond an email address (no facebook, no scanning my contacts, no phone number)? If so, when should I look for it because that's the feature that would make me try out WUT.
ryandrake 12y ago
Not sure how you can call these apps anonymous or "semi-anonymous". I tried Secret a month or so ago, and the first thing it asked me for was my phone number. So, this one requires Facebook? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the meaning of "anonymous".
- ethanhunt_ 12y ago
  Agree on Facebook, but how would you get around the phone number for Secret? I don't have the app, but as I understand it, it uses your contacts list to find out who to send messages to (i.e., the phone number is the username that it uses to know to send your friends' posts to you).
- socmoth 12y ago
  You probably don't (but you knew that). But that is why we explicitly call it semi anonymous not anonymous. (with no quotes) It isn't a contract just a word choice that guides people to the expectation of how the app works.

deepinsand 12y ago

I've never used WUT, but was intrigued by the anecdote at the end: "Sun’s out; in Washington square park. Who’s around?” I've seen tons of apps that try to solve the "I want to hang out" problem. They all fail because cool people don't use those apps. Psuedo-anonymity can potentially solve this. Some tried to do anonymous matching, but those had cold-start-network-effect problems. Psuedo-anonymous social networks might be able to back into a solution by attracting early adopters with their "gossip network" use case. This reminds me of how Facebook backed into essentially being a status, photos, and events platform when it started life as a networked address book.

socmoth 12y ago
You are totally correct on the cold start problem. ;)
tormeh 12y ago
I think some of it may simply be that hanging out is with strangers is not a way most people want to meet people. Meeting at events or places where simply by being there you have a mutual interest is more attractive for many.
- deepinsand 12y ago
  Sorry, I should have said "pseudo-anonymous". At least in Secret, I can see how many degrees of separation I am to someone via our phone address book. I've since edited the original post. It's anonymous enough that you don't feel the consequences of making a FB status update that no one comments on, but with enough identity to not be creepy.
  - ForHackernews 12y ago
    > you don't feel the consequences of making a FB status update that no one comments on Wait, what? What's the consequence of that? You expect people to comment on every one of your status updates? Kids these days...
- Dewie 12y ago

chadwickthebold 12y ago

Stuff like this is great. It's like watching kids who grew up in the Twitter/FB age rediscover anonymous internet forums and imageboards like 4chan. People like anonymous services because you literally don't need to filter what you are saying. That can lead to a whole lot of bad, but some really, really great nuggets of truth and goodness coming out - it feels like tapping into the collective subconscious of the internet.

socmoth 12y ago
IRC! Usenet! BBSes! The last era of the net (since 2004) a lot of stuff went full real names, after facebook made it ok to put your name on the internet. We've started (re) discovering ways to connect which are less about real names.

pantalaimon 12y ago

It would be incredibly useful if there were a link to the App in question. WUT isn't very googleable, it wasn't entirely obvious from the article that it's an iPhone exclusive App, not a website or available on Android.

grinich 12y ago
If you Google "wut app" it's the first hit.
- compare 12y ago
  I'm working on a search product now. I find it really fascinating that many people immediately know and have adopted this "specific-type general-type" query structure, whereas many others have no idea. It feels like we're on the verge of slowly evolving a new human-computer communication language. Definitely within the next 20 years it will happen. Not just a list of instructions or model descriptions like programming languages are, for example you can't translate an arbitrary Engish sentence into a programming language. No, I think this time we're watching a full language, in the linguistic sense, evolve in front of us. Of course, search engines will also have to evolve beyond the "do-know-go" communication types that they're married to now, to get to the next stage.
justin 12y ago
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wut-semi-anonymous-chat./id781488867?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wut-semi-anonymous-chat./id7...

aniro 12y ago

I am not really sure what people mean when they say "anonymous" anymore. This app requires a Facebook account. Facebook is a service that all but defines itself on identity verification.

kennywinker 12y ago
Anonymous to your friends, not anonymous to the service or law enforcement. There should be a word for this... maybe "pseudoanonymous"?
- ganeumann 12y ago
  Contingently Anonymous.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  I would call it curtain anonymous.
  - Raphael 12y ago
    curtainymous
- krapp 12y ago
  'pseudonymous' I believe.
  - jarman 12y ago
    'pseudonymous' is pretty much opposite of this. Identity local to service, but not bound to anything beyond it's scope
- pit 12y ago
  Anonymity theatre?
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Because this is the default case, we need another word for the hypothetical "anonymous to all, including law enforcement and intelligence agencies". perfect anonymity?

chippy 12y ago

What we need is a form of anonymous / pseudo-anonymous reputation brokerage. Tokens that identify not a person, but how trusted or how well liked that token has been used. You control your tokens, what networks, where they are used. An older token is worth more to you, and to others that see it. The values associated to a token varies depending on the tokens around it. Upvotes, downvotes, activities, flags from the various places where the token is uses contributes to the values attached to the tokens. It's a fuzzy concept at the moment, but I think as these new generation of applications grow, one that we may see evolve.

uaygsfdbzf 12y ago
You're missing the point, it's about not even having a reputation to follow you about
stephengillie 12y ago
That token breaks the very anonymity in the first place. The very essence of anonymity is having no reputation, no information whatsoever.
- wtbob 12y ago
  No, the very essence of anonymity is have no tie to one's physical identity. No reputation or information is a recipe for meaninglessness; as a reader I have neither the time nor the tools to fully evaluate every statement ever made to me; I must use heuristics to aid my reading (e.g. I will almost certainly ignore anyone who claims the moon landings were hoaxes; it's not worth my time to investigate his claims). I'm actually very excited by the idea of anonymous reputation, as it could enable all sorts of the things needed to have a well-run global network without enabling physical assaults on persons.
  - dobbsbob 12y ago
    Many, many forums use a feeble ratings/trust indicator for pseudo-anon users but then you end up with a clique of highly rated posters and the circle jerk is complete. The whole point in anonymity is every post has it's merit in what it says not who wrote it. I can easily skim the various *chans, filtering out shitposting pretty quick. For trading pseudo-anon there is already this reputation system which has worked well http://bitcoin-otc.com/trust.php http://bitcoin-otc.com/trust.php

joshu 12y ago

I quite enjoy WUT.