Ask HN: Review my startup, Beansight.com

[Oyinko]

Hi Everyone,

One of my friend told me that I can get great feedbacks with Ask HN to improve my startups. So let's ask you.

I'am working working on a new website where people can share predictions and be rewarded for good ones.

On Beansight you can share and record your predictions about what it’s going to happen. You can also read other members predictions and agree or disagree with them. Most important, you can also write comments to argue your position.

If members make good predictions, they will earn credibility points and if they earn a lot of them, they will become an expert on Beansight. So they will be able to use their Beansight profile to prove their expertise.

We're planning on launching a lot of new features in the coming months, but we've gotten to a point where we'd really appreciate some feedback for improving effect. We are particularly looking for feedback about the UI.

Thank you

Cyril

Link: http://www.beansight.com/

[derrida]

Just a thought: Whether a prediction is objectively good or not is different to whether the prediction is seen as good or not. If you can think of a mechanism to figure out whether a prediction was good or not after the event has happened, the system could then make a second order prediction about whether that user's a good predictor or not. Keep me up to date if you manage to solve any of these problems.

[Oyinko]

We worked on an algorithm that will check every prediction to know if they happened or not.

If members record a prediction on Beansight and that it happens, they will be rewarded. If they record predictions that will not happen, they will lose credibility points.

[derrida]

How do you check if it has happened or not? Is this based on peoples votes after the predicted time of the event? What if someone wants to make a prediction that involves when something occurs?

[geeyom]

Hello Derrida,

The algorithm to check whether the prediction occurred is based on each single vote. It weights more people with a great expertise score and weights more votes close to the deadline or votes that passed the deadline.

If the prediction comes to an end before the deadline, then the algorithm will wait to reach the deadline to validate it. But we will soon let the community close a prediction if they decide it's over.

Guillaume

[russjhammond]

You should check out the Iowa Electronics Markets. http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/index.cfm

They do something similar but in more of a traditional market format.

[nickfrost]

Add it to http://startupli.st There the early adopters will be able to follow, provide feedback, sign up for your service, and even recommend it to their friends. Have fun!

[kacper]

Frankly speaking the idea is pretty funny and yes, I am wondering how to you check if sth happend or not. Btw, the UI looks pretty standard.

[Oyinko]

We have an algorithm http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2467043

[genystartup]

Lovely design and good effort on the coding. I just don't like that having to log in to vote bit. It's unnecessary in my honest opinion.

[acrum]

I agree. Let non-users vote, but make people sign in to add comments or post their own predictions. You can include some kind of measures to make sure someone doesn't vote more than once or twice.

[Oyinko]

I know that making people sign in to vote is a lot of work for them.

But, we need to track what people vote on Beansight to calculate their expertise on prediction.

But maybe the possibility to vote on a prediction without sign-in could be a first step to make them connected to Beansight.

[acrum]

Yes, you could have them vote and then give them the opportunity to sign up. Store a cookie or something so they can only get one vote as an unregistered user. Of course, this could be hacked, but you could put in provisions to check for multiple votes from the same unregistered user's IP, etc.

[genystartup]

good point. Make people log in to comment (and use that to judge expertise), but anyone can vote for whatever. The fact that I make a lucky guess about something that eventually happens, doesn't make me an expert. What the person says to back up predictions however is a real deciding factor.

[iworkforthem]

easy to click: http://www.beansight.com/

[truthsayer]

Sounds pretty useful. Has nostradam.us been registered?

[Oyinko]

not yet!

[tdoggette]

Typo: "Prouve your expertise" should be "Prove".

[wvanwazer]

Also, "Read Experts" doesn't really make sense. You need another word at the end. Perhaps "Read Expert Predictions" or "Learn from Experts."

[Oyinko]

You are right. We are working on a new page and we need to improve the wording.

[Oyinko]

oops! Thank you.