Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
How to generate content without users?
2 points by osama19 5442 days ago
The chicken or the egg? Which came first? We need users to generate content, but users want content to sign up! Recommendations? Igobubble is a new iphone app that allows virtual digital content to evolve as users interact with it.
2 comments

broad question. what have you considered?

you can use datasets for initial content and see how it evolves with your new users.

If you can take a minute to watch our video i would highly appreciate it, maybe at that point, advice can be a bit more relative. Our iphone app lets users leave photos, videos, messages and more inside what we term living bubbles at any location. When they leave, their bubbles remain behind for others to discover. Bubbles can be cloned, modified, stored, carried, or moved elsewhere. These bubbles grow, divide, multiply and spread with interaction and shrivel and shrink with negligence. Basically, popular bubbles prosper and spread and unpopular bubbles pop and die. So these bubbles basically evolve. Now we started creating content and we have a drop tool that enables us to leave content at different locations on a map using the google maps api. But is that a good idea? Should we just create a bubble or two in everyone's bag that they find once they download the app? I hope that's a bit more specific to get some help on the topic. We just applied to TC startup battlefield in San Francisco and we're hoping that the event will give us somewhat of a boost!
I've participated in a few discussions about this. I also once posted one and in it I had gathered a few links to previous discussions on the topic. I am only posting it here because, since it is my own submission, I am aware it exists and I can find it readily. Hopefully, it is a place to start.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2126209

A search of the site will turn up other discussions on this topic. I mention that because this type question often does not generate good new discussion so a look back is sometimes your best hope of getting some insight. You might also search on my user name and "chicken and egg", since that might lead you to a few posts with lots of links gathered where I commented but was not the submitter.

Thanks for the references.