Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator

Posted by achompas on Sunday May 15, 2011 @05:46PM
from the show-hn dept.

Hey everyone,

Common advice for inexperienced hackers suggests "scratching an itch." Like many others here, I spent too much time on HN, Google Reader and Twitter searching for interesting stuff, so I decided to write an app that brings interesting links to you with no other distractions.

HighFive uses Twitter and bit.ly's APIs to find interesting links in your timeline. When you log in, you'll see a group of five links with voting arrows. No HN comments or RSS feeds with hundreds of links--just a few interesting articles that you can read, then get back to work.

HighFive was built using Python and Django, and it lives at http://acompa.net/highfive. This is my first app (and I only started using Python last year), so any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks, everyone!

-Alejandro

tl;dr -- Check out my first web app at http://acompa.net/highfive

( 15 comments | 14 points | on HN )

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by rane on Sunday May 15, 2011 @06:23PM (#2550939)

You lost me on the front page. I'm not going to sign in with my twitter even out of curiosity, so perhaps you should make the first impression more compelling.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by achompas on Sunday May 15, 2011 @06:32PM (#2550955)

Sure thing. Do you think it's a copy issue, or that the app isn't explained too well?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by hugh3 on Sunday May 15, 2011 @07:03PM (#2551015)

I'd like to see an example of it in action.

Also I'd need reassurance that you're not about to spam all my followers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by achompas on Sunday May 15, 2011 @07:06PM (#2551025)

Agreed, I'd be worried too. I actually address the spam thing in the Terms section (http://acompa.net/highfive/terms/), and I have a little example in the How It Works section (http://acompa.net/highfive/help/).

Guess I should make those more obvious?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by aaronblohowiak on Sunday May 15, 2011 @07:16PM (#2551057)

when you go to authorize, it only asks for read permissions (as verified by the twitter page.)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by wushupork on Sunday May 15, 2011 @06:51PM (#2550985)

Just tried this and got an error https://skitch.com/spotonpek/r9xxt/500-internal-server-error

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by achompas on Sunday May 15, 2011 @06:54PM (#2550991)

Thanks--I'm getting a bunch of "401: Unauthorized" notices right now. Hmm...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by JoshKalkbrenner on Sunday May 15, 2011 @09:45PM (#2551332)

I received the following error, after I signed-in via Twitter

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by achompas on Sunday May 15, 2011 @08:15PM (#2551176)

All right, I believe (believe!) I fixed the "401: Unauthorized" error. Would really appreciate it if someone could try again.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by bryanhun on Sunday May 15, 2011 @07:04PM (#2551020)

I like the concept. Are you using social engagement (bitly shares, retweets, etc.) to rank the links?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by guynamedloren on Sunday May 15, 2011 @06:49PM (#2550983)

clickable: http://acompa.net/highfive

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by vkkan on Monday May 16, 2011 @10:59AM (#2552709)

I tried to use it but once twitter authorisation done its shows error page sorry

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by hrasm on Monday May 16, 2011 @02:42AM (#2551845)

The site is unreachable now (1540 JST).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by 44Aman on Sunday May 15, 2011 @07:10PM (#2551039)

I'm getting an error trying to OAuth

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: my first app turns Twitter into a news aggregator by achompas on Sunday May 15, 2011 @08:16PM (#2551178)

Can you try again? I was using an outdated version of an OAuth script.

[ Parent | on HN ]