Learning from my web app 23 visits at a time

Re:Learning from my web app 23 visits at a time by ars on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @05:52AM (#3074951)

Not sure if this is the right place to tell you this, but no one wants to buy a pdf of a star chart. If I want a computer star chart I'll use a program to generate one live. It might not be as pretty as yours, but it's interactive.

Now if you actually printed large (huge?) format posters of the star chart you would have a market.

People would love to print a start chart as visible in a specific special place and time. It would be a great gift for weddings, birthdays, graduation, etc.

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Re:Learning from my web app 23 visits at a time by rmc on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @08:15AM (#3075248)

Less space than a Nomad, no wireless. Lame.

For those who don't get it, this is the slashdot review when Apple released the iPod. It's fair to say that the techies with their feature lists completely mispredicted the biggest music player of the decade.

Likewise, just because you as a programmer can do something like "just use a programme", doesn't mean that everyone can do it. There are people out there who can't "just use a programme"

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Re:Learning from my web app 23 visits at a time by Ecio78 on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @06:00AM (#3074966)

I agree. Maybe you should highlight the "special place and time" aspect, and also you could see if it's possibile to get a deal with some online printing service (i hope some have API) so people can directly order the printed chart.

A preview, as said by other user, would be good (and also the free share-on-FB feature could be useful to spread the word of your site)

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Re:Learning from my web app 23 visits at a time by juanre on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @06:07AM (#3074979)

Thanks, I'll certainly check into the hardcopy options. The preview is there, although from what I gather in a totally non-obvious way :-)

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Re:Learning from my web app 23 visits at a time by juanre on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @06:05AM (#3074976)

Thank you for the suggestion. I've thought about setting up an agreement with a print shop, where I can send the PDF or PS to them and they do the printing and sending. But before going that route I wanted to figure out if anybody would want a personalized star chart to start with. Looks like I need to look seriously into it.

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Re:Learning from my web app 23 visits at a time by narag on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @07:02AM (#3075107)

Check http://blogalia.com/

There are some professional astronomers blogging over there, doing divulgation. They might be interested. At the very least, they will link the site.

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Re:Learning from my web app 23 visits at a time by vrruiz on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @12:09PM (#3076229)

Thanks for the mention! (I'm the founder of Blogalia :)

IMHO, greaterskies.com is interesting as a project, but:

- I don't think anyone will pay for simple visual star charts: there are free sites, free desktop programs and free tablet/mobile apps out there.

- If not for visual, but deep sky: there is 3Atlas from José R. Torres (9, 11 and 13 mag sky atlas): http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/tools.html Available for free in PDF.

- The marketing problem: find your tribe! There are some forums, like cloudynights.com (or http://www.asociacionhubble.org/portal/index.php/foro in Spanish), but this are mostly for dedicated observers.

My 2 cents.

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Re:Learning from my web app 23 visits at a time by pragmatic on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @11:11AM (#3075955)

Let me buy a nice large star chart on quality paper with fulfillment via Amazon.

Yes customization is good, but just the star chart itself would be a cool present for a kid.

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