About 5 months ago now, I launched my little social networking experiment called you-vs-me.com. The idea was that people could create discussions, and vote on things they prefer. Using that data, I would work hard at calculating compatibility. It seemed simple to create, and it looked as though it would be a web app that would get people talking.

What went right

I was right about a few things. It was a good idea (for the most part). The design looked inviting, and I got compliments that the app didn’t look like it was made by one guy in his free time. The app was fairly simple to use, and the user interactions seemed meaningful. I was also right that it got people talking. The Twitter integration brought me the majority of my traffic, and even got me some media attention. The first month had me thinking that my idea was taking off as planned.

What went wrong

There are a lot of things I didn’t do right. One of the worst things I did was removing the invite codes too early. I found that it was way easier to market you-vs-me as a closed beta app that was invite only. The other things I did wrong was not using a service like Facebook connect, or OpenID, and not utilizing Twitter to its full potential. I spent too much time thinking about how my app would scale if it got popular, than trying to help it get popular. I think that’s probably a common mistake when a developer sees some early success, but it’s so much easier to just pay a little more for hosting (which I did too).

Unfortunately, even if I had done all of the above right, I think that the concept of the site was just too limiting. I had not given people enough reason to sign in. The app could have been better executed as a powerful API, and Facebook app. But even then, the compatibility algorithm I had created was weak at best, and quite buggy early on. My plan was to use my smoke and mirrors parlor trick compatibility calculation until I could make something compelling. What could have been the focal point of the app just wasn’t powerful enough to convince anyone.

Conclusion

I can feel pretty good that I made a quality application that gave me some great programming, business, and marketing experience. I’m still looking for the next great idea, and right now I’m still not sure what direction to go. Whether I am going towards mobile, web, or some sort of business service as my next side project, I think I learned some valuable lessons.

Twitter has more or less taken over for the events in my life, and the pictures that I take, yet I’d still like an outlet to share things I learn, and my journey in the field of technology. As burnt out as I feel from time to time, I know I love thinking about how to design software, and getting excited about my next big project. Point is I probably won’t be changing careers any time soon, so I might as well be a voice in the community, and have a place to share my thoughts.