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Show HN: Stacker – The Easiest way to Publish and Reply on Social Media

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35 points by chrisdc 12 years ago · 51 comments

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bencevans 12 years ago

Would like to see some screenshots on the frontpage. I don't want to give access to my social profiles if I can't actually see what benefits something gives me (text just doesn't cut it)

mbesto 12 years ago

For some reason I just assume that HootSuite, TweetDeck, etc. all do this, no? I use Buffer and don't see anything entirely compelling to switch. I also have tried HootSuite and the rate limiting and interface bugged the hell out of me.

Also, up your pricing. I bet you'll get more customers. I'd recommend: Free (for 30 days, no credit card), then $5/month, Amazing at $25/month and biz at $100.

  • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

    Buffer is a great tool, however it only supports Publishing while Stacker supports both Publishing and Replying from one app.

    I wrote a blog post on the core advantage we offer recently https://www.getstacker.com/blog/4/the-million-problem

    Excellent feedback on the pricing! Right now our main focus is to grow our customer base.

    • mbesto 12 years ago

      > Right now our main focus is to grow our customer base.

      Cool! Don't discredit raising prices with turning people away.

chrisdcOP 12 years ago

As the founder of Stacker, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have

  • joshcanhelp 12 years ago

    This looks great!

    I was thinking of something similar last year but much simpler. I just wanted a single place to check all incoming requests. Not even a complete inbox, just a place all the notifications could go.

    Any plans to hook into WordPress at all? Comments, bbPress/BuddyPress replies/topics, etc? Will there be any kind of custom incoming/outgoing with feed and endpoints? Any plans for a native mobile app?

    Thanks!

  • computerjunkie 12 years ago

    I don't have much to say, but your idea is something I also thought about a year ago when it comes to managing social media accounts and being able to publish posts simultaneously all on one platform. I'm happy to see that somebody also had the same train of thought and made it a reality.

    A couple of questions;

    1. Is there a desktop platform? 2. Any Add-on for Chrome?

    Great work by the way.

    • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

      Thanks so much for the kind words!

      We dont have a native desktop client at the moment, its a fully responsive Web-app so you can run it in any modern web browser.

      We do have a Plugin for Chrome that makes it easy to Share from any web page - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stacker/bgckommphf...

      • computerjunkie 12 years ago

        Great, just another question, will you expand to other social media platforms any soon?

        Just a thought, your user base will likely consist marketers, promoters, social media businesses and people who actively use more than 2 social networks. Your pricing model is good, but if the service is as good as you say its then you may want to price "business" model a little higher.

        I guess whats important is to gain an active user base first and then decide to slightly change the pricing model later on.

        • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

          Great question!

          Right now, we are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (many more in the pipeline). We want to be on all the networks as soon as possible and even go beyond just social networks (think Tumblr, Disqus and others)

          You are absolutely right, our focus right now is building up the user base. We want to be as competitive as possible at this stage.

  • dpweb 12 years ago

    Very nice! Would love a rest api for this.. Thanks,

thomasfromcdnjs 12 years ago

A lot like Buffer, but I like the inbox part too which Buffer doesn't have.

I can't believe Google Plus doesn't have an API, I would love to cross-post my stuff, it's crazy!

  • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

    You are absolutely right, the Inbox is Stacker's most used feature. We find users coming back multiple times a day to respond to incoming requests from their fans and followers.

    We would be super happy if Google+ opened up their API. Its a great network, just needs to become more open!

    • ceejayoz 12 years ago

      G+ is probably trying to avoid what happened with App.net - cross-posting clients leading to seemingly active but entirely non-participating accounts.

      • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

        Could be, but I think at the very least they should open it up for G+ Pages.

rbanffy 12 years ago

Am I the only one here old enough to remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics

anarchitect 12 years ago

Well done guys, this is really slick. Some feedback:

* The marketing site should have screenshots. The app looks fantastic - you should show it off!

* When I installed the Chrome plugin all my (many) tabs reloaded. Is this normal?

* I never saw any mention of price until I discovered MORE > BILLING, and was surprised I ended up on the "team" plan. This needs to be worked into the onboarding somehow.

joekinley 12 years ago

Not a question, just a comment that this kinda reminds me of WUPHF. Also, how come this hasn't been done earlier, or am I just missing out?

  • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

    Stacker isin't so much of a "WUPHF" as it is a Central place for you to Publish and Reply across all your Social Media accounts at once.

    Typically, if you are a brand that posts to multiple Social accounts, you then need to login to each account before you can Reply/Favorite/Like incoming messages from fans and followers.

bussiere 12 years ago

Nice , it's may what i 'am looking for.

But is there any way to export our data ?

If not will you make an app ?

It may be too specific but my dream is a thunderbird like program to compose message offline / read them offline / search them offline and export my data.

My need may be too specific, but i will share your app in my circle btw.

Regards

  • bussiere 12 years ago

    And i don't know if it's relevant but i will be ready to pay around 50$ per month for such an app.

    And some of my friends too (cm manager will be interested too).

  • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

    Very interesting. I will be sure to forward that to our development team.

    • bussiere 12 years ago

      When the cm work (i was one sometime), we have to explain our work or give some feedback of our work to management or other people.

      Being able to make excel stats , diagram & co will always give us a point.

    • bussiere 12 years ago

      if you add an export report like csv file or excel for the stats, the pdf is not enough i think.

      Even for the online version

      il will interest all the CM manager or public oriented account.

      i will pass the word on my cm friend in september i'am off the social network for one month...

      Regards

      • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

        I like the idea of a CSV export. It shouldn't be too difficult to do since we have all the data with us. Our PDF reports are very detailed though. Will be sure to pass this on to our Dev team. Thanks!

        • bussiere 12 years ago

          yep when you will do that you'll be one of the best tool for CM ... :)

          And for the export of the data as inbox or etc ....

          Why not a paid api ? Instead of having an offline version i could build mine on the top of your. Just calling your api.

          Like 10$ or 20$ per month for accessing the api.

          This is my need only i don't garantee that i could be a viable business model (i am not sure that cm need that).

          Regards

          • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

            We will consider that although I'm not sure the economics would work out.

            Our API will go live soon(possibly as early as next week). It will be Free and you will be able to access all the data under your own account or any account that gives you permission to do so.

jamesone 12 years ago

The inbox feature is great! Makes a good addition to Buffer[1] and Polarbear[2] to reach and manage all networks.

[1] http://www.bufferapp.com [2] http://www.polarbearapp.com

durmphoto 12 years ago

As a pro photographer, this could very useful. Is it possible to post to my business page on FB and not my personal page? They have the same sign in, and I simply switch back and forth from the FB menu. I have never found a social media manager that can handle this.

  • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

    Yes absolutely! With Stacker you can post to.. * just your Personal Profile or * just your Business page or * to both your Personal and Business page(s) at the same time :)

    Stacker is also the first Social Publishing tool that lets you create Photo Albums on the fly, which should be very helpful for pro photographers like yourself.

cavemanklaus 12 years ago

This is very nice. I'm curious about your technology stack for putting this all together, if you wouldn't mind sharing some behind the scenes I'd be most grateful.

  • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

    I'm happy to share. I'll do a blog post on this down the line, but here's the outline....

    Node.JS at the core. Redis and AWS SimpleDB for the Database. Major caching at all levels (frontend/backend). Response times of less than 50ms for most calls. Web Sockets(SocketIO) for real time communications.

    The frontend is built entirely in AngularJS with a few jQuery integrations. We write all our CSS in LESS and compile it using Grunt.

    We used PHP (LAMP) for our last major Project and I can say that for what we are trying to achieve, NodeJS is much much much faster(10x) and leaner(we manage the same traffic with 20% of the server resources used on our last project with PHP)

sjs382 12 years ago

Very cool. When I compare free http://circular.io/ to any product like this though, free always wins.

  • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

    Stacker has a very well featured Free-for-Life plan (everything that Circular offers and more)!

    We love Circular, but it only posts to Twitter. Stacker posts to Facebook (Profiles/Pages/Groups), Twitter, LinkedIn (Profiles/Pages/Groups) and we are in the process of adding in many more networks.

    With Stacker you also get a Universal Inbox that displays and lets you Like/Favorite/Reply-to incoming messages from across all your Social Media accounts in one place.

    • sjs382 12 years ago

      Which is probably great for your audience, but isn't right for me. That said, I'm probably one of the worst customers for a social app—I'm cheap and I derive only a little bit of value from social networking/marketing.

      What I get from Circular.io (and Stacker doesn't seem to offer in the free plan?) is the ability to schedule posts for X twitter accounts (currently, X = 8).

      • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

        You are right, but with our Amazing plan you can have 2 way communication with your Twitter followers for just $10/month and upto X = 12 Twitter accounts with in-depth click tracking and lots lots more :)

strict9 12 years ago

Looks nice. Is this useable without shortened URLs? That has kept me away from similar service offerings.

  • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

    Yes, you can turn off link-shortening if you like. If you do choose that option, the only thing you wont see is the Click tracking under Reports.

    Stacker also supports using your own Custom domain to shorten links. Drop me a note at chris@getstacker.com once you've signed up for an account and I'll be happy to help you set it up.

aembleton 12 years ago

Can I get a combined timeline of my twitter and facebook 'walls'?

ljsocal 12 years ago

love the idea and I know I'd use it extensively but there's no way I'm giving such broad FB profile/activity access. Eliminate that and you have a winner.

  • chrisdcOP 12 years ago

    Hi ljsocal, unfortunately we require every single permission we ask for in order to provide all the functionality we currently do. If its a specific permission you have issue with, I'm more than happy to elaborate on exactly why Stacker needs it.

    You can rest assured that we encrypt all sensitive information before storing it in our databases.The security and privacy of our customers is our number One priority. The Only non essential field we ask for is your Date of Birth, and we only do that so that we can wish you on your special day.

athomas001 12 years ago

Great tool. Simply Awesome.

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