Spokes.cc - An image sharing social network for cyclists

JoeKersh

Hi everybody,

I'm Joe, I am a UK web developer and for the past few months i've been working on a new social network for the cycling community called Spokes.

Spokes will be primarily an image sharing platform, allowing bike riders to share their latest photographs whether its an event, a photo of friends, scenery, a route plan, a bike check, head cam pictures or anything else.

Users can follow people with interesting posts, they can favourite pictures and comment on them and connect with new users easily.

Photos can be uploaded by anybody along with a description, title, location and information on camera settings.

Photos can be tagged with specific words or phrases allowing people to search by tag and find exactly what they are looking for.

I don't want Spokes to try and compete with other social platforms, so i have made it easy to share your images in other places like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.

I have also tried to make it as community friendly as i possibly can with a clean, minimal design, no adverts and design focus primarily on the images that are being uploaded.

I intend to launch Spokes in about two weeks time, and for it to be a success i need your help to get interest from the beginning. I am just one man and a computer, i do not have funding, contacts or 3rd party help. It is just me.

Please, visit the website and drop your email in the box to be the first to know when Spokes goes live, and maybe lend a hand by sharing it with your friends

http://spokes.cc

Also, I still have a couple of weeks left for development, so let me know here any features you want and ill do my best to include them from launch.

Plans for the future:
HD Video footage (GoPro etc)
Direct and instant messaging
Mobile apps
Interactive off road and on road route plans using Google maps with reviews and recommendations
Skatepark/Trails reviews and recommendations
Local events / organised rides, races
Possible meet and greet section, classifieds

Looking forward to hearing your feedback! (I also would like ideas for the slogan, the current winner is 'Life on two wheels')

Joe

Angus Young

Good luck!

JoeKersh

Angus Young wrote:

Good luck!

Thanks!

CitizenLee

Sounds good, I'll deffo check it out!

All the best

JoeKersh

Quick update,

Changed my mind completely on the structure of the site a little while back. Spokes is now going to be primarily video sharing for the cycling community. I figured what with the influx of GoPros and action cams around nowadays people will like somewhere to gather that footage together in one place. It will be compatible with Youtube, Vimeo and a couple other video hosting providers and include a reddit style up/down vote system along with comments, user profiles etc.

Long term goal is still to expand and include many more features similar to my first post.

Launching this weekend hopefully!

Joe

cooldad

Nothing much more boring than random riding videos with rubbish music.

Good luck...

thisismat

Seem's like a very tough market to get into with facebook, instagram and other networks like that floating around, I think your first idea of it being more photo, chat and socially based was a better route than a main point for video sharing. Be interesting to see how it takes off, wouldn't mind lending a hand on the design side of things if you needed it though

JoeKersh

thisismat wrote:

Seem's like a very tough market to get into with facebook, instagram and other networks like that floating around, I think your first idea of it being more photo, chat and socially based was a better route than a main point for video sharing. Be interesting to see how it takes off, wouldn't mind lending a hand on the design side of things if you needed it though

Yeah, ill stick it live first and see what the feedbacks like, design help would be great! It looks kinda bootstrappy at the moment.

I just felt that the original idea was more of a competitive social network, which lets face it is not the best idea. The big names have that easily covered. However more of a central hub between the main video providers allowing you to share videos, get feedback and watch them right there on the site and see which ones are highest rated without having to slog through hours of crap seemed to me to be a nice little tool.

I still have all the source code for the original so combining the two together at a later date is certainly not out of the question.

Basically, reddit for videos, but not taking people away from the site, allowing them to watch them right there is what it is.

lostboysaint

JoeKersh wrote:

Quick update,

Changed my mind completely on the structure of the site a little while back. Spokes is now going to be primarily video sharing for the cycling community. I figured what with the influx of GoPros and action cams around nowadays people will like somewhere to gather that footage together in one place. It will be compatible with Youtube, Vimeo and a couple other video hosting providers and include a reddit style up/down vote system along with comments, user profiles etc.

Long term goal is still to expand and include many more features similar to my first post.

Launching this weekend hopefully!

Joe

Why did you change your mind? Haven't you noticed that the most active forums are the ones that have very limited videos and lots of chat? Most people couldn't give a shiny shite for other people's videos and if they do then they are very easily housed in a specific area of a forum.

JoeKersh

lostboysaint wrote:

JoeKersh wrote:

Quick update,

Changed my mind completely on the structure of the site a little while back. Spokes is now going to be primarily video sharing for the cycling community. I figured what with the influx of GoPros and action cams around nowadays people will like somewhere to gather that footage together in one place. It will be compatible with Youtube, Vimeo and a couple other video hosting providers and include a reddit style up/down vote system along with comments, user profiles etc.

Long term goal is still to expand and include many more features similar to my first post.

Launching this weekend hopefully!

Joe

Why did you change your mind? Haven't you noticed that the most active forums are the ones that have very limited videos and lots of chat? Most people couldn't give a shiny shite for other people's videos and if they do then they are very easily housed in a specific area of a forum.

Not sure really, always did it as more of a project to see if i could do it rather than a business idea and this seemed more fun

If people dont care for other peoples videos then surely they will care less about their images?

Thanks for the feedback by the way! I really do appreciate it

lostboysaint

Images are completely different. Have a look at the "where in the world....." thread and "my ride" threads on here. Frenchie posts some stunning images in Pro Race, but do we really want to watch a video of him on his commute through London or of some no-name doing yet another climb/descent of Barry Knows Best or Yoghurt Pots on his Five? I'm as guilty as the next person of being happy to watch Cedric Gracia riding anything, anywhere, but quite frankly once you've watched one GoPro descent of a particular line you've watched them all. However, if you then looked at a photograph of every DH rider cresting the same jump or doing the same drop you'd see a different story in every picture. Different styles, different lines etc. You very, very rarely get that kind of insight or detail in a 170deg wide angle video on a chest or helmet mount.

If you doubt, go and have a look at the Rampage footage. It's really not all that from the Go-pros. The images however are absolutely stunning.

lostboysaint

Have a look at this. It's brilliant. Where on earth was he going to find this line, how steep is it, where the fuck is he going to land etc.etc. Compare it to the video when it looks like he's riding a granite kerb.

Go-pro footage doesn't work well at all for most "extreme" sports, even at an incredibly high level because the ridiculously wide-angle. Watch some surfing footage from Chopes or Jaws and see how big the waves look. Watch some windsurfing footage of some of Koester's ridiculous doubles and see if you can truly appreciate the height etc.etc.

JoeKersh

lostboysaint wrote:

Have a look at this. It's brilliant. Where on earth was he going to find this line, how steep is it, where the fark is he going to land etc.etc. Compare it to the video when it looks like he's riding a granite kerb.

Go-pro footage doesn't work well at all for most "extreme" sports, even at an incredibly high level because the ridiculously wide-angle. Watch some surfing footage from Chopes or Jaws and see how big the waves look. Watch some windsurfing footage of some of Koester's ridiculous doubles and see if you can truly appreciate the height etc.etc.

I hear you, and i totally get what you mean.

I'm going to build images into it too, but keep the popularity up/down vote side of things, and make it easy to filter by just images, just videos or both. Hopefully then it can be a hub to share everything

Angus Young

lostboysaint wrote:

Go-pro footage doesn't work well at all for most "extreme" sports, even at an incredibly high level because the ridiculously wide-angle.

Cobblers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wbvpOI ... freload=10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3PDXmY ... freload=10

FishFish

Angus Young wrote:

Cobblers.

...but the examples you gave are professionally produced - by, er, Gopro!

Angus Young

FishFish wrote:

Angus Young wrote:

Cobblers.

...but the examples you gave are professionally produced - by, er, Gopro!

Did you read the comment I was responding to?

JoeKersh

Spokes launch date is now set to May 17th, next Saturday.

However its pretty much finished and I've put together a pre release version of the site for people to evaluate before it goes live.

Just go to http://dev.spokes.cc and log in with the username spokes and the password spokesdev123 and have a play.

Any feedback, bug reports or feature requests are greatly appreciated!

Joe

The Northern Monkey

its basically another MPORA/vitalmtb/extreme.com?

Photo's only sounded like a nice idea, the way it is now doesnt seem to differentiate from any of the above sites...

Okarnill

I too would prefer photos simply because I don't have a Go Pro and am not likely to get one - new rider only just manaaged the bike and essential kit!

What I do have is enthusiasm and a camera phone. Whilst I am not likely to be doing videos even if I had a go pro because I'm not that good yet - sharing pictures and seeing inspiring pix of others riding all different kinds of terrain is really useful for the noob who still needs to sort out where her feet go during bunny hops. Go Pro is great for lines, pictures are pure gold for inspiration and studying position.

Just two pennorth, good luck with the project I'll definitely check it out once it's fully live.

rockmonkeysc

Video's from ameture riders is generally dull as sh1t. My GoPro hasn't been used for six months because I realised how crap the videos are.
There are so many other websites offering this facility already. Unless you are offering something new people will stick with the established websites.

JoeKersh

Okay cool, thanks for the feedback!

I will make it more centralised around images, and i think i'm going to minimalise the colour scheme a lot more so the images really stand out from the page.

Angus Young

JoeKersh wrote:

Okay cool, thanks for the feedback!

I will make it more centralised around images...

Don't let a committee design your site. Have a vision of your own and implement it with conviction. Design by committee is the death of anything good.

While you should listen to feedback, bear in mind that when you ask people for their opinions that's exactly what you'll get, opinions. And that is often not reflective of the actual experience that a consumer will have when they come across your product and engage (or not) with it. There's a certain mindset that takes hold once you ask someone for their opinion, suddenly everyone's an expert, and that leads people to respond in a different way to your potential consumers. Part of my job is presenting ideas and you have to learn to 'read' your audience and understand that, while there might be some good ideas in their feedback, it comes wrapped up in a whole lot of nonsense driven by a whole lot of things other than an analysis of how real consumers are going to respond to your product in everyday use.

Usually the best things you can take away from feedback will be things of a mechanical nature rather than any grand ideas. If you're given to responding this way and that to every criticism and suggestions, either your idea is not strong enough or you're not strong enough to see it through.

lostboysaint

Angus Young wrote:

lostboysaint wrote:

Go-pro footage doesn't work well at all for most "extreme" sports, even at an incredibly high level because the ridiculously wide-angle.

Cobblers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wbvpOI ... freload=10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3PDXmY ... freload=10

The only bit of those that's half impressive is the stuff shot from the drone. So my argument remains - POV stuff from a GoPro or similar is shite and it's the stuff shot from elsewhere that's truly impressive.

Have a look at Megaskill's Skye video. The bit where he's riding the ridge is rubbish from his GoPro, just a grey, rocky slope, but the shots from the drone showing how steep it is and how narrow the path is are completely mindblowing.

lostboysaint

Angus Young wrote:

JoeKersh wrote:

Okay cool, thanks for the feedback!

I will make it more centralised around images...

Don't let a committee design your site. Have a vision of your own and implement it with conviction. Design by committee is the death of anything good.

Yeah, 'cos no-one does market research before they launch their idea, ever!

Angus Young

lostboysaint wrote:

The only bit of those that's half impressive is the stuff shot from the drone.

You must be just too cool for school if you don't find most of that footage impressive.

Angus Young

lostboysaint wrote:

Angus Young wrote:

JoeKersh wrote:

Okay cool, thanks for the feedback!

I will make it more centralised around images...

Don't let a committee design your site. Have a vision of your own and implement it with conviction. Design by committee is the death of anything good.

Yeah, 'cos no-one does market research before they launch their idea, ever!

Did you only read the first paragraph, then?

lostboysaint

Angus Young wrote:

lostboysaint wrote:

Angus Young wrote:

JoeKersh wrote:

Okay cool, thanks for the feedback!

I will make it more centralised around images...

Don't let a committee design your site. Have a vision of your own and implement it with conviction. Design by committee is the death of anything good.

Yeah, 'cos no-one does market research before they launch their idea, ever!

Did you only read the first paragraph, then?

You only wrote one!

And I'm not too cool for school, I just have my own vision and implement it with conviction! When you can come up with some footage that is genuinely impressive and doesn't rely on drones or other camera positions to show the true scale or enormity of what is being carried out then let me know I can let you have plenty of examples from surfing Teahopu'u, Jaws, The Eddie Aikau, Nazarre etc. or windsurfing or MTB or skateboarding or any other extreme sport you want to name where the POV stuff is just poor compared with the other camera positions.

Here's another image - how would this look from a GoPro?

Angus Young

lostboysaint wrote:

Angus Young wrote:

lostboysaint wrote:

Angus Young wrote:

JoeKersh wrote:

Okay cool, thanks for the feedback!

I will make it more centralised around images...

Don't let a committee design your site. Have a vision of your own and implement it with conviction. Design by committee is the death of anything good.

Yeah, 'cos no-one does market research before they launch their idea, ever!

Did you only read the first paragraph, then?

You only wrote one!

There are three in the post you responded to which flesh out the point made in the first that you quoted.

Angus Young

lostboysaint wrote:

And I'm not too cool for school, I just have my own vision and implement it with conviction! When you can come up with some footage that is genuinely impressive and doesn't rely on drones or other camera positions to show the true scale or enormity of what is being carried out then let me know I can let you have plenty of examples from surfing Teahopu'u, Jaws, The Eddie Aikau, Nazarre etc. or windsurfing or MTB or skateboarding or any other extreme sport you want to name where the POV stuff is just poor compared with the other camera positions.

That is all irrelevant, though, given the number of people posting their footage on YouTube and elsewhere. Regardless of the merits of the footage, clearly people like posting this stuff. The only question to be discussed here is whether the OP has an attractive vehicle for this footage or not. If the quality of footage were a driver of success, youTube would be out of business, given that 90% of everything posted there is crap.

As I said in the previous post, asking for opinions can lead you all sorts of dead ends.

lostboysaint

Angus Young wrote:

That is all irrelevant, though, given the number of people posting their footage on YouTube and elsewhere. Regardless of the merits of the footage, clearly people like posting this stuff. The only question to be discussed here is whether the OP has an attractive vehicle for this footage or not. If the quality of footage were a driver of success, youTube would be out of business, given that 90% of everything posted there is crap.

As I said in the previous post, asking for opinions can lead you all sorts of dead ends.

No it isn't, it's directly relevant. If there's that many options elsewhere then what's to differentiate, other than it's just a load of crap GoPro cycling videos instead of the diversity of elsewhere and, as has already been pointed out, that market is already saturated by Mpora and others.

It can indeed. Like "just turn out another crap video channel that competes with professionally produced ones", instead of doing something that would have real value and offer real talking points and engagement.

Angus Young

lostboysaint wrote:

Angus Young wrote:

That is all irrelevant, though, given the number of people posting their footage on YouTube and elsewhere. Regardless of the merits of the footage, clearly people like posting this stuff. The only question to be discussed here is whether the OP has an attractive vehicle for this footage or not. If the quality of footage were a driver of success, youTube would be out of business, given that 90% of everything posted there is crap.

As I said in the previous post, asking for opinions can lead you all sorts of dead ends.

No it isn't, it's directly relevant. If there's that many options elsewhere then what's to differentiate, other than it's just a load of crap GoPro cycling videos instead of the diversity of elsewhere and, as has already been pointed out, that market is already saturated by Mpora and others.

It can indeed. Like "just turn out another crap video channel that competes with professionally produced ones", instead of doing something that would have real value and offer real talking points and engagement.

So there aren't a million and one places that you can find quality footage and pictures already?