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I'm relaunching Radius [1] - far too long after the original Show HN [2] (I'll blame the day job for that).
Radius started out from my frustration with not knowing what was going on around me. The initial plan was to "show all and every type of event" from big to small, but over time I narrowed the focus to communities, groups, events, and helping people connect through them.
The initial Show HN gave me 150+ comments (surprising, looking back, given how terrible the plain Bootstrap UI was...) with a huge amount of useful feedback and feature requests. I've spent the time since then working through that, along with additional requests from groups using Radius, and it finally feels ready for a proper relaunch.
I've also recently added "Activities" [3] - which are lightweight events, independent of groups, intended to help people find others to do things with - for example:
> John is going for a cycle and a coffee in New York at 10am
People can join and vote for a time that works for them.
I've got a bunch of ideas for where to go next with this, including things like open sourcing and federation, but those are for another day!
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
P.S. it's built with Ruby on Rails, for those interested. I highly suspect it would have taken me 2 more years to get to this point without Rails!
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40717398
[3] https://radius.to/documentation/activities/post-an-activity
Discussion (20 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
This isn't just a complaint about the UI being "vibe-coded-coded" or incomplete, but the product itself not making the happy path very useful or confusing.
For example why is the landing page trying to sell this like a b2b saas app or hit me with a bait and switch login wall, or why is the screenshot not just the actual directory/a search bar, why do I have to know to go to groups? (Also, why are you showing me activity feeds or funneling me into that when I'm on your website primarily to look at groups and events? Why would I go to your site to look at that) Then on the group page it would be very convenient if there were just an edit/post button that I can click to draft or actually make a group (and then maybe quickly group by / filter by location or region). Same thing with adding an event, you could have a + button with a modal to draft it and only hit me with the login wall when I try to post.
The event/group UI actually looks decent but I really think you need to prioritize the core activation flow and design. Right now it makes activation, understanding what the product is, and doing the first thing I would want to do (look at groups or events) not obvious. I'm somewhat of a hypocrite on this but also speaking from experience - there's no point in spending time marketing a product with own-goals like that.
Why are your docs so much better designed/clear than the first thing I see or want to do! You don't need docs for this, it's like three database tables you can search and post to! Why the globe?? I'm not even sure why I would want or need to directly browse your users but why is there so much more effort here than in the groups UI (the thing I would be using this for)?
Since this is a pretty conventional crud app the only reason people would really have to use it is UX (or an audience you don't have yet). Trying to be helpful here because I think you should keep working on it and it's something I'd want to use if there were more attention to detail, which you could prob fix in less than a day with a coding agent.
Yeah, I don't disagree! In a way, I'm trying to combat that by facilitating people actually getting together in the real world, through events, activities and shared interests. I've deliberately not allowed free-form text posts or DMs between users, so it doesn't just turn into another social media feed.
> why would someone switch from direct communication (WhatsApp groups, Facebook groups..etc)
Yup, I think it depends on the size and nature of the group. A meetup between friends probably doesn't need a web presence at all, and WhatsApp would be perfectly adequate.
For larger clubs or public groups that want to attract new people, though, there's value in having somewhere discoverable with proper event pages, recurring events, RSVPs, waitlists, calendars, etc., so that's who this is for.
why should I use this versus luma or something similar?
So I think Luma is mostly focused on beautiful event pages (which they do well) and event calendars rather than the community/group itself being the core unit. In that way, we're more of a competitor to Meetup.com. I don't think a local cycling club would use Luma to organise a weekly cycle, for example.
Compared with Meetup, I'm trying to keep Radius a bit simpler and more flexible for organisers. Pricing is a flat £12/month for Pro groups, and things like our Events API [1], embeddable event widgets [2], calendar subscriptions, guest RSVPs and waitlists are all available for free groups as well.
There's also the Activities [3] feature I mentioned - not super applicable to you if you're an organiser but regular users might find it useful. You don't need to create or run a group at all and can just say "I'm going cycling Saturday, anyone want to join?" and see who nearby is interested. AFAIK, I don't think Meetup or Luma etc have anything like this.
[1] https://radius.to/documentation/api-reference/create-events
[2] https://radius.to/documentation/organizer-tools/embed-widget
[3] https://radius.to/documentation/activities/post-an-activity
It should be as easy as here on HN:
Hello! I think Hamburg in Germany needs a good solopreneur meetup. If anyone is interested, let me know!
This is what I would have posted, but I got stuck somewhere along the long signup process.
The sign-up form only asks for name, email, password and a pre-filled location - there's some quick "Interests" selection after that, but I felt it was fairly easy/quick to fill out. Maybe I could move that out of the sign-up.
Which part specifically felt too complicated? I'll revisit it and see if there's anything else I can shave off or make it smoother!
Eg meetup at least has critical mass of users and meetups
Maybe! Or maybe there's more going on than you know about? A meetup I regularly attend now existed in my city for 9 years before I found out about it - they just had no good way to advertise themselves easily.
> Eg meetup at least has critical mass of users and meetups
It definitely does. That's part of why I've made the Activity [1] feature - to give individual users something useful to do even before we have that critical mass of established groups.
[1] https://radius.to/documentation/activities/post-an-activity
What would make it “it” for you? Is there a specific feature(s) you think is missing?
That feels meaningfully different from Meetup.
Curious which has been the better wedge so far: bringing existing groups and their members over, or creating new local connections through individual activity posts?
Thank you! Nice to hear this makes sense to someone other than myself :)
> Curious which has been the better wedge so far: bringing existing groups and their members over, or creating new local connections through individual activity posts?
I'll have to get back to you on that hah! I've only launched the activities this week, so we shall see!