Caption Cat is a creative challenge. Every day we post a photo and you get to write the caption. Come up with a funny caption and upvote your favorites. Start your day with a smile right meow!
Hi all!
I've had this idea for a few years and kept coming back. So a week ago, while sitting in bed, I challenged myself to build a prototype in 15 minutes. It worked!
I got a very basic prototype working where people could sign up for an account (email/password) and post captions. I would manually add the photos in the database and hotlink them. No file uploads, no voting, no anti spam measures, no real design to speak of. Not even a dedicated domain name.
I shared the prototype with some friends and the WIP community. Based on the feedback and user behavior I made some refinements and added some features. First of all people kept sending me their captions in the chat as they couldn't be bothered to create an account. So I added Twitter and Facebook sign in. I also added upvotes to have non-funny and spammy captions automatically move down the list + give more of a game element to it. Initially there were both upvotes and downvotes, but people kept downvoting each other so I removed those. I also added a "hall of fame" leaderboard to see where you rank amongst the community. How funny actually are you?
Finally I improved the design. Added some character by adding a bunch of cat illustrations I licenses from Creative Market.
I don't have concrete future plans for it yet. We'll see if people like it. If there's enough interest I'll build out the site and eventually look into monetizing it. Here's a silly idea I had: https://caption.cat/eyeballs
Curious to hear what you think! Please give it a try.
@marckohlbrugge Nice idea Mark. This could be paid service for people whos caption get chosen. Marketers, entrepreneurs can pay for captions on their Instagram posts, etc.
Marc, this is a fun idea. My daughter LOVES captioning illustrations, she'd flip at the cats gif.
What tools did you use for the original 15 minute version? What is your stack now?
@benjamin_wheeler I don't know how old your daughter is, but viewer discretion is advised. You never know what kind of captions people will come up with.
I used Ruby on Rails, Heroku (hosting), and the Devise Ruby gem (signup/signin). I later added OmniAuth Ruby gem (sign in with Facebook/Twitter), acts_as_votable Ruby gem (voting), and switched to Hatchbox on Linode for hosting.
@abadesi Haha yeah not everybody shares the same taste in humor. Plus there are a bunch of inside jokes, because many of the beta testers came from the same group chat (WIP).
My hope is that by publicly launching Caption Cat it will attract a more diverse set of users and with the voting system in place the funniest captions will automatically surface towards the top.
I started making captions for this site since its birth, it requires reflection and creativity. It's not only funny but it's also relaxing. I like seeing something in the world and giving it an unexpected meaning.
Pros:
Funny captions and a great photo every day.
Cons:
None.
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Totally in love with this concept! kudos team!
Pros:
Awesome concept!
Cons:
none
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@marckohlbrugge, the “didn’t receive confirmation” link doesn’t seem to work - and I didn’t receive the confirmation. :) Fun idea, thanks for making!
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I started making captions for this site since its birth, it requires reflection and creativity. It's not only funny but it's also relaxing. I like seeing something in the world and giving it an unexpected meaning.
Pros:Funny captions and a great photo every day.
Cons:None.
Totally in love with this concept! kudos team!
Pros:Awesome concept!
Cons:none