@ogtfaber - sounds like you're tackling some similar use cases and benefits as Highlight (which recently launched a major "2.0" update, discussion here: http://www.producthunt.co/posts/223). The biggest difference from what I see is that Ding Dong is focused on explicit sharing where as Highlight is more passive (correct me if I'm wrong).
What do you think of Highlight and what is the long-term vision of Ding Dong?
Which cities have the most active user bases? Are you seeing a specific threshold in terms of city size past which engagement / virality increases by an order of magnitude?
Welcome, @ogtfaber! I first discovered Ding Dong ~year ago. You've made some significant changes since then.
What is the most surprising user behavior or discovery you've found building Ding Dong?
@ryanhoover we have learned that there are tons of moments in the day people think of someone or want to connect. For example, you hang out in bar and think of some friends, but you don't do anything with it. Or you think about someone and would like to say hi without getting into a conversation. Ding Dong reduces these frictions by just saying "this is where I'm at" in a tap. We found that it's very rewarding to get this, as a photo on the map.
Many of our users experienced a serendipity moment, where you are accidentally close to each other and just decide to meet up.
With Ding Dong you only share something with friends you choose at a specific moment. It's about the connection between you and these friends. Apps like Find my Friends, Highlight and others based around location are more about finding out where friends are in a passive way. These apps don't have anything to do with two way communication in the first place.
@ryanhoover we are indeed very much about explicit sharing.
There are two reasons, first of app communication with your location and a photo becomes meaningful when you target it specifically. Secondly we want to lower friction, and being able to share something with one specific person makes this possible.
I don't see ourselves in the same field as highlight, although different use cases always overlap with many other products.
We want to make it as simple and engaging as possible to keep in touch, based on the context awareness of mobile devices nowadays.
@eric_seufert it is pretty relevant to have a certain density, but its not specifically tied to a city. It seems ti be much more relevant to get density in specific groups of users. We have people using the app within the city, next to sharing moments also for coordinating, meeting up, etc. On the other hand people use it if they are far away from each other (kind of like sending each other a postcard all the time).
I don't think the network effect or 'tipping point' is relevant for us, since we don't have public or curated content.
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