Fuck.Yeah!
Team Members
- Bumi
- koos
- purzelrakete
- tmschndr
What
nybbl.me is a microlearning plattform. get twitter sized nibbles of information sent to you, like "you can parse json 2x as fast with the yajl-ruby gem. check it on github.". choose a set, like "rails active record", and get schooled over the next days.
create, share and remix nybbl sets, and get them pushed to your iphone. if you prefer, you can grab them per email or sms, too.
nybbl is learning, the easy way: sweat not included.
nybbl.
mmh, flavourful learning.
Where
- Entry URL:
http://nybbl.me
How
resources:
active merchant - http://www.activemerchant.org/
authlogic_oauth - http://github.com/jrallison/authlogic_oauth/tree/master
find_by_param - http://github.com/bumi/find_by_param/tree/master
haml & sass - http://haml-lang.com/
hoptoad_notifier - http://github.com/thoughtbot/hoptoad_notifier/tree/master
is_rateable - http://github.com/zachinglis/is_rateable/tree/master
limerick_rake - http://github.com/thoughtbot/limerick_rake/tree/master
paperclip (installed not used) - http://github.com/thoughtbot/paperclip/tree/master
rack bug - http://github.com/brynary/rack-bug/tree/master
redirect_love - http://github.com/bumi/redirect_love/tree/master
restful_authentication (installed not used) - http://github.com/technoweenie/restful-authentication/tree/master
serializefu - http://github.com/bumi/serializefu/tree/master
state_machine - http://github.com/pluginaweek/state_machine
prototype-carousel - http://code.google.com/p/prototype-carousel/
ghostie - http://www.atnan.com
prototype & scriptaciolous - http://script.aculo.us/ & http://www.prototypejs.org/
binarylogic-searchlogic - http://github.com/binarylogic/searchlogic/tree/master
binarylogic-settingslogic - http://github.com/binarylogic/settingslogic/tree/master
mislav-will_paginate - http://github.com/mislav/will_paginate/tree/master
ruby-openid - http://rubyforge.org/projects/ruby-openid/
thoughtbot-shoulda - http://github.com/thoughtbot/shoulda/tree/master
thoughtbot-factory_girl - http://www.thoughtbot.com/projects/factory_girl
juliocesar-rack-noie - http://github.com/juliocesar/rack-noie/tree/master
adamwiggins-rest-client - http://github.com/adamwiggins/rest-client/tree/master
pixeltrix-prowler - http://github.com/pixeltrix/prowler/tree/master
javan-whenever - http://github.com/javan/whenever/tree/master
jnunemaker-twitter - http://github.com/jnunemaker/twitter/tree/master
haml-scaffold - http://github.com/norman/haml-scaffold/tree/master
httparty - http://github.com/jnunemaker/httparty/tree/master
railslove template - http://gist.github.com/39969
Other:
Apache
Passenger
Ruby Enterprise
rails 2.3.3
git
cronjob
services:
mobilant (for sms notification)
prowl (for iphone push notification) - http://prowl.weks.net/
paypal (for payment) - https://www.paypal.com/
Comments
I like the idea of the app – micropayments for knowledge were supposed to be big a while ago, but never really took off. The execution leaves something to be desired, though.
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the oddly-shaped cards representing the nybbls (love the name, though). Otherwise, the design is basic – not bad, not good… whoa. Just hovered over the featured sets, and they scrolled and made some card-shuffling noise. Not cool. Expectations are important – and crazy scrolling and noise-making violated mine.
So it seems like creating nybbls works fine. I’m not sure about the rest of the app, though – I hit 500 pages when trying to sign up via Twitter the first few times; I subscribed to a nybbl and it’s supposed to be delivering them to my iPhone, but I haven’t entered my number anywhere. It does look like charging for content might be working, but I’m reluctant to go through with that at this point :)
Innovation: like I said, micropayments have been in the air for quite a while. iTunes and the app store blazed the trail that nybbl is following, and I think it’s done an OK job following them. I don’t see anything truly revolutionary about the app, though.
Likewise, I’m not compelled to use the application. It’s user-generated content, so you’ve got a cold start problem. You’ve also got to overcome the difficulties associated with micropayments online – sending people off to PayPal is a failure, as you’ll get abandoned transactions in droves.
@fritzek thanks for your comment.
I think push notifications in general eat battery life.
But you’re right and we’re thinking about building a nybbl.me iPhone app… sometime in the future :)
And we’ll also extend the ways to how to get nybbls.
nice app: good idea, good visible story and a fun to use. just one down: the use of prowl isn’t the best choice (kicked my iphone to eat battery life). but its not your cup of tea. will use other way to get my nybbl’s :)