Today we're launching version 2.0! We've added a bunch of fixes and improvements along with colour palette generation for every photo. The library with palettes can be viewed through your dashboard.
I decided to continue to offer the service for free but added the ability to make a $1 monthly donation via Stripe through your dashboard. Donations help out a lot in regards to the Heroku costs and continued improvements to the service :)
@rrhoover — Personally the only challenges I've faced working on side projects is my ADD. I have lots of ideas of things I would like to build, to scratch my own itch... but there is only so much time.
In regards to how Strategyzer Inc. feels about working on side projects, they are very supportive! A lot of the things I focus on for side projects more than likely are eventually leveraged in something I work on full-time :) For me, side projects are really about learning. Being able to play with something you normally wouldn't in your full-time work is awesome. Then it gets the juices flowing in terms of how it could potentially work its way into something you do full-time.
+1 for side projects from me!
Hi everyone!
For my inaugural post I thought I would share with you a side project I launched about 4 months ago. You can read more about the "why" behind building it in the blog post I added to the related links above :)
Big thanks to @rrhoover for building this platform and creating a sense of community around discovering and sharing such cool products!
Thanks for joining, @hopkinschris! Of course Product Hunt wouldn't exist without @nbashaw. :)
I love the simplicity of Splashbox. It inspires me to explore other creative products that could be built on top of the Dropbox platform.
What are your plans with the project?
I have a few ideas top of mind.
There's the most obvious one which is extend the library of photos in which Splashbox pulls from and then pushes out to users. Currently it only pulls from http://unsplash.com — (From the team at ooomf, who are really nice people!).
I've also contemplated the idea of expanding the service to provide photos for iOS devices. I'm not sure if this works (yet) but, if your phone has access to the images from within your Dropbox shared folder (through the Dropbox iOS app) then you could use the same photos you enjoy on your desktop as your phone wallpaper as well. Could be neat!
I heard from a bunch of users that they run creative agencies and Splashbox saves them time by providing them quick access to high quality creative commons photos (offline and online) for use in mockups, placeholders, and final design work for clients. They don't have to scour the web for assets.
Lately, because of that previous feedback I've been thinking about more features that might help others running creative agencies. An example, running each of the photos through some color dominance JS script to determine the palette of each photo, which could help designers etc. when conceptualizing current or future work look and feel :)
The Ooomf team is awesome (cc @mikaelcho).
Anecdote: imagery is super important IMHO for bloggers. I try to incorporate relevant, interesting images in my posts but sometimes it's hard to find the right creative commons photo (although http://compfight.com is useful for this). Admittedly, I've spent >30 mins searching for a single photo multiple times and I know I'm not the only one. There may be an opportunity to target bloggers and modify the product to meet their needs.
@hopkinschris - You're also working full-time at Strategyzer. Have you had any challenges working on side projects while employed? For some, this is a controversial topic so I'm curious to hear your general take on side projects.
ThatCleanLife
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