Equipboard Browser Extension

Hi everyone,

I'm brainstorming about possibly making a browser extension for Equipboard. What do you all think of this idea? What would you want to see and what features would be most helpful?

https://imgur.com/a/SzgM4Kv

Thanks in advance for the feedback!

DO IT! DO IT NOW!!!

I think when and where it could be used successfully would be the main thing for me.

Obviously, if I was viewing a webpage that mentions a product by name, such as a discussion thread about a specific product on redddit, a google search, an ecommerce results page, etc... then I could initiate the extension by clicking on a button somewhere or perhaps the extension could jump into action automatically if a high-confidence keyword is detected.

BUT... what I really want, is to be able to hover over a pedalboard image on /r/guitarpedals/ and be told exactly what the pedal is, and get the context info you sketched right there in the heat of my gear lust, when all the pedals are arranged in a lovely bouquet of knobs, cables, and screen-print art.

Chatgpt can already identify pretty well, these results below took about 4 seconds:

https://imgur.com/U8GTPTJ

I've been thinking a lot lately about human recall and sense memory becoming obsolete in socio-economic contexts and what that bodes for a site like equipboard. We may need to change with the times. Chat GPT can probably tell the difference between a dbx160x and 160a but I doubt it can tell you which it prefers and why.

...The Google Bard API can get this information without building a huge database with URLs per product on Equipboard. There will be other AIs that can do this too I am sure.

Are you suggesting the use of the Bard API to determine if a video someone is watching on YouTube, for example, has already been submitted to Equipboard, and if so, serving up what gear has been identified... or are you suggesting we wait a week or so until Bard and others can actually scan the image content of a video (sans caption information) and ID the gear itself they GPT 4 did with the pedal photo?

Getting back to what Michael is actually proposing, I think the information about which artists use a piece of gear is novel and interesting to me, but the aggregated pricing info for Amazon, Sweetwater, and Reverb feels less special, as it's something anyone could offer... but I understand why it needs to be included.

I've been thinking a lot lately about human recall and sense memory becoming obsolete in socio-economic contexts and what that bodes for a site like equipboard. We may need to change with the times. Chat GPT can probably tell the difference between a dbx160x and 160a but I doubt it can tell you which it prefers and why.

At least we'll always have... our pinache.

Here's V1 so far. What do you think?

https://imgur.com/a/iPmIb9h

It's a good looking mockup, Michael.

Can you help us out with some example use-cases?

Cool, here's how it is progressing. Which version do you like more?

https://imgur.com/a/a0ED6jY

For V1, it will pop up or alert you by extension icon when you are on a URL associated with a product where we have an Equipboard association. If you open the extension, it will show you how many people have been associated with that product, link to their equipboard pages and the product page on Equipboard, as well as do a quick price comparison.

Cool, here's how it is progressing. Which version do you like more?

https://imgur.com/a/a0ED6jY

In my experience, when a designer presents you with 2 concepts that are this similar to each other, it's best to say "thanks for including me, but you clearly know what you want, so go make it happen".

I bet I'd like the shorter one when I'm on my laptop screen, and the longer one when I'm on my desktop screen, but they seem to have identical visual priorities, readability and functionality... so whatever the EB style guide (or full-fledged design system) dictates is AOK with me.

For V1, it will pop up or alert you by extension icon when you are on a URL associated with a product where we have an Equipboard association.

What constitutes an association in this case? Is it as simple as having the product name mentioned anywhere on the page, or does it have to be a url hosted by someone you're in an affiliate agreement with?

I bet I'd like the shorter one when I'm on my laptop screen, and the longer one when I'm on my desktop screen, but they seem to have identical visual priorities, readability and functionality... so whatever the EB style guide (or full-fledged design system) dictates is AOK with me.

Thanks for the feedback. We'll go with the shorter option since I'd rather the info be obvious readable on every screen size rather than the styling being less than ideal for smaller screens.

What constitutes an association in this case? Is it as simple as having the product name mentioned anywhere on the page, or does it have to be a url hosted by someone you're in an affiliate agreement with?

We're going to tie it to URLs of stores we know. That's the more accurate way for V1 since we'll have more conviction in the mapping.

We're going to tie it to URLs of stores we know. That's the more accurate way for V1 since we'll have more conviction in the mapping.

Sounds good.

Let me know when you need some Chrome and/or Safari testing on Mac OS.

Thanks, will do! It'll probably be next week or perhaps the one after. I'll keep you posted.

Thank you all for your feedback on this idea! Just to let you know, I've shelved this idea for now. I hope to revisit it soon, but the version I shared could be much better if it was not exclusively product-focused but did a better job incorporating artists. For that to happen, I want to make some other changes to the site first, which will make the value of the extension higher. Anyway, I just wanted to update everyone, but I'm putting this on hold for now and anticipate giving it a shot in a few months.

Thanks for the update, Michael.

I'm happy to hear you're going to hold this one back until my favorite part of EB can shine-through.

Looks nice. I would have just unbolded the sentences where you will display stuff such as numbers, so you can only bold the numbers. Or else set them in italic.