It's tough to get a social network or community off the ground without any existing base. Facebook took off because they digitalized existing social networks. Reddit was seeded with content posted by its creators using multiple accounts.

Maybe you could figure out a way to make it valuable as a single-player tool first, and when you have enough single-players, the multiplayer network comes alive.

I haven't tried your app, because I avoid anything Android or iOS, but to me the idea sounds like something worth pursuing.

I could see this site working for shoes. I'd say many people have shoes that would be worth a lot to collectors, but aren't able to easily connect with people who want them.

Also, any way to make it web-accessible?

Another idea I had was to start discussion up around the act of "tinkering." That can be about building discussions around "builds" and the many devices that go into one. Or product repurposing. Not sure if this is of interest to you - is it? Imagine you had the barcode for say one item, but it comes up in "builds" that consist of many items. This would be useful for people who want ideas about what to do with something they own.. okay I've got one product - what are other people combining it with or utilizing it for?

That would work for food ingredients, strangely enough, and could result in a recipe site with the overall end goal of having manufacturers/suppliers participate and claiming their products on-site.

In a recent comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47472138) I've also mentioned the need to build a database of products in the real-world for recycling purposes. Who owns what, and where? Useful for electronics that aren't yet easily recyclable but may be in the future. It could even work for exotic plants and medicinal herbs - people want them fresh, alive and nearby.

I find the idea interesting. But I'd do a more organised search (by category, country, language). Maybe a general directory with a list of more commented products.

As you can only comment products you scan, and you are likely to be the first one, to make it entertaining you should at least be able to nose around other people's comments easily.

One way to make it feel alive is to do what Reddit did: Flintstoning your way through Cold Start.

Get a script that creates various posts on a variety of products and have the board to let people see there's content to discover.

On another note... How can I comment on a place? How does a place have a unique barcode? Maybe you should also make geo-location a base for a chat and not only barcodes?

More serious comment: would be so much better if I could check it out without having to download an app on my phone

That's for later, now you need to answer who is your audience is and why the target audience has to adopt this app.

Anyhow, congrats on the app and keep pushing. I think it’s unique.

You can't just publish an app and expect users. Those days are long over.

This can do some wonders for a review app.

Books also have bar-code so it can also work as something like scan the book's barcode and then review the book or find community which talks about the book (I am imagining then an discord/telegram/whatsapp like interface where people can chat too)

So we scan bar code of a book, then we can join a channel where people can just talk live and make connections from the book.

This will definitely have people who are fed up of social media as-is and want something more niche but unique/authentic so its kind of good on that ground!

A bit tangential but actually I have a domain which I bought called k4qr.com, you mention that qr codes also work, so perhaps you can rename the app as Kodala (with a K) and I am happy donating my domain to you as well for your project, let me know! (funny story but I was actually wondering myself when I had bought that domain if I should do something qr related with that :-] )

Actually another thing but also allow text as input too for web related things for example. I am imagining what I might want to use your product for example.

So I go to your website and just write something say game of thrones and it can show some books or tv show qr code which anybody has scanned and I can click on any of that too and then I can land in their social media and talk about game of thrones

Now you can also do it for something niche with qr codes, perhaps have an optional field, tags etc. that people can enter into qr codes when they first scan it so that people can search them

Just a few suggestions that I have, hope any of them might help you in a meaningful way.

Have a nice day.