I built a tool that helps predict HN front page success
Optimizes for HN algorithms when the best strategy is just building something good.

Fun flip board demo, but primarily marketing for the quickish hosting service.
Developers curious about flip board animations, quickish platform users
Split-flap display demos · HN visualizers
The idea here is that people (like me or you) can create something neat like this, and others can remix it, change it and publish their own version. This is that all in action and it worked great. I wrote a blog about it (the blog is dogfooding, it's just an app hosted on quickish that uses the built in db lib).
For the HN version of this flip board I use their firebase api via the built in quickish server functions that make use of the fact that the front-end can get realtime updates (now that you mention firebase) from cloud function db updates. Of course that's over-kill but I wanted to show something fun. You can remix and host your own version for free, just need a google oauth login that's it.
OG flip board I built (Portland Based - Current Weather): https://popflame.quickish.space/flipboard-preview
Blog post that dives a tiny bit deeper: https://popflame.quickish.space/blog/hacker-news-on-a-split-...
Optimizes for HN algorithms when the best strategy is just building something good.
Newspaper-style HN reader that actually respects the site's text-heavy roots.
Inverted the usual approach: started with quantum structure, found the game inside it.
Yet another HN frontend with point highlighting nobody asked for.
Clean, read-only HN front page that strips the noise for focused reading.
Yet another transit tracker, but the TFL-specific focus is handy for Londoners.