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Ask YC: Do you like our overview video?

3 points by glen ↗ HN
We just finished up our marketing video and would love some feedback from the community. We've showed it to about 25 people so far and have received some solid criticism.

You can find it at www.nixty.com. Just click on the button that says "Catch the NIXTY vision".

Our specific questions are:

1. How do you feel at the end of the video?

2. Would you take the next step and explore the site?

3. Would you sign-up?

4. What don't you like?

You'll notice that there aren't specifics yet as to what the service will offer. We can't really disclose too much yet, but will in the near future. Our goals are to: 1. Show the big picture 2. Be open and welcoming 3. Encourage people to join us.

Thanks for taking the time to check it out.

15 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 47.6 ms ] thread
utnick
Pros: I like the background music.. video makes me feel happy for some reason

Cons: No specifics = no reason for me to sign up.

glen
Excellent. Thank you. We will be addressing the specifics very soon.
rms
I'm partway through the video and I got bored, I would have much rather read your mission statement. You aren't taking advantage of the video format. No one really makes straight flash GUI videos with scrolling text anymore.

I would have preferred 1 minute where you have a voiceover actor explain your mission, then 2 minutes where you go through the product. There's a web 2.0 marketplace where you can hire voiceover actors cheaply, or do it yourself. If you really can't talk about the product, I would still recommend having a voice talking about the mission.

glen
Thanks for the feedback. I'm bummed that you were bored, but that is good to know.

We can definitely talk about the product. It is actually pretty compelling, so I think that would be pretty easy to do. I thought about doing something like that for the elevator pitch thing on TechCrunch.

rms
> I'm bummed that you were bored, but that is good to know.

I read fast so fixed speed text makes me uncomfortable...

glen
We thought about speeding it up quite a bit. 2 people have commented that it too slow. With you, I'd put 3 in that camp.
Stabback
Make it four. It's really frustrating to have to read two words at a time in places. To shorten the video and keep people reading combine slides. There were two that were "...global community and..." "...diversity..." that could have easily been one. The point is to get your message across, not show me as many pretty pictures as you can.
glen
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, part of the point with the pictures was to try to get a certain kind of feeling/mood across. Text is pretty bad at doing that. However, if it is too long and things need to be combined, then I think we can still get the general feel across with combined words and slides.
sharp
1) good - it's a vaguely uplifting vid 2) yes - it isn't asking me for anything & makes me curious to hear more 3) I'd need more specifics as utnick mentioned 4) minor irritation when the soundtrack loop starts, and there's no clear signal that the presentation is over.
glen
Thanks for the feedback and for answering the questions. I appreciate it. Snap. I thought we had fixed the ending. It should just stop and then fade out.
jakewolf
I started disagreeing with the video right at the beginning, "there are too many of us." Also questioned the numbers you used 600 something students/educator.
glen
Too many of us? Like that is a bad assumption...like there are not too many of us? Feels too global warming esque? or something like that?

Also, yes, I thought about that too. We are looking at global (k-12, higher education, and lifelong learners). I thought about putting at * after that, but felt like it might take away from the video.

glen
further clarification, like an * after students and there would be a footer that would describe exactly what I'm referring to.
ericwaller
A couple of UX points:

It took me a fews seconds to find the video link, even though I was specifically looking for it -- both it's visual appearance and sidebar placement had me thinking it was an ad. And once I did see it, it wasn't obvious from the wording "Catch the Nixty Vision," that this was a link to a video.

I would style the video button just like the "join the beta" button and move it into the header space. I would also change the wording to "watch our introductory video" with the small text below saying "learn about the nixty vision" or something similar.

Now your header section looks like this: LOGO + tagline | Watch intro vid | Join beta

glen
Thanks! I appreciate the specific feedback. I can see your point. We actually struggled with what to say on the copy. It does seem that the header is the main place for these types of things.