I wrote this little thing a few years ago to easily share links with my friends. You just add a bookmarklet and click it on the page you want to share, select who you want to share it with and it emails them. No accounts or anything necessary.
It's been amazingly useful and that's how my friends and I share links daily, but, for some reason, I can't convince people to give it a shot. Any hints or tips would be appreciated.
If my friends see I used a third-party tool to email them, they might be concerned that I'm signing them up for spam. I have to trust that the email sent won't misrepresent me in any way. Maybe address those concerns like you have with "no spam ever, we promise".
Personally I don't have a big enough pain-point of emailing this out to use it but I totally get having something I think is cool that isn't getting much use http://searchco.de/
In your case maybe a video showing the advantage of this over copy pasting emails and the like. For all I know it might be better then what i'm currently doing, but for what I see as no gain I have no real incentive to try it. A video would solve this for me.
That's also a very good suggestion, I'll try to replace the photo with a screencast, thank you.
Also, searchco.de is amazing, I've been looking for something like that many times. As far as I'm concerned, the reason that's not more popular is because I didn't know about it.
Although, I'm having a problem searching for '"def reverse" django', as I'm guessing it interprets quotes literally. If it could do that so I didn't have to browse Github's files manually, it would be a lifesaver.
Thanks. I am working on the SEO, I will move over to searchcode.com in the next few weeks.
As for your query... yes it actually searches for the quotes. Something like =~ is a valid search in it. I am in the process of building characteristics to define technology types. This will allow you to do something like the following with any luck,
def reverse tech:django lang:python url:github
IE search for the text "def reverse" in a django file which is python and hosted on github. BTW the tech: portion is not live yet. Still a work in progress :)
If I'm not mistaken, that will search for the keywords "def" and "reverse" in the file, which isn't exactly the same. They'll be included in many places, whereas I want the definition of reverse.
It does, but its very phrase heavy and will try to match "def reverse" literally over "def" and "reverse". Where no matches are found it falls back to the latter though.
Oh I see, I didn't notice it was finding projects that were using Django, rather than search the Django repository itself. It would be great if you could specify the repository name.
Have you considered just having a separate box that handles non-literal metadata queries? That way the user doesn't have to think about your typology --- they just type words in a box like they're used to from Google.
I like the idea of this a lot by the way. I hope to find use for it.
Sorry about the late reply. I have considered it, but im trying to make most of it clickable filters on the right hand side which know what you are doing. I have more to add but havent gotten around to it yet is all.
It looks like you have some excellent coverage, that's going to help with the arcane things ( like WinApi ). Some things I struggled with manually that your tool makes a lot easier:
It's not a very big pain point. If I want to share links with friends, I tweet at them or send a DM, or use an IM client. So I would only need this app when sending a link to a friend that's not on Twitter or IM, which is like once a week. Not a big enough need to install a bookmarklet.
That said, it does appear pretty well done. I would consider taking the code and pivoting to an adjacent concept - one that you've validated and proved product-market fit.
Hmm, I agree, but for me it's solved the pain point of not bothering my friends with generic links they can watch whenever (you can configure YourPane to send you a digest). IM interrupts them and DM/tweets take many clicks, so this is better for me.
That said, I understand that this might be the reason people aren't using it, so I'll see if I can add a bit more functionality to make it more useful.
Thank you very much for the feedback and the links, I will read them all.
Yeah, I'm having trouble seeing the advantage of this over the browser's native implementation: Chrome's CMD+SHIFT+I hotkey brings up a mail this page window automatically for me.
I would definitely put some effort into copywriting the main benefits into that landing page.
It's always torment to watch your babies languish. You build it, and then it just fizzles. I've got a few projects like that, borne of spare time and such, most of which aren't particularly marketable.
This looks like a far more marketable thing than the last thing I built that nobody uses (obligatory self-plug, http://tweetasenator.com/), which I sort of halfway mention when I get the chance, but doesn't have the ability to make me rich, so despite its utility, will almost certainly just languish as a tool that me and a few friends use.
This looks nice, and while I can't tell if this is the obligatory marketing kickoff post or if you've just noticed that nobody's using it, I wish it well.
Edit: For what it's worth, I'm not entirely sure that this is better than Instahero, which you also wrote, and guessing that it's throwing a connection refused, I guess nobody used it either.
Well, I wrote YourPane in around three days (two years ago), so it doesn't really cost anything to run, and I sincerely believe it's useful, because it's useful to me (and I did check, two people use it, one of which is me).
About Instahero, yes, it was many many times more effort to write and write well, and I didn't see any response, so I shut it down. Instahero was more of a legitimate attempt at making a product I could build a startup around, YourPane is just a weekend's work (like https://persowna.net/, which is the thing I built last weekend, and http://www.getinstabot.com/ which is the thing I'm building on various weekends).
That's fantastic, I'm glad you like it! I'd be grateful if you could drop me a line after you've used it a bit and told me what you did and didn't like, thanks!
It's nice and simple. I'm definitely going to use this. Only suggestions I have:
- When I've sent a link to someone and go back to it later, it would be nice to see who I sent it to
- I don't understand what Saved Links are or how to save them
Saved links are links other people sent you that you clicked "Save" on. I agree that it needs to show you who you sent it to (you can see links you sent in the "sent links" section, but it unhelpfully shows your name).
There's a small issue in doing that, but I'll work on it and hopefully have it ready soon, thanks!
I thought porn, specifically keeping it hidden but easy to access, would be a popular thing. I built a Windows application around just that alone. Didn't take off probably because it's exactly the kind of app that doesn't get exposure trough word of mouth. http://dalocker.net
Why is that? Are there rules against adult-only content? I checked the FAQ and guidelines for that sort of thing but couldn't find any mention about that.
Ruuttu - you got hellbanned because your VERY FIRST comment was unconstructive, mean, and negative. You were trashing somebody's creation. The problem with the world is that people aren't producing enough, not that they're producing too much. You're part of the problem.
Your hellban predates and has nothing to do with the more recent comment about a porn site.
If you're going to be negative, you will not be welcome here. Read the HN community guidelines and internalize them.
P.S. Making bad stuff is the first step towards good stuff. It's a prerequisite - period.
Hear me out. I fully understand your statement but I feel you may have failed to judge my comment in it's full context.
The person who made that calculator wasn't inexperienced. He knew that building a calculator with CSS is objectively a bad idea. He built it anyway just to see how ludicrous it would end up being, for laughs. That's truly the real hacker spirit.
In this context my comment stood for "Well done, but you know that was a complete waste of time". Or as one of his friends said on his Google Plus page: "What a crazy hack!" https://plus.google.com/115030581977322198102/posts/Qo6T85W8...
That's not a putdown. It's in a way a compliment.
I would also argue that most users on HN want to get negative feedback but that's a separate issue.
I'm really sorry that you criticized me publicly without allowing me to defend myself so I had to create this other account. Sorry about that.
We don't care about intent, we care about conveyed meaning and tone. You're going to be judged on that, not what lives in your noggin. Nobody cares what you think, only what you do and how you make other people feel.
I'll let the content of your original comment (which you tactically opted not to include) stand on its own:
>Oh my god this is awful. I'm sure I should be impressed but this is just awful.
That is not constructive feedback, negative or otherwise. It's just negativity. That's literally all there was.
I'm not interested in a debate or what you think. Your behavior was indefensible and that you think you can cover for it with sophistry serves only to embarrass you.
Correct the behavior or move on. You're not going to convince anybody of anything.
Wow. You must have missed the part where I said everything :)
Here's a quote from Niklas himself: "there is absolutely no good reason to create a calculator with CSS only, I just did it for the kicks."
The project was posted deliberately as a joke and I was commenting on that. The submitter was saying "Look how awfully this can be done LOL" and I responded by appreciating that it was indeed awful. The meaning is clear and it's not a hurtful message just because it includes the word "awful" twice. You must consider the content of the message and not just judge it because a negative word is used.
"That is not constructive feedback" you say. You're right, it isn't. And that's fine because the project wasn't posted to receive constructive feedback. The author is never going to touch that project ever again. It's a joke. What am I gonna say, "You might want to increase the contrast of the buttons in your completely-ridiculous-project-you-built-just-for-laughs before you throw it away"? The author doesn't care and nobody cares.
I know you're not gonna agree. You've clearly made up your mind already. You've even done what very few sensible people would and admitted it yourself. Whatever. I just want everyone else to understand that I'm not a bad guy.
You really seem to be conflating the problem. There's also plenty of extensions (that can hook into webmail) for this too: e.g. the Send from Gmail extension[1].
It is well designed and I like what you have built. Maybe a couple of reasons why this hasn't taken off.
1. You need to install something. I personally try not to install anything unless I absolutely need to. Maybe this could easily be done as a bookmarklet instead.
2. Just email isn't interesting. In addition to emailing links, you could provide the option to tweet it, publish it to well known blogs, post on fb walls etc.
Thanks for your comment. Regarding #1, it is a bookmarklet, although I call it a browser button becaue most users don't know what a bookmarklet is. Regarding #2, it's a good idea, I'll see how I can fit it in the existing workflow (maybe an "also tweet" button), thank you.
StavrosK, I hope that you've posted this looking for some feedback, because after seeing your site I really wanted to give you some constructive criticism.
If you want more people to use it, I'd suggest making your site more clear and easy to understand. I find it extremely frustrating now. Let me take you through what's going through my mind. Firstly, I have to tilt my head looking at a half formed image, and even then, I have trouble wrapping my head around what's going on.
I look to the right, and it's asking me to log in. Ok, but log into what? I thought this was a browser plugin? My two choices are Log in or "Persona" ?
Still struggling, I carefully read the description text in the bottom right (however at this point, you've already lost 99% of your audience).
"Just drag the browser button to your bookmarks bar to install." Great! Let's try it out. Wait, what browser button? I try clicking and dragging around everything that resembles a browser button, but I can't figure it out. At this point, I give up.
It's very frustrating, and it's a shame, because it's probably well made.
To make it better, I'd explore doing the following:
First, the low hanging fruit. Move your "Share your links, easily!" to the top bar. The second 'heading bar' doesn't add anything, and is distracting. I'd also come up with a better tag-line too, one that's less generic. "0.7 seconds to send interesting stuff to your friend!" "Need to share? 'Share now! Copy/paste' is more like 'Copy/waste of time'. 2 fast clicks and you're done."
Obviously, I wrote these quickly and need a bunch more thought.
Then, I want to see screenshots of what it actually does.
[Picture 1 - I see an interesting site, I want to share it!]
[Picture 2 - I click a button, select the people, and click done]
[Picture 3 - I make a coffee, because picture 3 is unnecessary, we're already done here]
Then, once I'm interested in it, I want to see how to install it. Once again, ideally with screenshots and a very easy button that shows me where to click and drag. Ideally, detecting browsers and showing browser specific instructions.
Of course, none of this stuff will actually save you if this doesn't turn out to be what people consider 'a real problem' worth investing the time and effort to solve, even if it's just 3 seconds to install the browser add-on. But following this advice and making the value proposition and instructions to install it, will help you get that feedback, since you'll be removing the considerable barriers currently in place to get people to give it a shot.
All the best and I hope everything goes really well!
You're completely right, of course, the current landing page doesn't do much to explain what the service does or how it does it. I'll try to add a video or carousel showing exactly how it works, with a more standard workflow. I agree that asking the user to log in is kind of abrupt there, now that you mention it I realize it's not very well thought-out.
This will be my first priority, thank you very much for the feedback and the improvements you proposed.
49 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 57.4 ms ] threadI wrote this little thing a few years ago to easily share links with my friends. You just add a bookmarklet and click it on the page you want to share, select who you want to share it with and it emails them. No accounts or anything necessary.
It's been amazingly useful and that's how my friends and I share links daily, but, for some reason, I can't convince people to give it a shot. Any hints or tips would be appreciated.
In your case maybe a video showing the advantage of this over copy pasting emails and the like. For all I know it might be better then what i'm currently doing, but for what I see as no gain I have no real incentive to try it. A video would solve this for me.
Also, searchco.de is amazing, I've been looking for something like that many times. As far as I'm concerned, the reason that's not more popular is because I didn't know about it.
Although, I'm having a problem searching for '"def reverse" django', as I'm guessing it interprets quotes literally. If it could do that so I didn't have to browse Github's files manually, it would be a lifesaver.
As for your query... yes it actually searches for the quotes. Something like =~ is a valid search in it. I am in the process of building characteristics to define technology types. This will allow you to do something like the following with any luck,
def reverse tech:django lang:python url:github
IE search for the text "def reverse" in a django file which is python and hosted on github. BTW the tech: portion is not live yet. Still a work in progress :)
See, http://searchco.de/?q=def+reverse as an example
http://searchco.de/?q=def+reverse+repo%3Adjango
restricted to bitbucket,
http://searchco.de/?q=def+reverse+repo%3Adjango+url%3Abitbuc...
or github
http://searchco.de/?q=def+reverse+repo%3Adjango+url%3Agithub
I like the idea of this a lot by the way. I hope to find use for it.
It looks like you have some excellent coverage, that's going to help with the arcane things ( like WinApi ). Some things I struggled with manually that your tool makes a lot easier:
http://searchco.de/?q=GetMonitorInfo - get monitor configuration
http://searchco.de/?q=UpdateLayeredWindow - alpha compositing windows
http://searchco.de/?q=WTSRegisterSessionNotification - workstation lock / unlock events
[Edit: Removed comment on infinite scroll ]
That said, it does appear pretty well done. I would consider taking the code and pivoting to an adjacent concept - one that you've validated and proved product-market fit.
http://www.ashmaurya.com/2009/11/achievingproductmarketfit/
http://blog.clarity.fm/the-journey-to-product-market-fit/
http://www.slideshare.net/ashmaurya/10-steps-to-productmarke...
good luck
That said, I understand that this might be the reason people aren't using it, so I'll see if I can add a bit more functionality to make it more useful.
Thank you very much for the feedback and the links, I will read them all.
I would definitely put some effort into copywriting the main benefits into that landing page.
This looks like a far more marketable thing than the last thing I built that nobody uses (obligatory self-plug, http://tweetasenator.com/), which I sort of halfway mention when I get the chance, but doesn't have the ability to make me rich, so despite its utility, will almost certainly just languish as a tool that me and a few friends use.
This looks nice, and while I can't tell if this is the obligatory marketing kickoff post or if you've just noticed that nobody's using it, I wish it well.
Edit: For what it's worth, I'm not entirely sure that this is better than Instahero, which you also wrote, and guessing that it's throwing a connection refused, I guess nobody used it either.
About Instahero, yes, it was many many times more effort to write and write well, and I didn't see any response, so I shut it down. Instahero was more of a legitimate attempt at making a product I could build a startup around, YourPane is just a weekend's work (like https://persowna.net/, which is the thing I built last weekend, and http://www.getinstabot.com/ which is the thing I'm building on various weekends).
There's a small issue in doing that, but I'll work on it and hopefully have it ready soon, thanks!
EDIT: After coolsunglasses' reply below, I can see why. That was a mean and uncalled-for comment.
Your hellban predates and has nothing to do with the more recent comment about a porn site.
If you're going to be negative, you will not be welcome here. Read the HN community guidelines and internalize them.
P.S. Making bad stuff is the first step towards good stuff. It's a prerequisite - period.
The person who made that calculator wasn't inexperienced. He knew that building a calculator with CSS is objectively a bad idea. He built it anyway just to see how ludicrous it would end up being, for laughs. That's truly the real hacker spirit.
In this context my comment stood for "Well done, but you know that was a complete waste of time". Or as one of his friends said on his Google Plus page: "What a crazy hack!" https://plus.google.com/115030581977322198102/posts/Qo6T85W8... That's not a putdown. It's in a way a compliment.
I would also argue that most users on HN want to get negative feedback but that's a separate issue.
I'm really sorry that you criticized me publicly without allowing me to defend myself so I had to create this other account. Sorry about that.
I'll let the content of your original comment (which you tactically opted not to include) stand on its own:
>Oh my god this is awful. I'm sure I should be impressed but this is just awful.
That is not constructive feedback, negative or otherwise. It's just negativity. That's literally all there was.
I'm not interested in a debate or what you think. Your behavior was indefensible and that you think you can cover for it with sophistry serves only to embarrass you.
Correct the behavior or move on. You're not going to convince anybody of anything.
Here's a quote from Niklas himself: "there is absolutely no good reason to create a calculator with CSS only, I just did it for the kicks."
The project was posted deliberately as a joke and I was commenting on that. The submitter was saying "Look how awfully this can be done LOL" and I responded by appreciating that it was indeed awful. The meaning is clear and it's not a hurtful message just because it includes the word "awful" twice. You must consider the content of the message and not just judge it because a negative word is used.
"That is not constructive feedback" you say. You're right, it isn't. And that's fine because the project wasn't posted to receive constructive feedback. The author is never going to touch that project ever again. It's a joke. What am I gonna say, "You might want to increase the contrast of the buttons in your completely-ridiculous-project-you-built-just-for-laughs before you throw it away"? The author doesn't care and nobody cares.
I know you're not gonna agree. You've clearly made up your mind already. You've even done what very few sensible people would and admitted it yourself. Whatever. I just want everyone else to understand that I'm not a bad guy.
I'm not a bad guy.
You can email links to friends just as easily by double clicking on your address bar, copy, go to email, paste.
No third-party browserware required.
* Click-drag on the address bar and hope you get everything, or double-click if you know what it does.
* Right-click, making sure it's on the selection or you'll have to do it again.
* Click copy.
* Click "new tab".
* Enter your webmail's address, press enter.
* Maybe log in.
* Click compose message.
* Type a few characters of the person's name or email.
* Select the correct recipient.
* Maybe type a bit of a subject.
* Right click the composition area.
* Press paste.
* Press send.
* Press "yes" to the "no subject" warning if you have no subject.
* Click to close the window.
YourPane:
* Click the bookmarklet.
* Click the recipient(s).
* Click send.
* Close the window.
[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-from-gmail-by...
* ctrl+c
* ctrl+1 (gmail tab)
* c (compose)
* type recipients
* tab, tab to compose
* ctrl+v
* ctrl+enter (send)
8 steps, but I'd argue keys are at least twice as fast as clicks.
On a Mac, Cmd+Shift+I will open a new Mail.app compose window with the URL in the body and the page title as the subject.
With auto-completion for addresses, it's another step (and a half) to fill in an address and then hit Cmd+Shift+D to send.
1. You need to install something. I personally try not to install anything unless I absolutely need to. Maybe this could easily be done as a bookmarklet instead.
2. Just email isn't interesting. In addition to emailing links, you could provide the option to tweet it, publish it to well known blogs, post on fb walls etc.
"Browser button" is really vague, and most users, including those who know what bookmarklets are, won't know what it is either.
If you want more people to use it, I'd suggest making your site more clear and easy to understand. I find it extremely frustrating now. Let me take you through what's going through my mind. Firstly, I have to tilt my head looking at a half formed image, and even then, I have trouble wrapping my head around what's going on.
I look to the right, and it's asking me to log in. Ok, but log into what? I thought this was a browser plugin? My two choices are Log in or "Persona" ?
Still struggling, I carefully read the description text in the bottom right (however at this point, you've already lost 99% of your audience).
"Just drag the browser button to your bookmarks bar to install." Great! Let's try it out. Wait, what browser button? I try clicking and dragging around everything that resembles a browser button, but I can't figure it out. At this point, I give up.
It's very frustrating, and it's a shame, because it's probably well made.
To make it better, I'd explore doing the following:
First, the low hanging fruit. Move your "Share your links, easily!" to the top bar. The second 'heading bar' doesn't add anything, and is distracting. I'd also come up with a better tag-line too, one that's less generic. "0.7 seconds to send interesting stuff to your friend!" "Need to share? 'Share now! Copy/paste' is more like 'Copy/waste of time'. 2 fast clicks and you're done."
Obviously, I wrote these quickly and need a bunch more thought.
Then, I want to see screenshots of what it actually does.
[Picture 1 - I see an interesting site, I want to share it!] [Picture 2 - I click a button, select the people, and click done] [Picture 3 - I make a coffee, because picture 3 is unnecessary, we're already done here]
Then, once I'm interested in it, I want to see how to install it. Once again, ideally with screenshots and a very easy button that shows me where to click and drag. Ideally, detecting browsers and showing browser specific instructions.
Of course, none of this stuff will actually save you if this doesn't turn out to be what people consider 'a real problem' worth investing the time and effort to solve, even if it's just 3 seconds to install the browser add-on. But following this advice and making the value proposition and instructions to install it, will help you get that feedback, since you'll be removing the considerable barriers currently in place to get people to give it a shot.
All the best and I hope everything goes really well!
You're completely right, of course, the current landing page doesn't do much to explain what the service does or how it does it. I'll try to add a video or carousel showing exactly how it works, with a more standard workflow. I agree that asking the user to log in is kind of abrupt there, now that you mention it I realize it's not very well thought-out.
This will be my first priority, thank you very much for the feedback and the improvements you proposed.
javascript:(function(){ var a = document.createElement("a"); a.href="mailto:?body="+encodeURIComponent(window.location); a.click();})()
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