Hi everyone. Founder here. I'm flattered that this popped up on HN. I'm a long-time lurker and browse multiple times a day but seldom post.
For some context, you guys are looking at an MVP. It took me a month to build this. The marketing site was done in 2 hours (today, fuelled by coffee). I'm bootstrapping after leaving my corporate job last year.
Not trying to make excuses, but I think a lot of questions can simply be answered with "it's one month of work, by one dude, and it launched today" :)
It's live now. That's the easy part over with - the hard stuff begins now!
Something I was looking for that you could work towards adding is a demo video showing how this might be used / what the experience looks like. I know I can sign up for free to try, but I don't even know what I'm signing up for.
I like the idea, but it's targeted for extroverted people, probably more for marketers and bizz in general, rather than programmers. Introverts like me, will always prefer text conversation over recording myself. Also text is searchable where video is not.
I agree, but targeting those kinds of people is fine I think. Most of my colleagues eat lunch together, but many programmers (my direct colleagues) prefer to lunch in front of their computers. This is typical for many more technical people I think.
In contrast, the other day when I went over to our marketing department I walked in on them practicing the dance moves of some Elvis video together.
I am not saying that either is better, I am just saying that these differences exist and that is fine.
Text is also universally accessible, including for people with disabilities (e.g. deaf, blind, and for the recording side, people with speech impediments).
There's another product, can't remember it's name at the moment, with similar concept - however they also highlight screen capturing. Perhaps in the case of those who are more introverted or shy, or not feeling confident being on camera, can simply be doing a screen capture of the product - and then a voice over to share what was done, challenges, faced, etc.
It's an interesting idea, but I have a tough time with the premise that people will choose to record a video of themselves for everyday asynchronous communication rather than type a message. There are situations were video or audio deliver more value than text, but what are those situations and are they enough to become a team's main mode of communication? I'm skeptical.
Like you I would never think of using this but then I asked my kids and they looked at me quite as a benevolent advanced alien race might look down upon us: there there old man, no wonder your world is so tedious...no one writes their ideas down anymore...video, poor soul, is the only way we do things now.
I suppose I did something long ago when my parents told me to write home and I said they could use my PC and modem and use compuserve.
You can type a message and not work at the same time, or you can record yourself whilst writing code / doing other tasks as ideas come alive as you speak. I think it's beneficial. I guess it depends on who is using it and how. There's always that one person who hates any tools the company provides to attempt to aide productivity.
Not enough to be the _main_ mode of communication, but definitely an important part of my team’s remote communications. I run www.gradientmetrics.com, and we’re a (very small) distributed team. We often do screencasts with voiceovers to show how we’re thinking of implementing something, what we think the outline of the deliverable should be, etc., etc. This can be _a lot_ easier to do with a video screencast than it is to type out. We typically do this either with a QuickTime screencast or with the person recording a solo Zoom conference with screen share, and uploading to Vimeo. If there was something that cut that workflow down and had some other features, we’d consider it.
This was my initial reaction - it feels a little bit like the option to send short voice messages via iMessage on iPhone, rather than typing. I've never used that feature because it doesn't seem to offer the same convenience factors that text messages offer - especially the ability to compose and consume them in any environment, irrespective of noise (or quiet), companions, and location. Kind of one step forwards, two steps back.
None of this is insurmountable, but I wonder if it will cause inertia in experimentation and uptake?
Good luck, either way - love the initiative the founder has shown. :)
Why use this when I can record a video from photobooth and upload it to Slack, where all majority of team conversation already happens for the majority of tech companies with remote workers?
"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software."
- Too much info required to start (you should streamline signup, job title shouldn't be mandatory IMO)
- Creating a new message should be fast! Meaning:
- title, body & content should be optional, why can't I just send a video?
- clicking Save should automatically upload video - right now video is ignored if Save is clicked mid-recording
Re Job title - I think this is actually a great idea to filter out tire kickers. Obviously you can just fake it, but email plus job title is a pretty powerful combo.
For context yongfook is one of the origional 'digital nomads' from before people started calling themselves that with a straight face. He did the excellent opensourcefood.com and i suspect he has more of an idea of what makes a good product than the majority of clichéd responses on this thread.
Love the idea and would have helped me in many remote work situations. Could also be good for documentation.
However, from the home page I cannot determine what this really provides over recording a video and sending via slack, telegram, or other methods of chat - I mean, i guess it will allow you to label and comment and put the videos in a hierarchy, but anything else?
Hi Tom, nope you've pretty much got the gist of the MVP feature set right there.
This V1 allows you to set up channels, post threads and hierarchical comments, all with (or without) videos attached that you can record through your browser or phone. There's also a "play all" button that allows you to sit back and watch all videos in a thread in succession.
Discussion was an obvious place to start but I'll be looking into other areas next. For example presentation / persuasion - how do you present a deck and convince a remote team in non-real-time? Just blasting an email with an attachment never gets the point across properly.
I think the medium, that you're supposed to be using video by default rather than text by default, would encourage a team or company to start recording more and tapping at the keyboard less.
I'd compare it to the premise in The Expanse books where there's almost always a light delay for communication so people record video messages by default. When they are on a ship together then they default to audio only. Text is possible in both cases but its bandwidth saving feature isn't required. Now we don't need to save bandwidth anymore perhaps video makes more sense.
Also, if you are a remote worker then playing videos isn't going to annoy an open office full of collegues.
What I'd like to see (which would likely make me use it) is an integration inside of Gmail. I click one button to record and then I send that email. The no 1 value for me would be that it's much faster than writing. And it's also easier to talk while walking to the subway than to write. So create that and I'm in!
Spent like 30 seconds trying to click the 35 second video on the home page trying to see the video with the cute girl or any of the links on the page image.. boy that was disappointing
There's also https://standups.io which has been on the market for over a year, has traction, lots of cool features, an iOS app an Android app, and Slack integration.
[+] [-] fookyong|7 years ago|reply
For some context, you guys are looking at an MVP. It took me a month to build this. The marketing site was done in 2 hours (today, fuelled by coffee). I'm bootstrapping after leaving my corporate job last year.
Not trying to make excuses, but I think a lot of questions can simply be answered with "it's one month of work, by one dude, and it launched today" :)
It's live now. That's the easy part over with - the hard stuff begins now!
[+] [-] bfdm|7 years ago|reply
Something I was looking for that you could work towards adding is a demo video showing how this might be used / what the experience looks like. I know I can sign up for free to try, but I don't even know what I'm signing up for.
[+] [-] huhtenberg|7 years ago|reply
Erm. Who is "middle1" then and why did they post this as "Show HN"?
[+] [-] tamasnet|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|7 years ago|reply
Oh and then even if I continue, corporate DNS is blocking you due to "security threat".
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] _31|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomglynch|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
[+] [-] finchisko|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mosselman|7 years ago|reply
In contrast, the other day when I went over to our marketing department I walked in on them practicing the dance moves of some Elvis video together.
I am not saying that either is better, I am just saying that these differences exist and that is fine.
[+] [-] mwcampbell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loceng|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|7 years ago|reply
Transcripts could help there.
[+] [-] kohanz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rficcaglia|7 years ago|reply
I suppose I did something long ago when my parents told me to write home and I said they could use my PC and modem and use compuserve.
Sigh.
[+] [-] Gracana|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tvladeck|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mft_|7 years ago|reply
None of this is insurmountable, but I wonder if it will cause inertia in experimentation and uptake?
Good luck, either way - love the initiative the founder has shown. :)
[+] [-] chrisweekly|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lowestlatency|7 years ago|reply
Cool idea but doesn't need a separate app.
[+] [-] fredley|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tarr11|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roasm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsaje|7 years ago|reply
- Too much info required to start (you should streamline signup, job title shouldn't be mandatory IMO)
- Creating a new message should be fast! Meaning:
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anitil|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] subsubsub|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomglynch|7 years ago|reply
However, from the home page I cannot determine what this really provides over recording a video and sending via slack, telegram, or other methods of chat - I mean, i guess it will allow you to label and comment and put the videos in a hierarchy, but anything else?
[+] [-] fookyong|7 years ago|reply
This V1 allows you to set up channels, post threads and hierarchical comments, all with (or without) videos attached that you can record through your browser or phone. There's also a "play all" button that allows you to sit back and watch all videos in a thread in succession.
Discussion was an obvious place to start but I'll be looking into other areas next. For example presentation / persuasion - how do you present a deck and convince a remote team in non-real-time? Just blasting an email with an attachment never gets the point across properly.
Hope this sort of explains where my head is at!
[+] [-] dmonn|7 years ago|reply
Or a #standup channel where people send in videos, that's what we do.
[+] [-] bogle|7 years ago|reply
I'd compare it to the premise in The Expanse books where there's almost always a light delay for communication so people record video messages by default. When they are on a ship together then they default to audio only. Text is possible in both cases but its bandwidth saving feature isn't required. Now we don't need to save bandwidth anymore perhaps video makes more sense.
Also, if you are a remote worker then playing videos isn't going to annoy an open office full of collegues.
[+] [-] 890622|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatabackend|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] landmark3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paul1664|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fookyong|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VvR-Ox|7 years ago|reply
It can be done with whatever: - record video (notebook / smartphone / ...) - send / share / embed into some other software (messenger / wiki / ...)
You are obviously good at marketing stuff (to people who don't know better) and monetizing stuff that is basically free.
That cries for an award with a title like "silver ferengi medal" ;-)
[+] [-] olalonde|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|7 years ago|reply
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] terhechte|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RootKitBeerCat|7 years ago|reply
But this service is free so that’s a big plus to just give it the old “try”!