"I’ve created products / services in the past that have garnered praise for their design."
...you've also [wisely?] abandoned projects that had great promise without to due diligence necessary to hand them off to a willing steward (Sweetcron).
I was pleased to see your domain here on HN, but I still have a bitter taste after being forced to abandon Sweetcron in favor of Chyrp. Regardless, I've been quite impressed by what you've delivered thus far and am pleased to see your weight provided in the direction of reason.
Please take this as a compliment, but I didn't realize you needed to "plug" ExpanDrive. I sort of assumed that it was produced by a large company. Anyway, thank you for a wonderful piece of software, and for continually developing it.
Thanks!
The first 8 years were easy.
I set up these websites, they gave me money to travel and I traveled.
The second part, Adormo, required and required persistance, because I got many people involved in the project.
But I am so sure about the validity of the core ideas that I simply go ahead with no real effort.
> Suggestion: Tell us more about your current success and future plans.
We are in the ending phase of 1.0 development but launched already several sites. Some are doing very well and earning really good commissions (e.g. http://www.lignanos.com is big in the Russian market).
The next step is to start growing faster in many key cities.
We are looking into investments now, to speed up growth, as the business model has proven to be valid.
Thanks for the interest!
> I started this business in 2011 and never stopped.
> open, democratic, decentralized social enterprise management
6 words and you've already lost me.
This is followed by a complicated screenshot with arrows pointing in various directions, then a manifesto in typefaces that jangle like a political donation chain letter. Then a quote from Albert Einstein. Then a bunch of diffuse conceptual words in different sizes and orientations. Seeing floaty words like "Distributed" and "Emergent" only solidifies the feeling that this product is hot air -- even if it isn't.
You're making it extra hard to understand what it does or why I'd want it. Smart HN readers will pore through and analyze what it does, because they are looking for product ideas of their own, but the rest of the world is damn busy and unlikely to spend that much time.
Perhaps try to cut your initial presentation down by 10x. If I have to scroll at all to figure out what you are talking about, you've probably lost me until I hear from someone I know that it's awesome. Do you already have users raving to everyone they know about how awesome it is?
Not trying to be harsh, just honest! I completely respect the challenge of what you're trying to take on, and I doubt I could do any better.
Edit: Having spent a bit more time on your site to try to find more constructive advice to offer, I have to say I am impressed with your ideas and development of them. I feel myself rooting for you to succeed. But the initial impression you offer is more opaque than it should be. And it seems like your system offers an entire architecture for project management that you'd have to buy into, making that a steep first step. Do you guys use this product internally? Is there anywhere you expose how you're using it?
> Some time ago we received a polite request from the creators of another app to stop using the word "plague" in our name because we were both using it. We prefer to spend our time and money on perfecting user experience and developing new features instead of legal disputes. From now on, we are Plag.
> Can you add two more rings and some example sites? It's difficult to evaluate if there is no content to use.
I really should have done this. To be honest I didn't really intend to 'launch' it today. I just saw a thread loosely related to the 'small-web', and thought I'd mention what I'd been working on. I'll put something together to demo the platform.
> Have you considered introducing social features?
I wanted to avoid social features, and instead focus on facilitating other people hosting their own webrings without needing to provide the infrastructure themselves. I figure people can easily provide these features themselves if they need it, and if I can avoid the added complexity of maintaining them, all the better. Plus, the added burden of moderating content is certainly best avoided.
I feel the same way as a client. Everything I've used that they've purchased has turned out for the worse. Be it neglect or price increases the promises always exceed what's actually delivered.
Moreover they're transparent about their desire to lock you in and then press that to their advantage.
I actively avoid few companies but they're at the top of the list.
I came her to reminisce about the beauty of Solaris from a long time ago and your comment struck a nerve.
You can only be genuinely excited if you don't need to add a link to your product when talking about it. This one was actually your most interesting reply, I shouldn't have posted about the high amount of mention to your own competitor project here.
> Clearly, a lot of work has gone into making Stadia and it deserves to succeed.
Thank you for your kind words. We're definitely excited about the opportunities before us.
And thanks for the feedback!
I agree with your critique. We definitely need a better marketing website that conveys our mission and vision, as well as product offerings. I realized as I was reading my parent comment that most of the big selling points (which are things we strongly believe in) are not properly addressed in the website.
We started Weave to make expanding your professional network easy, productive, and enjoyable. In the last 3 years we've created hundreds of thousands of new professional connections. Connections that became co-founders, investors, mentors, co-workers, and friends. Your stories were what made working on Weave so fun and fulfilling.
While Weave became the primary source of new professional connections for many people, we were unable to make it financially viable. As of next Monday, we will be shutting Weave down.
Thank you so much for being part of our community. You made time to meet and help complete strangers. You were what made Weave great.
> Cool. Definitely saving this. Id like to self-host a cloud dev environment.
I’m going a big write up now of the landscape of cloud dev and self-hosted cloud dev. Leave your digits at https://www.ghuntley.com/newsletter to get it when it ships.
Thanks. It needs a bit of work but is getting there.
> What differentiates you
The ui? :) But seriously Im not really aiming to compete unless people really like it. Just a side project to play with in my spare time - and hopefully it will be a useful tool alongside those sites.
> Are you referring to the Work at A Startup posts?
Yes. it's brilliant and highly tasteful IMHO. I haven't responded to any of those myself, but their frequency is low enough and interesting enough that they don't bother me. I'm glad the site gets support to cover costs.
[...] Perhaps that's biggest flaw with how App.net was presented thus far.
Perhaps if Dalton had promised one or more of the following...
* The primary codebase will be open source
* A light weight client will be open source
* The infrastructure will follow at least one federated standard (oStatus,
Webfinger, Salmon, Activity Streams)
* App.net will federate / push / syndicate data to Diaspora, Status.net, etc...
* Each paid user of App.net can sponsor friends (5, 10, 25, 50, etc...) to
use the service for free
* If you donate Dalton will personally hand deliver to your doorstep 1
flying unicorn ninja who has been raised on grass fed organic bacon
+1. Those things would push me over the edge to contribute $50 or more. Even without the unicorn ninja thing.
I don't want to pay for another "platform" that someone will be struggling to raise funding to replace in a few years. I want to pay for technology. And I want to bring my friends with me.
* I would have given jobs a more prominent position in the page
* I would have added funding, startup status (early stage? series c? etc...)
* What about compensation? Is the salary based on the country you live in?
* Who are you? Can you give some details about the people behind your website?
> Thanks for the excellent resources, I'll look that up.
You're welcome!
> Well, I haven't even created the paid product at this point, it's still early in the game. Just trying to get a feel for the potentials.
Sure, but you're at the top of Hacker News right now and there's zero downside (and lots of upside) in getting your project in front of a bunch of developers. Even if they don't start using it right away, maybe it will stick in their minds and then six months down the track (when you do have a paid version) they'll Google it.
...you've also [wisely?] abandoned projects that had great promise without to due diligence necessary to hand them off to a willing steward (Sweetcron).
I was pleased to see your domain here on HN, but I still have a bitter taste after being forced to abandon Sweetcron in favor of Chyrp. Regardless, I've been quite impressed by what you've delivered thus far and am pleased to see your weight provided in the direction of reason.
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