Ask HN: Please review our startup: Moot - simple, real-time collaboration

I find it difficult to understand why you would want to do this exact thing that a lot of other companies have done and you are not even innovating. It looks very similar to twitter or yammer - could you not have used them as a base to rethink communication even more?

Your app can work if you do a lot of marketing - but it's not innovative or new. You will have a hard time getting people excited about this, because they have already seen it.

Competition should be used as a base to improve on - and I'm not sure where your improvement is.

In short: Put prices upfront.

First question was, I already use skype chatrooms, why do I need a twitter-like client internally? And I got the answer right away on the home page. Good job.

I then went to the pricing and saw that its a 30 day trial, and after that, who knows how much Ill be charged. This deters me from trying it out and then invite my team to use it, simply because I dont know how much its going to cost me and I dont want to invest time and effort having my team use it, so that at the end of 30 days, I will be charged an unknown sum of money.

It is kind of like a really weird bait-and-switch, "lets do business, but dont worry about the price yet, just trust me"

Other than that, the design is pretty simple and straight to the point, there seems to be no learning curve for people that have already used twitter, which will work perfectly for my team.

1. I didn't notice the "No signup required" at first. Shame. 2. After the interface is very clean and easy to use. 3. You really need an easier way to add people. (FB/Google Addr import/etc).

Good luck !

You should show your pricing up front. I'd never start a trial if I didn't know what the price was going to be after the 30 day trial was up. I'd be worried I'd like it but would find the price too high.

Pros : Very clean user interface

Cons :

(A) User Login should be the first thing , rather than what are you working on. Simply because it gives me confidence that the app knows who i am.

(B) If i cannot "Manage my domain(change settings)" without having to set myself up - then enabling that link on the side is just confusing.

(C) If you are using the terminology "Groups" then i would think it should be "Individual" rather than "People". People is plural as well isn't it.

(D) When adding a New Unnamed user - the app comes with - added new user False, I understand what you are saying there but me thinks it can be put better. Also, attempting to make a new unnamed user moderator comes up with - "Are you sure you want to make False a moderator ?" - surely better wording there.

My 2 pennies mate.

I know there are other similar products but i don't think that should stop you from developing this further.

Why name it after 4chans admin ?

OK; twitter for enterprise, nice UI, not really seeing how you differ from Yammer.

Side topic; has anyone succeed long-term with get[name].com? Or do you always end up buying your dot-com name?

Visualize failure, and then don't do that. I suggest you immediatley start creating innovative features that will set you apart from the rest of the crowd. You only get one real chance at a flash point and potential customers need to see what sets you apart from everyone else. I would focus all my time on the features that you feel will solve enterprise microblogging.

If you want people to actually use it, drop the 30-day trial thing. I'm not gonna try out a new tool with a 30-day trial and no further pricing info.

If you can't decide on pricing for now, just say "free during beta". Drop the pricequote thing too, you're not selling expensive enterprise software (if you are I wouldn't want to use it).

Very interesting. You can really just click and get started it appears.

Question (and this is probably going to show my ignorance): How do you make money on this. I thought most web startups made money through ads or selling stuff... you don't appear to do either.

I like that you can just log in and get started. But having to send a link and/or email to add a person works against that. Why can't I add people just by name until I decide to roll it out, at which point I could send the link/email.

Very cool. Simple to use. I think that showing the billing model on the site would help a lot.

Would be cool to have a video to showcase functionalities. Even with a free sign-in is kind of empty in there.