Ask HN: Review my webapp: memobuild | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Review my webapp: memobuild

37 pointsnamarojulian27 comments

Hi all,

Hope you won't mind if this is my first post, but I was told this is a good place to get advice for a new web business. So here it is: http://www.memobuild.com

It's basically an editor for large online documents (e.g. documentation, reports, e-books). It follows the What-You-See-Is-What-You-Mean paradigm: authors just need to input the contents in a structured way, the layout and design are automatically taken care of by the application. There are some e-learning features too. The app is powered by Google App Engine / python, and hopefully it can scale nicely.

Please have a look and let me know what you think.

The next step will be to get in the Google Apps Marketplace to reach out to businesses and schools. Meanwhile I'm trying to get some early adopters. I plan to contact bloggers discussing learning technologies. Any other idea on where to concentrate my marketing efforts?

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I have composed learning materials using almost every Learning Management System available.

Your interface is clean and easy to understand. The simple content section on the left along with easy to understand CMS controls are exceptionally well done.

This feels like part of a larger product. Learning materials take hundreds of hours to prepare and I wouldn't trust my time with your new product. Not that it isn't well created, just that I don't have any control over the hosting or storage and I don't see an easy way for me to backup or duplicate content on more trustworthy platforms such as Google Docs or even good old Word.

Your application may be a good add-on for a small publisher. A publisher could offer your product (branded as their own) to extend their texts online and keep them up-to-date.

I could see the advantage to this for either a business (in sort of a Wiki setup) or a school, however without a real direction, it's a bit difficult for me and your potential customers to see.

Overall, I really like this. I wish that it was integrated into a full LMS and that I could quickly and easily spin my content into texts.

Thanks for the feedback RBr!

Actually you're the second user today to tell me the lack of export formats is a problem. I plan to offer export options, but it is not simple. There are some features like audio, associations or exercises that cannot be easily reproduced in other formats. An XML file would be a good start though.

Connecting with existing LMS: you're right I need to look more into that.

>Connecting with existing LMS: you're right I need to look more into that.

Please get in touch with me. My profile will tell you why and my contact details.

one tool you may find worth playing with is Pandoc see http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ it might be very helpful because once you get it working for one format that pandoc supports, you pretty much get support for all the others for free!

clickable : http://www.memobuild.com

That's a really neat app. The inline quiz is a great feature.

Which python framework did you use?

Small "bug": when you navigate to the login page [1], there's no link to go back to the home page or anywhere else but the TOS.

[1] http://www.memobuild.com/login

Thanks! Did you also try to put a block with the "answer" style in your quiz? It's not yet documented but quite useful.

I built on top of Google's webapp framework. Although if I had to start something now I would probably use tipfy or kay.

I really like it. As soon as I started using it, it was clear how to do anything. My suggestion would be to change the sample links on the home page to images. Also, it would be nice to try a demo before signing up.

Thanks! You're right those links need a little polishing.

The samples were really well made, they deserve something flashy to show them off :)

I'd be tempted to move them below the fold - let the user read that memobuild will give them drag and drop page organisation and collaborative document creation before they click through and start wondering what your app's connection with biometric testing in Australia is

A "sample built using memobuild" bar at the top with a link to the home page would seem pretty essential too for exactly the same reason.

I wish there was a way to play with it initially without giving up my email. I hate getting automated 'haven't seen you for a while' app-spam. It's pretty standard though, so maybe it's just me.

I'm using App Engine too; seems to be a good choice. And oddly, the performance stats for Python vs. Java seem indistinguishable. I would have thought Java would pull ahead on repetitive server-like tasks.

I love one-click demo too, and hopefully I can add it later. About Java vs. Python, from my experience datastore RPC are often the bottleneck anyway.

I seem to have found a bug. In:

http://help.memobuild.com/user-guide/creating-document

all the links on the left above "Using the Drafts folder" don't work. I'm using Chrome 6.0.472.53 on Linux.

Confirmed. Thanks for the report!

The programmer in me absolutely loved the product. However, I am bit skeptical about how it would be positioned/generate revenue (Mostly because I have zero business acumen) .

Good product. Best of luck for revenue generation.

Many thanks! Monetization is tough for any webapp, but I believe there are possibilities for an app like memobuild.

I'd pay for an embeddable/skinnable version of your editor. Great interface -- nice work

Personally, I find it really cool. Although, after the publication, the link doesn't work. I tried (http://docs.memobuild.com/irokez/test/)

Thanks! Strange the link didn't work, if I click it works here.

Looks good! Could you share how you did the video? I'd like to do something like that for my app (it's in the Google Apps Marketplace already by the way).

Thanks! Google Molly at demogirl and say hi from me.

I tried to sign in with my google account only to get a 500. Please check google sign ins. :

http://www.memobuild.com/_ah/openid_verify?continue=http://w...

here is the message:

Error: Server Error The server encountered an error and could not complete your request.

If the problem persists, please report your problem and mention this error message and the query that caused it.

There is a glitch with Google login that causes this error when you click on the "Continue to memobuild.." button. If you wait for the redirection instead, it should work.. Am I correct?

You need to take it down, hire a designer (/copy writer) to redo the UI and add pricing, otherwise everyday you are missing out on customers/revenue.

Although I have not played with the app, it seems to have a great potential. There is definitely a need for this product.

Thanks! Monetization will come. Why take it down? On the contrary I'm trying to get users.

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