news.YC, Thanks for your website feedback! Mostly implemented here. Looking to make juwo more intuitive and easier to use. | Hacker News Reader

news.YC, Thanks for your website feedback! Mostly implemented here. Looking to make juwo more intuitive and easier to use.

juwo.com

3 pointsjuwo28 comments

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Yeah, you only have 1 product, that's the first thing the user should see. I just see text on your page and have no desire to read it. Solution: Make a little flash demo of your application (www.loopt.com ) and display it on the front page.

It took me like 5 clicks to get to your d/l site, d/l should be first and easiest thing to do.

Your top banner sucks. I don't care about the date, it fills up 1/4 of the screen and contains no information, drop it. Go to each of the y.combinator funded companies, they have decent sites: http://www.ycombinator.com/faq.html

I'm on a mac, so I can't actually use your software.

I have been thinking of what a short 2 minute video would contain. I think a video is more useful than a screen cast. Since juwo has a dozen things it could be used for, what should I mention? Any thoughts?

If you are good at Javascript, would you like to help get juwo run on Macs? All that is needed AFAIK is to control QT with Javascript. I had issues controlling QT with Javascript. I have some code. (I am weary doing it alone).

I firmly believe that you need 1 screenshot, or maybe a 5s screen cast. Just something that gets the jist of it out there. 2-3 minutes is too much. Most tools have dozens of options, so be a reductionist here.

If you're going to be marketing juwo to different types of customers, have a 5 sec screencast, and then links to 3 or 4 subclasses (this will help you when you start advertising w/ google adsense as well.)

I'm too busy to help further :)

2-3 minutes for a screencast isn't too much. But don't have it autolaunch or on the same page. Make the screenshot link to the screencast and across it have, "Watch it in action!" or something.

Anyway, I should get to work on my stuff too :P

Still too much text. Someone should be able to figure out what juwo is within a few seconds.

I dont have the brains to be able to explain it in a few seconds.

I don't believe that. You know all that text you already have? Just go through it and highlight the key points. Then out of those key points pick the ones that matter most to an ordinary person who just happened to stumble upon your website.

Look at the WriteWith.com site: http://writewith.com/ One sentence explains it and the screenshot is nice too. But after the first sentence, it has a little list of things a user can do, "upload documents, share with other people, chat, assign tasks, and track everybody's actions with a comprehensive history." And you can figure out wtf it does in just two sentences...amazing huh?

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=17117

ok, please go to http://juwo.com again. Is that better?

Grab some scrap paper, or emacs, or thinkature, or a whiteboard, or whatever.

Start by describing what it is in a single, full paragraph. At this point, it doesn't matter how long your description is, or how spiffy it sounds. Just try to keep it to one paragraph, two at the most. Then, start compressing it. Find ideas that really aren't important right off the bat and cut them. Find ideas that are similar and combine them into smaller sentences.

"Snipshot is a web-based application. Users can upload image files, or submit a link to another picture on the web. Uploaded images can resized, cropped, or enhanced. Basic attributes can be modified, like brightness, saturation, and hue. Images can be saved to your hard disk in 6 different formats. They can be published to Flikr or Webshots."

Combine sentences 3 and 4. Sum it up as "Uploaded images can be edited." Then combine with sentence 2 to say "You can upload or link images and then edit them." Cut sentences 5 and 6 because they aren't important right now.

Then you have "Snipshot is a web-based application. You can upload or link images and then edit them."

They compress it even further: "Edit pictures online."

Ok, how about: "A juwo is a list that can help you Save Time, Organize, and be More Productive."

The para you asked is taken from juwo.com:

A "Swiss Army knife" piece of software that gives more power to consumers to structure snippets of audio, video and text as a bullet list, to more easily index and annotate them, and to share the lists with others. Its benefits extend to multimedia as related to more enriching broadcasts, collaboration and organizing.

For starters, eliminate "Swiss Army Knife." It's a bit too general and therefore distracting.

Also eliminate the part about giving more power to consumers. When I visit your website, I'm not thinking of myself as "consumers." I'm just a guy who wants to get something done and wondering if maybe you can help.

Take the rest of that sentence and separate it into one sentence for each idea.

I appreciate your help.

What I am struggling with is, I am doing all the stuff - but people (at least on YC) dont get it:

1) links to 3 screenshots

2) simple cartoon diagrams with an analogy to shopping lists

3) a list of "what is in it for me" i.e. how juwo can help you.

4) links to demos for each of the above in 3).

Isnt all this good enough?

ok, I am going to do something different. please stay tuned.

ok, please go to http://juwo.com again. Is that better?

Goladus, your snipshot example is too easy!

IMHO juwo is different and harder to encapsulate.

Wow, your site is a lot better! I still think a screen-shot would be useful. Flash demo even more so. But these are hard to do.

One easy fix: your click here links are so 1990s. Verb phrases are passe: http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere

top priority for me - port to other players. After that, video and flash demo.

There are links to 3 screenshots on the details page.

Thanks for the link, I am surprised it is by W3C!

I disagree with them. Will your grandma recognize a hyperlink intuitively?

My web page is for people like her (rhetorically speaking).

Anil, I wish you all the best with juwo, but I really think you need to reconsider your feedback claim (i.e., "All feedback will become the property of juwo LLC.").

That's not the way to encourage constructive feedback, especially when you've cut and pasted all of it from here.

Ok, how do I prevent someone saying, "You implemented this suggestion of mine, it has helped make juwo popular, so now I own X% of juwo"?

Of course, this would likely happen only if juwo were to make money.

I am very willing to share revenues with those who help me actually implement.

Simply making a suggestion doesn't entitle anyone to claim ownership.

ok, I shall remove it from there - but put it on the feedback form instead - or is there a nicer way to say it?

don't say it. period.

ok, removed it. Hope there are no legal hassles later.

please go to http://juwo.com again. Is that better?

Now its a billion times better. Although you need to refine things a little bit more, now the site is usable. Well done!

:) thank you!

Now if someone would actually run the software...!

If PG wrote an essay "How NOT to start a startup," it would probably be most succinctly written as

How not to start a startup

April 2007

Juwo.com.

Japanese translation

Russian translation

you are cruel because you dont have anything to offer that will fix it.

you will get back in the same measure, and more.

thanks for making my day! :(

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