Show HN: Callwarden
callwarden.com
callwarden.com
A few quick questions:
1.Are there any plans for price guarantees or annual subscriptions; something to protect early adopters from a price increase soon after momentum builds?
2.Do we get to choose our numbers or their area code?
3.Can you provide a basic rundown or links to the data collection/privacy polices
4.What is the protocol for exporting our data? Say I want to stop using Call Warden but want to keep my messages, can I download my messages en masse?
Thanks in advance, this looks like a useful idea, I wish you the best on the project.
1. Annual subscriptions is a good idea. Right now we're just seeing if this thing has legs. I didn't consider that people would want to pay a year up front. We are hoping we pegged the average costs per customer accurately. These are well-defined systems with fixed prices, but users are un-predictable. If, on average, users generate way more voicemails than we expected, I don't think we'd have a choice but to reconsider our pricing, or shut down maybe. This ties into your #4 question -- I'd want to make sure everyone could port out their numbers if they want, and collect all their recordings + trancriptions in that event.
2. Right now the number you get is a random US number. This was just a "get it done quick" decision. We'd just need to figure out a good UI for picking your area code, to tack it on. I only hesitate here because if users want a specific area code, in my head that's getting into other product territories (vanity numbers, "local business" numbers, etc), and we're trying to silo ourselves into consumer market (not B2B, there are other products for B2B). We'd also be limited by number availability at the carrier -- maybe it doesn't have the area code you want, kind of thing. Other than that, I don’t think we're against the idea.
3. Right now we store to/from values, duration values, transcription text, and recording files that start when the beep is heard. This data is under lock-and-key in S3 and in a postgres database -- when you play a recording in the UI (or download it someday), you're using a signed URL that has temporary access to just that file. The privacy policy is coming — it’s a good concern to bring up. We didn’t make this to sell people’s data, and want to be up front about that.
4. This is coming, especially for one-off download/export. Depending on the amount of recordings there might be some work on the user's end. It's intensive to zip up a bunch of audio and send it to a user, but not unrealistic. We'd at least have a way for each recording to be downloaded, and a user could have a script run that downloads all their recordings, in a rate-limited fashion.