How Greplin (YC W10) evolved from pure panic to potential | Hacker News Reader

How Greplin (YC W10) evolved from pure panic to potential

blogs.wsj.com

47 pointsdanicgross14 comments

First, I'm shameless. Second, I'm working on http://redwoodapp.com, a Spotlight-like OSX app that's similar to Greplin. Two key differences:

(1) Privacy - Redwood doesn't index your data: it conducts searches in parallel. When you open an item, it's cached locally for as-you-type search. Redwood doesn't intercept your traffic in anyway.

(2) No syncing complexity. Your Gigabytes of "Rent-A-Kitten" business plans on Google Docs are searchable immediately. Same with new messages in your 60k-message inbox.

We're using MacRuby, so you'll need OSX 10.6 or greater to try the beta.

This is a huge idea. Makes me really curious about Color, since Sequoia put $4m into this and a whopping $41m into that...

But seriously, Greplin is one of those ideas that as soon as you see it in action you have one of those forehead-slap moments where it just seems so obvious, yet no one hit on it before. Bravo!

Totally agree. I'm a huge fan and think I like it even more because I didn't get it right away.

When will we hear something new about Greplin besides this same old story...

In the last month or two we've open sourced a bunch of useful projects and tools (http://github.com/Greplin), released a cool chrome extension that is constantly getting new features (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bjclhonkhgkidmlkgh...), added support for a lot of new services (including Salesforce.com, Yammer, Highrise, and Basecamp), added many advanced search operators (http://help.greplin.com/customer/portal/articles/15527-how-c...), and massively improved search quality.

And that's all this while we're in the middle of a major architectural shift and hiring/interviewing like crazy (check out https://www.greplin.com/jobs! We're still hiring across the board).

The best part is that this is all nothing compared to the changes you're going to see in the coming months :-D

It's going to be interesting to see how they scale. Each person has their own body of data that needs to be crawled and updated on a regular basis. Google, on the other hand, has one body of data (the web) that is applicable to every user. Getting to just 1 million users will be very impressive.

From a security perspective, won't it be a worry? People seem to be putting so much data online without worrying about its implication --- FB, Google Docs, etc. Toolbars, plug-ins, etc., are installed without a second thought, giving them access to your 'personal' data/habits, etc., that is not online but in your system.

I don't see how this could be very useful. If I'm looking for something within my personal data, I'm probably going to know whether it's on Facebook, in my GChat logs, or on my filesystem and use the domain-specific search feature for that.

well, nobody said only you will be able to search in your personal data...

That's what it does - it's a search engine that lets you search within your own stuff all in one place... that may be too simple but that's how I remember it.

I thought this for a few seconds as well. Then it hit me... that's because I'm not a 21 year old who already has 7-8 years worth of history stored on multiple social networking platforms... where I will continue to build and accumulate "stuff" for the rest of my life.

This idea is brilliant, and this kid understood it because it makes so much sense from his perspective. Even with my more limited context, once I "got it", I couldn't wait to try it out and it rocks.

You select your platforms, type what you are looking for into a search box and Greplin finds it instantly... no scrolling or searching. Check it out.

I guess sometimes I have trouble remembering whether a conversation occurred on my old gmail account or my new one.

I am also 19, for what it's worth.

I think you can actually have more than one of the same type of account! I think I remember reading that one of Greplin's inventors decided to fund him bc every time they made a suggestion, he'd implement it right away and that was one of their suggestions! Guess I should stop saying "kid" here. Definitely no offense intended - I'm learning a ton on HN and never know how old anyone is. I just think it's awesome that his perspective led to this idea that I wouldn't have seen without help from mine!

It depends on the execution. But the idea is simple and I had a use for it just a few days ago - I was going to attend a gathering. I have not noted down the address and can't remember if the invite came through from Facebook, any one of my email addresses, IM or text. If I can go to a single textbox, type the name of the host and popup the invite/address, it would have been great.

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