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Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

Does the first sentence not cover that fairly well?

> Perkeep (née Camlistore) is a set of open source formats, protocols, and software for modeling, storing, searching, sharing and synchronizing data in the post-PC era. Data may be files or objects, tweets or 5TB videos, and you can access it via a phone, browser or FUSE filesystem.

I checked archive.org and that text has been there for a couple of months at least. Looks interesting, I've been in the market for this kind of self hosted backup/replication/tagging/search thing.

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> Does the first sentence not cover that fairly well?

Not for me. Almost all of what you copied there seems like intrinsically meaningless fluff. "a set of formats"? "a set of protocols"? "software"! Of course it's software! "for modeling"? "in the post-PC era"?

I would have preferred GP's ~"imports data/files from cloud services into a local database and provides a search interface for it". Because THAT tells me what it does, not any of the other words you posted.

Someone made a really well done cartoon mascot for it, but the copy isn't _helpful_.

> Does the first sentence not cover that fairly well?

It does not.

The first sentence on the site ("Perkeep [...] is a set of open source formats...") describes literally what the thing is, but not at all what it _does_.

Not to slam on these cats, because marketing copy is _hard_. For project collaborators, or open-source dorks who live in this kind of world anyway, the sentence on the homepage is probably perfectly descriptive.

But I agree with my GP post. Reading the homepage I had no idea what Perkeep actually did.

What it _does_ is:

> modeling, storing, searching, sharing and synchronizing [...] files or objects, tweets or 5TB videos, and you can access it via a phone, browser or FUSE filesystem

I mean maybe it could have been more explicit or they could have added more detail, but having this as the first sentence is WAY better than most of the 'professional' landing pages for startups that get posted here. 'Harmonizes synergy and increases your ability to wow your target space with your aspirations', now that's meaningless.

Them: “The project description isn’t clear to me.”

You: “Well I’m sorry it wasn’t clear to you but it was clear to me and better than these other things and here’s why it should have been clear to you.”

If someone tells you something is unclear to them, arguing about it doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t clear to them.

As an engineer

> files or objects, tweets or 5TB videos

means rsync, curl, and Twitter API integration. It obviously does more than this, since I can throw something together that does that in a few hours. Where is the list of everything it supports?!?

That should be front and center.

I managed to parse it, but there's a great grabber sentence down below that might be right at the top:

"Your data should be alive in 80 years, especially if you are." To which you might add, "We're here to help you make sure that's what happens". Then follow that with the "Things Perkeep believes ..." section.

After that, the mission is clear, how it works is clear (though many people might have -no idea- what 'Open source' is good for). Only Then (IMO) can you get away with going all technical on them!

For me it didn’t. That sentence is too vague as to what I as a user will be able to do with this project.

It reads more like a patent description than telling me what it's for.

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