InboxQ (YC W10): Snagging Customer Leads from Twitter | Hacker News Reader

InboxQ (YC W10): Snagging Customer Leads from Twitter

blogs.forbes.com

53 pointsanswerly14 comments

I love the concept of InboxQ, but after a few weeks I disabled it because there were too many spammers asking the same question every day on the terms I was searching for. There needs to be some way to block certain users, and also to block certain strings of text.

Thanks, Alex. That is definitely something we are aware of and are adding a "mute" button so you can block the type of users that you are talking about. We are also building a quality filter specifically to address that type of behavior (ie so those folks just don't show up in the first place).

The latest version of InboxQ also supports negative keywords for campaigns where you can list words and you won't see any questions containing those words.

InboxQ's core functionality is very nice, and I've been using it lately to help promote one of my products.

I haven't been able to figure out why it is delivered as a browser extension, though. It doesn't seem to add any value, and in fact makes it more difficult to use than if it were just a standard web app. For example, if I have InboxQ popped open in Chrome and then I switch to another application to do some research or copy a link, then when I switch back to Chrome, InboxQ is closed.

Thanks for the kind words and feedback!

>>I haven't been able to figure out why it is delivered as a browser extension, though

This came largely from alpha user feedback. Those folks told us that they wanted access to the question stream, but didn't want another login to manage to access Twitter data. So, we started with the extension which made it easy to be notified when there were new questions.

We are working on a web app as well as integration into some of the major Twitter clients and social media dashboards. Eventually we'll get to mobile (another highly requested platform). That way folks will have lots of options as to how they access our tools.

I think this is a great example of why you should look to your customers for inspiration but not necessarily specific direction.

Although your users might not want 'another login to manage twitter data' they also probably wouldn't want every startup in this space to go the same route and create a browser extension you can have unlimited logins, you can't run unlimited browser extensions.

I would put the web app on top priority as for now I'm put off installing yet another browser plugin.

Cool- definitely happy to let you know when the web app launches.

InboxQ is closed when you switch back to Chrome because this is how Chrome extensions work. There is no persistant interface for extensions other then the browserAction buttons which can perform actions or open popups.

If you give the new FireFox version on http://inboxq.com a try it has a persistant sidebar that works like what it sounds you want.

Safari is my browser of choice, so the fact that I need to launch some other browser just to use InboxQ is annoying. But, since I'm already launching a different browser, I guess I might as well launch Firefox instead of Chrome. The Firefox extension says that it is not compatible with the current version of Firefox (4.0), though...

Make sure you are downloading from http://inboxq.com. The Fx4 version on AMO is still in review. Also be sure to sign up on inboxq.com for when we launch a Safari version.

InboxQ has a really smart team, and I know they're hiring too :) I'm not affiliated with InboxQ.

This is cool and I will def try it out, I've been doing this manually for a while.

Installed but cannot see the toolbar in Firefox (3.6.16) http://getsatisfaction.com/inboxq/topics/firefox_add_on_inst...

Great concept!

When that happens it is usually a conflict with another extension. If you email me with the other extension you may be running we can do our best help out (joe@inboxq.com).

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