Show HN: Introducing Sendcat: I'm working on a side-project, what do you think? | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Introducing Sendcat: I'm working on a side-project, what do you think?

willj.net

10 pointswlll4 comments

I just visited http://sendcat.com/ and came up a few stuffs:

- Logo. A logo should be simple and friendly to print. Your logo (cat in box) looks more like an picture than a logo.

- Text. - Tell people more on "easy and simple to send files". - Cut half of texts (from book "Don't make me think")

- Input box and button. - They look too identified by appearance (texts in a gray border). Don't "Violating Design Conventions" (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html #8). Make a input box looks like an input box and a button like a button.

- Expression. - I clicked "Get in touch, we'd love to talk" because I want to know what exactly "easy and simple to send files" is. However, it turned out to an email link. So why not just write "Email us"?

Hope it helps.

Since you asked...

I don't see the point. You seem to be aiming to be a drop-box competitor, and hosting the files yourself. You don't have a GUI and barely have an alpha for the CLI.

There are other projects that already do uploads to certain file hosting websites (like http://code.google.com/p/plowshare/ for instance) and those are totally free. (Well, at least that one. I haven't ever wanted it, so I had to search.)

Your website doesn't actually -show- anything and your signup has to be the worst I've ever seen. (Send me an email? Really? With the alternative being to give you an email address and then sit on our thumbs and hope.)

Your points are good, and perhaps I didn't make some things clear in my post.

> You seem to be aiming to be a drop-box competitor,

Nah, that's a different utility, I use dropbox myself and this tool solves problems for me that dropbox doesn't. I probably need to clarify this.

> You don't have a GUI and barely have an alpha for the CLI

I don't have a GUI (yet), true, but the CLI interface works, and is being used, and it's a first-class way of accessing the service.

It's true, there are other file-sending services out there, and you can access them using plowshare, but I will be running a quality service that believes a CLI interface it important enough that it will be provided by default, not through a third-party tool.

> Your website doesn't actually -show- anything

I should have probably posted this as "Tell HN" I guess, my mistake.

> your signup has to be the worst I've ever seen.

I'd love to hear some more constructive criticism of this. It seems that a mailing list is the standard way of letting people know when things are ready, but I'm open to suggestions.

Looks interesting, I would try to emphasize what makes your service different than other file sharing services (even if its just a simple bullet list). Addi tonally I would get your service to a healthy beta stage before you post a lot of public details or a larger competitor may simply rip off your unique features before you get 100% up and running.

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