'Private' social network Everyme (YC S11) takes on Facebook | Hacker News Reader

'Private' social network Everyme (YC S11) takes on Facebook

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78 pointsolivercameron61 comments

Oh man this brings back a lot of memories. Let me explain:

A few years back, we made a bet private sharing was going to be a very big thing. I'm talking maybe 4.5 years back.

So we went and designed a product called Sharekoo.com which basically allowed users to create private contexts where they could share any type of media. These contexts were by invitation only.

Developing it took a lot of time because this baby was/is very complex and it scales beyond belief. In the process we made an abstraction of the concept and created a sharing engine so that we could use it for any product we could develop in the future.

Sharekoo as product never saw the light of day (so many reasons that don't matter for this post) but we had our engine so we hooked it up to an existing PIM product and applied to Techcrunch50. We were invited to present in SF but for personal reasons we couldn't make it.

Here's the demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0hx6L3ldWs&feature=youtu...

After this, using the same engine we created Twitalbums.com which was private sharing via Twitter. I actually did a review our startup here in HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1051311

Here's a review RWW did for us: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitalbums_private_coll...

If you read the HN thread you can see how the conversation and the arguments for Twitalbums (and previousy Sharekoo) private sharing and the selling arguments of Everyme are basically the same.

We ended up putting the projects in stby, taking another direction but we kept the technology and made it better over time.

This is a lesson in having idea and being way ahead of time (I have learned a few more lessons and recognize lots of error along the way to) and being patient.

Maybe now is time to dust off the old projects, paint a pretty face on them and see what happens now :)

Exciting times ahead indeed!

I like the value proposition of being private by default.

With a kid on the way, I expect to share lot of pics and videos to close family members and I am in search of a proper (and private) solution to this.

However, before I commit to any service these days, I always verify what is the company's policy and offering for user's private data. Do they allow you to easily export/download your personal data?

Unfortunately, with Everyme, they have not mentioned anything about this on their site.

We just added data export to our mobile apps. You totally own everything you share, and you can request an archive at any time with all of your data (full-resolution photos, stories, circles etc.). We also automatically send you an archive of all your data if you delete your account, before it's destroyed.

It's very important to us that users feel comfortable sharing in Everyme.

Thanks oliver. That is reassuring to know. I will take it for a spin.

Would love to hear what you think! Feel free to email feedback to oliver at everyme dot com.

And do they host only the encrypted version of that data? Encrypted to the people you share it with?

Not decryptable by Everyme? That would be something really new and useful. Almost revolutionary!

That's an interesting idea. I am not sure if it's possible to do that and keep the same level of performance, features, and usability that we offer. If it was, I would certainly be open to it.

Quick note: why not integrate with the major mail providers to get my address book from there instead of making me enter them one by one? You had me on board until that screen showed up..

We are working on that for web (which is in beta), I'm assuming that's what you are mentioning. Our backend is ready to do Google Contacts and Yahoo, but haven't had time to wire up the front-end. If you download our app for Android or iPhone, you can use the address book there and create Magic Circles.

That is a difficult question to answer without knowing the complete architecture. However there are cryptographic accelerators which would be of help.

We tried this with https://twodeg.net.

TwoDeg (for Two Degrees) is a proof-of-concept (just for fun, not profit) social network that allows you to create ad-hoc channels (akin to circles) to communicate and share within smaller groups. We took the private-by-default approach as well. Moreover, we make the reach/extent of every post clear to the user by listing the people who can see it.

We used a combination of symmetric key and public/private key encryption in JavaScript to encrypt the information in the browser (I know the whole argument about how insecure that is - this is just proof-of-concept). Only you or your friends (or the people you share a post with) have the keys to decrypt the information. We, as the service provider, just move around encrypted data.

We don't have data export functionality, but that is something we could easily add.

Disclaimer: I work at Facebook. I share photos and videos of my kid in a secret FB group where I have to approve membership. It has worked pretty well, I'd encourage you to try it!

https://www.facebook.com/addgroup

Alternatively you could create a list of all the people you want to see this content and restrict visibility to that list when you post.

Everyme is an app that works REALLY well on all platforms for your purposes, not just pretty well. I would encourage you to give it a try. You might like it better.

I've used the Facebook secret groups feature and found it sufficient. Could you elaborate on what non-trivial benefits you offer over those? As far as privacy from the provider, it seems like I would have to trust you instead of Facebook, which from my point of view isn't a huge net gain.

Feature wise FB may be ok, but from the user experience perspective they have failed to offer anything remotely attractive on the mobile. This is what makes apps like Path and Everyme attractive, they were designed with mobile in mind.

Plus their mobile platform straight up sucks. It takes ages for mine to load (on iphone 3gs) on wifi or 3g. Even then, some of its capabilities are hobbled. I was trying to do something the other day (i dont remember what), but was very frustrated at not being able to do it.

Where to begin - first, our apps perform at least 30x better. Facebook mobile apps sometimes lag for 30 seconds or more loading new content, ours is instantaneous. Our app was natively built for all platforms. Second, we are backwards compatible with email and text. I think FB might handle email replies as well but text is huge on mobile and is a big deal for our users. Third, we can build your groups automatically for you with Magic Circles. Fourth, we are hooked into all major social networks and are constantly scanning for interesting events occurring in your life. When we find those events, we post them to your Circles for you (if you have the setting turned on) - this takes the effort out of sharing. There's more but I encourage you to try the app and see for yourself how much better it is.

Do you actually use the Push service? If you do, I would err with the side of caution since it shakes up the battery pretty bad.

We use APNS and C2DM, but you can turn them off if you're concerned.

This might work unless facebook decides to change the privacy settings so the pictures are suddenly not private anymore.

No thanks!

I consider everything I send to a server with facebook in its name to be public. Maybe not now, but in the near future. Just like twitter.

Hello, just curious, why is your child so secret?

Do yourself a favor - read this.

'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1098449_code...

I've considered doing this as well, but I can't get myself to trust Facebook to keep my photos my property.

Well, if I create secret groups and add my friends and others add me to their secret groups, I will be in about 50 secret groups - which doesn't make sense. Also, managing groups, like circles in very cumbersome. That's where apps like Path & Pair help a lot.

Yeah sorry, but I would never trust Facebook with anything private. One example: I used lists for years, selectively shared data with different people. One day Facebook gets Google+ envy and now the names of the lists I shared with is public. Imagine all the people with lists labelled "hot girls" or similar? An absolute violation of privacy.

There was the recent bug that allowed viewing of personal photos via the report dialog. There have been problems with application tokens allowing data to be compromised. And Facebook has a history of resetting privacy settings when it suits them.

How about when smart lists came out? I already had a Family list, so I followed the instructions and merged it with the new smart list. Then I found out that adding people to that smart list sent them a request to confirm family relationship. So I had to create a new list (I appended a dash) and move everyone to that. The thousands of posts I'd tagged hiding or showing family were now visible or hidden incorrectly, and I just about killed my account in despair.

If you're smart enough to work at Facebook, you should be smart enough not to trust your data to that company.

Sorry for ranting. I'm just incredulous at the whole idea.

I'm considering creating a page where I own the space and the domain, but I put in just enough Facebook integration so that only people who are logged in to Facebook and are my friends can see it, and they can comment and Like photos as they please, but the photos themselves aren't in any Facebook server.

This way the social interaction around photos are still available, but I keep the photos instead of handing Facebook copies of it.

This seems like a great idea. I wonder if we can create website we can host on our own server so that we retain control of the main data but connect it to the Facebook API so that our friends can connect and interact with it.

this is exactly what we used first PoolParty, then whatsapp and now G+ for. Its not like everyme is the only one, but once everyone got on board for g+, sharing of everything, along with scheduling live video became easier.

Google+ has the grand hypothesis that the simplistic and transparent approach Facebook takes to sharing is not what the market wants. Instead, they say, human nature is to have different personas when you interact with different social groups. That you have different identities depending on who you are interacting with.

This certainly is how it feels to me and those older than me. But to the next generation, growing up with Facebook has forced them to have more singular identities. Their Facebook identity and their person are one-to-one.

Google+ is doing the hard and expensive work of disproving this hypothesis for you. Take advantage.

I believe there are a considerable number of these "older people" who'd appreciate support for multiple identities. I think Posterous's "spaces" idea is better aligned with the "multiple identities" concept than Google+ "circles" anyway. "Spaces" or "Facets" let me participate in the tech life of a colleague without having to encounter the "I had X for lunch/dinner" posts.

Interesting how "private" is in quotes.

Maybe tech journalists, perhaps even their readers, are getting smarter.

So with this app you are letting one company, Everyme, collect and archive all of your private data (to be shared with whom, and used for what purpose?) instead of another, Facebook?

Well, getting away from Facebook is a start. Maybe your data won't be scraped by non-advertisers. But it's still going to shared with third parties who will try to profit from it. Why is this necessary?

We still have a long way to go.

Peer to peer.

No third party.

Cut out the middleman.

That is the easiest, most efficient and most sensible way to exchange photos and have privacy. It's old, reliable technology that underlies the internet itself. And it's ready and waiting until people's privacy gets abused enough that they start demanding direct links to their friends, instead of always involving third parties, whose motives and deceptive tactics are becoming increasingly better known.

This seems to hit a sweet spot between Path (share alike to a small group), and Pair (share with significant other).

If I could import from Path (which must be possible, since there's a third party Path "app" for Mac desktops), I'd switch.

I wonder how Path is doing overall.

I have intentionally not invited anyone to Path because the value in it for me is a tiny tiny circle, and I don't really want to add anyone to it.

But I also check my Facebook and contact lists to see who has joined Path, and beyond the usual list of very early adopters, there's been no one new in months and months.

The web app looks great and I love how smooth the interface is (yet to try the iPhone app).

I found, however, that it wasn't immediately obvious how to add friends to a circle after creating one. On the other hand, it didn't take long to discover I had to click through to Manage Circles and then click on the circle I'd like to add people too. The process took a maximum of 30 seconds but this could be a lot quicker.

I have an idea though. What about having a button to edit the circle I'm currently in? I think that'd make it much, much easier. Another idea would be a small edit button when you hover over a circle when switching between them? This seems like it would be a little easier to fit in with the interface but would make it less obvious and could make that portion of the interface less usable.

I've put together a quick 'n dirty example of the first idea for you:

http://www.jameswdunne.com/example.jpg

I'm not really a designer though so I reckon something better could be done with more thought and skill (and source files rather than photochopping PNGs!)

Great feedback! We're working on fixing this so it's more clear.

You're right, that is annoying. Thanks for the suggestion. Here's what we're going to do. On hover on the Circles list, we'll swap out the member count for an Edit link:

https://img.skitch.com/20120517-gg1dd9n3ecy5882gd8335tap44.j...

Oh wow, that's great! I'm currently trying to get some of my friends on board so we can use this. I think they'd appreciate the interface and the privacy - which they all find quite jarring about Google+ and Facebook respectively!

I feel like privacy regarding other users is a solved problem; it's privacy with service providers that bothers me.

The app looks very good right now, but there are also no ads. Are you planning for premium features or to introduce ads at some point in the future?

Thanks! No plans right now, we're just working on making Everyme a comfortable place for people to share privately.

At some point, though, you'll have to monetize. If that's with ads, it's going to make the usability of your app go down across the board.

We agree, completely! Traditional ads are not a good solution on mobile.

I would love to switch from Facebook to something like this. However, I would probably be my only acquaintance on this new network :(

I already lost a ton of credibility when I convinced many of my friends and family to try Google+.

That's the great thing about Everyme! Not everyone needs to be using the app for them to receive your stories, because it's integrated with the address book.

For example, most of my family don't use any social networks, but they all use email. So I created a Circle with everyone's emails inside, and when I share a story, they get a beautiful email with my photo inside. They can reply to the email directly to comment on the story, and all keep in touch. We've made email a first class citizen.

Google Plus sort of does that too, not sure about comments via email though.

only if you could promise and guarantee that you won't sell to Facebook, I would switch in a heartbeat!

If I remember correctly, you were going to reinvent the Address book on iPhone. If I may ask, what was the reason behind pivoting from that idea to a private social network.? Curios to know the reasons behind abandoning the idea of building a better address book.

Check out this article, does a good job explaining our evolution: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/12/the-story-of-everym...

If Everyme really does work that way then I will like it a lot.

The irony for me is that the most private thing I can do is also the most public: send a plain old email to a person with a link that anybody can use. The public-ness of the link in the email is what makes the act of sharing private. If the link was not public I would need to grant the recipient access to some piece of my social network for them to see the photos. Which in turn would probably expose a lot of other information about me to them, and thus would be a violation of my privacy. I'm not sure what one would call this idea of "private public" sharing but it's a concept I feel is missing from nearly all current social networks.

You would be well-advised to read this company's Privacy Policy, especially sections 6-9. It is a wonder they can use the term "Complete privacy" in their website copy without any fear of liability.

Why would I pick this over Google plus, or in addition to Google plus?

Everyme Circles are completely private, and everyone knows exactly who they're sharing with, whereas Google+ Circles are a confusing concept.

Everyme also uses your address book to do some amazing things, like magically create Circles such as family, co-workers, college friends, sweetheart etc., and then keep in touch with them using the address book (this means not everyone needs the app!).

What if I want some of my circles to be public and some to be private?

As an aside, this comment is a great example of why Hacker News is a great resource for startups looking for good feedback.

We don't offer public circles, since we're focusing on nailing private sharing. We want people to feel comfortable, so having a public option adds complexity.

Could you elaborate on how Google+ circles are confusing?

I could be in 1000 Google+ circles, but I would have no clue who else I'm in the circle with or what the circle is called. It's a very strange concept, and doesn't improve much upon private sharing (it's more of a lists feature). In Everyme Circles, everyone knows exactly who they're sharing with, because you can see all the content that is being shared.

Is there a way to directly message a person I have in a circle without creating a circle with only 1 person in it? This would be a very useful feature I guess.

Not right now, we're focused on nailing the circle experience.

I'm not sure if i'm social networked out or not. I'm desperately ready to leave facebook because of the privacy dangers it poses (I got burned by that once pretty bad). I also thought G+ would be a good alternative.

I might try something like this, as it's a novel method of social networking -- JUST on your phone (where facebook has failed to come up with anything worth using).

I'd say it has potential, but I'm also a little reluctant to try any new social networks. All in all though, i'd say it looks promising.

edit: aw i just tried DLing it and it's only iOS 5. That's a shame. Any plans to expand it to older generation OSes?

Thanks! Great to hear.

We understand the frustration of trying new social networks, but we hope you'll give Everyme a try. We added "Export Your Data" today, which means you can request an archive of everything you've shared on Everyme whenever you like.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com