Show HN: Start to ambitious #1, addon to Google faster

"Show HN: Start to ambitious #1, addon to Google faster" is a nonsense title.

"Start to ambitious" does not parse as English and adding "#1" does not help; "addon" is also not a verb, and if we substitute "add on", the phrase "add on to Google faster" still does not mean anything.

Is this petty? I don’t know. It bothers me to have a completely inscrutable title on the home page.

Edit After looking at the page, it would seem this is, indeed, an incredibly lazy submission title: It gets its name from PG’s essay on ambitious start-ups; replacing Google is ambitious idea #1, and apparently building Yahoo! Axis on Google counts as insanely ambitious. "Addon to Google faster" is supposed to convey "extension (?) for faster Googling."

On the linked page, you will find the odd choice of Myriad — Apple’s constant ad-copy font — and Jobsian phrasing (“insanely great”). Apple has nothing to do with this. Then you’ll note the poorly-chosen phrase “searching Google” — no, you’re searching the Internet with Google. Results are not limited to Google.

I suppose one could say I am being cruel, but there are maybe 20 words here and most of them are erroneous or poorly chosen. I don’t think it’s “just” a language barrier; PG’s essay was in English, and yet even the phrase lifted from there managed to corrupt all the words!

Wow, guys don't be so harsh. Remember what Y Combinator is about. Sharing great ideas, being ambitious and chasing that dream of becoming a valuable asset.

First, how many even looked passed the title and downloaded this and tried it out? Sure, we can say it's a completely erroneous ambitious title, but c'mon look at the idea behind it, and the possibility before you go retorting and slamming down someone's dream.

I tried out this app, and I know this person behind the app, and I have to say honestly minus the years of experience that the developer obviously lacks he could potentially become an extremely valuable asset in the valley.

Why? Because not only is he ambitious, and has a vision for what he wants, but he continuous to work at it, continuous to learn despite the nay Sayers and is constantly asking for the advice on how to make his app better. Sure, it's obvious he's no Jobs, Zuck, or Gates but you don't need to be a genius with years of experience and the terminology of an Oxford English Professor, and the calculations of an MIT Professor. You need a dream and the willing to not give up no matter what people say or throw at you, and more importantly be able to quickly adapt to change.

Let's be frank, this is not even beta ready and is probably released way too early, but for what it could potentially become.

It'll eventually be a top extension many people would download if the developer put in the right time, resources and people behind it.

Here's the author's description of the site from a meetup group page (I remembered seeing this there recently.): http://www.meetup.com/Startup-Grind/members/15953101/

"It helps you get answers much faster with Google. The Chrome Extension immediately opens the first result when you search, and places your search results on the left in a sidebar. You can view 5 results in just 5 clicks, as opposed to 10 with regular google."

Just adding this text to the page (ideally right now while it is on the front page of Hacker News) would go a long way toward making it clear what the extension does.

Thank you for making this. I like it and I will give it a try, nonetheless the first impression is good.

As the other comments point out the copy is very bad. I think that you should improve it and that HN commenters should check things out before writing. To be honest I've only tried because of the backslash (I don't like to install extensions from non authoritative sources).

Finally, this is a nice extension... but if a frame is your concept of ambition, you should reread PG's essay.

---

This is an extension that replaces google with a sidebar loading immediately the first page that you search. It allows to browse among the search results quickly.

There's nothing about your page at first glance that tells me what you're doing, most people will click the link, see something trying to install, and discard/close the window.

Might want to fix that.

So they reinvented this? http://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects/search/sidebar.jpg

Sorry, but it doesn't show me what this actually does, and there is zero chance I'm just going to allow an extension to be installed on my browser.

Also, "insanely great" is a Steve Jobs trademark phrase in spirit, although probably not legally. Regardless, stealing his catch phrase for this mundane app sticks out like a sore thumb, and I would change that if I were you.

You likely are already aware of this, and maybe your selected domain name is not your permanent long-term choice for the project, but "scoutapp.com" (also named Scout) is a rather popular analytics package. It may lead to some branding confusion, even though the product goals are clearly different.

I'm not really seeing what's going on here.

What is the app doing?