Happy Holidays HN: our new web app for easy sharing with your family
ramamia.com
ramamia.com
You should try to work on adding a lot more white space, less text, and more clearly emphasizing what the likely action of the next user will be. Most families are full of non-techs that would need a fair bit of hand-holding here, because it's not clear what they need to do next...
PS. I accidentally put my family's name in lowercase, and it looks like that can't be fixed.
You're right. The design right now is pretty open. I will work on getting the design on track in terms of compartmentalizing things, adding images and icons to things, and the like.
>Good candidates for removal: the "share with others" link, the "ShareThis" widget.
We're removing ShareThis (since it goes against the privacy idea) but Share With Others public links can be emailed to people that aren't in the family, where non-family members can view and comment on the items. The public links are, however, secure, as they don't lead back to the main address of the family. So I think it's good to keep them. (Let me know if you think otherwise!)
>PS. I accidentally put my family's name in lowercase, and it looks like that can't be fixed.
I will implement changing the family name soon.
If you're looking to loop in the entire family, I'd try to get the most important stuff above the fold somewhere (i.e. the awesome overview video you have). I've watched the way my parents use the web and interact on their screens, and the first thing they'll look at is something right in front of them - in your case, show them the overview video above the fold while keeping your core message. Example arrangement: http://www.campfirenow.com/?source=applist
My $.02 at first glance but looks/feels great!
For, the "Why Use Ramamia?" section alongside the video, there are some points here that don't fit IMO:
"Get started for free in under 5 seconds" - That's not a reason to use the app. I wouldn't place this in the why section.
"Easily share photos, events, messages, and interesting links" - How? Can you tell me how in one a line point?
"10x easier to use than other family sites" - Again, how? Also, what's a "family" site in this sense?
"More private than using Facebook or MySpace" - Just covering all areas here, but do you think your target audience will know FB and MS well enough to showcase it here in this point?
"Add something and your entire family is updated" - Maybe say "anything" instead of "something" here. "Add ANYTHING and your entire family is updated IMMEDIATELY"?
You have to attach to an emotional need people have regarding their families. Here's one I think many of the folks on HN share: guilt about not staying in touch with family members that live far away. One way you might tap into that need could be to offer a "time-release" delivery option, where I can seed my family account with a bunch of photots, and your service can send them out to my family at a rate of say 2 per week. I'd get credit for being in touch with my family on a regular basis, and each email can be a starting point for discussions and stories that bring us together around a particular memory. Plus, we're coming back to your site again and again over time, and I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks per month if you could send printed photos to my grandma who doesn't use email.
That's an interesting approach. The goal is to let people stay in touch, when doing so is pretty much a bitch. Doing printed photos is a rev stream we're looking into ie- via qoop or an equivalent.
Thanks!
It's admirable to pursue great usability and I like your registration scheme, but I still need to smell the bacon.
You set up a whitelist to avoid the spam issue, and then make sure you train people not to send all of those exciting forwards and 60-pic messages.
She loves it.
"We're sorry, but something went wrong."
Tell me more.
Let us know what you'd like us to do regarding robots.txt . We'll get that done asap. thanks!
However, public content pages such as albums, messages, etc. will only be available when a) logged in or b) similarly obfuscated public URL.
WRT privacy, I'm working on getting the pages and content protected. It's difficult to find a balance between allowing people to email page links, and security.
- good idea, seems like there would be a market for it
- I think I get what you're trying to do with the login / obfuscation system, but it's non-standard and that makes it somewhat confusing for me at first glance. perhaps sell the benefits on the homepage?
- sell me on why this beats email
- I like how quickly you can jump in and check it out
- why not auto-capitalize family name?
- do you really need time zone? if so, perhaps you could default via geo ip?
- the "keep my page" button is cut off in ffx 3
- the "sharethis" option doesn't really make sense if you're trying to obfuscate these URLs...
- having the "post something" options as radio buttons seems kind of odd
That's a great idea. I think it might be confusing for people at first, but somehow explaining how it's better will be very useful.
>- sell me on why this beats email
Centralised site. Communicate without email clutter. Easier to follow a site and receive regular email updates. It's similar reason that it's better to use Facebook than emailing your friends. Thanks for reminding us why we need to make this clear.
>- I like how quickly you can jump in and check it out
Great to hear. That's the kind of simplicity we're looking for.
>- why not auto-capitalize family name?
I'll add that.
>- do you really need time zone? if so, perhaps you could default via geo ip?
I was thinking the same, to try to assume via Geo IP. I'll look into it, but last time I checked, it was an insane amount of money to license.
>- the "keep my page" button is cut off in ffx 3
Ah, okay. I'll resolve that.
>- the "sharethis" option doesn't really make sense if you're trying to obfuscate these URLs...
Good point - we'll be removing those.
>- having the "post something" options as radio buttons seems kind of odd
We thought this would be a familiar user interface element for people to understand. Perhaps it's not – I'll think about what could potentially replace it.
Thank you very much for your valuable feedback! Cheers and happy holidays.
Late October is when we started. Put together a spec doc. At first it was like two pages, we basically said: in order for this to be simple enough, we have to get it down to one page. The goal was simple sharing with your family, no bullshit involved.
Mark got a proof of concept up within 24 hours (layout, basic functionality, database,etc.) From there, we spent the rest of the time tweaking things, testing, user vids,etc.
It's certainly a great gift to share with friends and family this holiday season!
it wasn't obvious what the app does, so i left.
- Easily share photos, events, messages, and interesting links
ok, but i can do that with email. it's not clear to me what's the point?
@Jason Really like the look of this! I just hope releasing so late in the holidays (pre-thanksgiving I could see this service really taking off) won't affect it's adoption too greatly. Anyway, Thank you and Merry Xmas!