Ask HN: Review our startup: Tonido | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Review our startup: Tonido

tonido.com

17 pointscodemechanic43 comments

The site is beautiful, but even after reading the blurb, I'm not sure what Tonido is. Is it for users or developers?

primarily for users. so messaging is the problem

Agreed, I don't know what it is either. Also, I'd try shrinking your logo/header so that some actual content shows up in the first screen of content.

thanks. good suggestion

Agreed... beautiful

FYI, when I see nothing above the fold, it's a bit discouraging.

Screen: http://www.imagecabin.com/?view=24423358607dd118227aaef6e

This review very quickly worded things so it was clear what was going on: http://www.webchicklet.com/cool-web-sites/my-vote-for-best-a...

Ideally they find a way to word the home page in terms like what is used there.

Has anything changed since the last time you posted this?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537576

Sketchiness quotient increasing:

http://www.tonido.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=44

It doesn't look like you mean the same thing that everyone else means when you say "open source". You want to update this?

Your pitch is good enough that I was really annoyed when I realized that it is closed-source. I do not expect the crypto/privacy aficionados to help you out with this product.

the platform is open source

So... uh... where's the source code?

if you are interested please sign up in the developer mailing list. we will send the notification.

Ok. I did. Will you send the notification? Better yet, since you're open source, just post a link here.

Yeah, I'm still clueless in regards to what its actual functionality is.

it allows you to share, sync files, photos, music and media with your friends and family members without relying on public online services

That is exactly what it should say in the large blue text at the top of the page, instead of the vague sentence that is currently there. ("Tonido is an open personal web application platform that runs on your desktop which safeguards your privacy and online freedom")

actually tonido is also a platform. it comes with a set of applications currently. can build apps on top of it. thats why we are not sure what message is appropriate (platform or functionality or apps)

This is purely my intuition, but it seems like anyone who would develop for the platform is pretty used to digging around a website for information. The people who are just syncing photos, videos, etc. are more likely to be scared off by the first line on the front page.

If it were me I'd put up a simple explanation on the front page then give developers an obvious place to go for more information on the platform.

i think your intuition is spot on. thanks

I have no issues with the Music, files or other documents. Setup has been super easy thus far. I look forward to testing it out on my WinDoze machine next.

A userful review may be found at: http://www.linux-magazine.com/issues/2009/105/cloud_9

I agree the tonido website content does the toolset a 'huge' disservice. Tonido is a great environment which is unclearly under-communicated, under-stated, and unclear.

Where it does appear there is no mention of its use for small business; which is huge.

I was not even able to find mention of it on the Ubuntu Forums site... on the main Ubuntu site it appears once: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/P2PHowTo#Tonido%20-%20Peer...

It took a while for the page to load, look into YSlow or that new Google PageSpeed to optimize it. Also took a couple minutes to grok what it does. Once I did, I immediately wanted to get it but was hesitant about how much it cost. I didn't see any mention of price anywhere. If it's free, be sure to mention that somewhere (preferably in big bold letters).

All in all, it looks like you guys have done quite a good job. Good work and I'll be one of your users soon enough (once I get home and can open port forwarding).

I'm not sure I expected the site to look that amazing. Awesome job!

I really like the idea behind the software to. I can't wait to hear about you in the news down the road :)

Nice graphics but when I load the page the graphics take up my viewer (1280 by 800) and there is no copy to tell me what it is? I have to scroll down. I would suggest integrate short description into nice design right at the top so when page loads ppl get it right away!

Giant graphic obscures your info. I didn't really want to scroll down to find out what. Otherwise home page is good.

I'm not sure what it is you're offering that I can't do with, say, OpenOffice. What makes your apps different from/better than existing desktop software?

You can access the apps from anywhere. It has a p2p built in capability that allows you to sync your workspace, files and photos

Who's your target userbase and how do you plan to make money (assuming this is a business venture and not a non-profit) ?

In other words, are you being realistic by hoping to sell "no server dependency" to an average Joe, the Flickr user ?

plan to sell premium applications. differentiate business and personal apps.

looks nice but i dont know what it does. i read pretty much the entire front page and i cannot tell exactly what it is. looks like a professional site though!

Great idea, beautiful site, and the software looks great (haven't tried it yet). What's your business model if you don't mind me asking?

freemium. but we need to get traction first. plan to sell the domain server for enterprises and create new business apps for SOHO segment.

http://www.tonido.com/how.html

You forgot the "Systems Analyst".

looks very nice. Who designed the site? Graphics? Logo?

should the key message target functionality or underlying philosophy of the product?

Both. You should use the philosophy behind the product to distinguish yourself from the other similar apps out there.

Love the product, but yes, the site could use some work. Target functionality in big bold, philosophy on the about page.

the philosophy would be the main drawing point for me; it's precisely the reason I still keep all my photos, calndar information, files, etc. on my local machine, even though web-based access would be very nice to have. With you app, I can have both, wich is very appealing, although I'm slightly worried about bandwidth consumption if several people start streaming from my music collection, for example. Related to this (possibly), what exactly about the functionality of your app is p2p (that wasn't clear to me)?

Nice job altogether; I will definitely check into using this...

the p2p functionality is used in sharing photos and workspaces (similar to backpack app). P2P is not used for jukebox (more like ur own personal music station).

another thought: maybe you could sell this as an app you can install on a (commercial) server of your choice, and so not have this drain your local (presumably home) bandwidth, while still being independent of google, flickr, etc.

This would also save you from having to keep your desktop computer on and online all the time..

we thought about that. do you think there will be a market for it? will you pay 20$ per month for a virtual private instance to have tonido

Me personally, no, but I can imagine that this would be attractive to a small business. Anyhow, isn't the effort to port the app from being desktop-based to server-based minimal since all the interfaces are web-based?

yes we can port it easily

Clearly it should be both. Your business is Freedom, privacy and convenience. Sooo:

"Your stuff. Safely on your computer. Get to it from anywhere, just like a website. Share it, just like a social network."

Your pitch is the "best of both worlds."

Hi Caffeine,

I have used your byline in Tonido Site. Thanks a lot

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