Show HN: Unioncy – Keep an automated record of your things | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Unioncy – Keep an automated record of your things

unioncy.com

36 pointsvfbod46 comments

Asking to get read/write access on my GMail box right away is a non-starter for me. I get that it may help you auto-populate my database, but you really should avoid asking it without any proper popup explaining why you must have this authorization.

Ideally you should use a two-step authorization phase, basic-info only for login/registration, then once the user gets to see the interface, have a button to extend permissions to read GMail.

Thanks, that's great feedback. Google also just released a Gmail API with more fine grained scopes that we are looking at.

What about explaining to people how to set a filter that forwards their Amazon receipts to one of your addresses? Then you don't need to ask for any access, and it potentially works for most email services.

Thanks! Sure, I guess that's a good solution for people who know how to do it and are willing to spend the time.

If you go this route, which will bring you more customers, you should provide instructions for the major email providers.

sure, that makes sense. thanks

These guys spammed the gawker network (kotaku, gizmodo, etc, possibly other sites) for months on every single article. I won't be using their service.

I visit those sites regularly and saw the spam every day.

Congrats in launching and getting your product to this stage.

Unfortunately I do not find it too useful. I buy from a lot of places, Amazon represents perhaps 5% of what I buy so your product doesn't add much for me.

Have you considered creating an app which has a barcode scanner which populates the item database? It was my understanding that barcodes were unique to each item. Is there not a way to pull the item name from a barcode?

This seems preferable to having only Amazon or online retailers. Your current solution doesn't do much to help catalogue the hundreds of items laying around my house.

> I buy from a lot of places, Amazon represents perhaps 5% of what I buy so your product doesn't add much for me.

I too think this service, as it stands, is too tightly focussed to be of interest to me. If I want to make notes on stuff I've bought, I'd put them on my personal wiki running on my PC. The advantage of doing it that way is I can use the same system for all my notes on everything, so I don't have to remember/learn/understand lots of separate systems, each no doubt with their own foibles.

Thanks, your feedback is really interesting and I would like to learn more. Can I ask you why do you do keep all of this information associated with your products?

I don't for everything I've bought but I do for important stuff, such as computer parts like hard disks (I'll use that info so I know what disks are in what PCs), or for motor insurance (where I will want to renew it periodically).

thanks, that's helpful!

Thanks for joining in. This is a fair point of course. We started with Gmail and Amazon for online purchases and would like to add support for more vendors.

For offline purchases, I agree that barcodes could be a good way to get them into the collection. There are many more ways that we would like to implement, we are just focusing and starting small.

"Have you considered creating an app which has a barcode scanner which populates the item database? It was my understanding that barcodes were unique to each item. Is there not a way to pull the item name from a barcode?"

--> http://delicious-monster.com

I like this, like a much more useful DeliciousLibrary. However, I HATE that it uses Gmail! Does Amazon not provide an API that it could use? I'd much rather tools like this used something I can control a lot better. I'm afraid that post-snowden, there is no way I'd allow any third-party software access to something as broad as my Gmail account.

Just reading https://unioncy.com/how_it_works

"2. We scan for Amazon receipts Unioncy continuously pulls information from Amazon receipts in your inbox to create a collection of your things."

Looks nice in the screen shots but for me that's where it ends until they add register functionality without Google signin!

Same. I would sign up and add everything right now if there were an option to simply enter items manually. A little bit of work on my part would be more preferable to opening up access to my email.

You can in fact add items manually using search inside the app. Although I get your point that you are not comfortable signing up and giving permissions.

Absolutely agree. This looks really useful, but I would rather give it my Amazon credentials than access to my email (plus I don't use gmail for much). Or let me forward Amazon receipts to an address ala TripIt? Some options would be good.

Thanks! We're starting out with Gmail, but we plan to add more ways of building your collection. Amazon doesn't share the data through its API unfortunately.

Everyday I see one app launched which needs my gmail access. strict NO!!

Agreed. If you need access to my Gmail, I won't be using your product.

That's a really nice idea with huge potential.

I currently use Stuffcard (http://mystuffcard.com), though.

Looks interesting. We used to call them 'Product Cards' in an early prototype. Will have a look at this

It sounds like a great idea, but thieves might want to own the servers that store this data. On these servers will be a list of products and because of the receipts, very likely the physical address of where they were shipped to and how new they are.

Also, although https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ does say the site supports 256bit AES, the unioncy server does not prefer it and under "handshake simulation" every current device will only negotiate a 128bit AES key.

Arguing about 256bit v.s 128bit AES on for TLS isn't really important though; the risks are all with the data-at-rest and stored on the unioncy servers.

In reading the privacy policy it appears that the product information will be used to provide selected and targeted advertising.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I take it that you have two main concerns in security and use of your data. Regarding security, I can't argue with the overall nature of the problem that you are pointing out. What I can say is that we take security very seriously and are being proactive about it by implementing measures such as SSL. To give some perspective, I think the service is very safe compared to many other online services that store personal data. We realise this is not enough for some and respect that, but we will keep improving.

Regarding your second concern about privacy. For the avoidance of doubt, the privacy policy says "We use your personal data, in anonymous form or by link to pseudonyms, when required, for the following purposes. In order to provide information and services required by you, such as customer service for example. To provide for an customised presentation of content, advertising and user experience. To provide news regarding the services of Unioncy and other administrative issues. In order to provide you with targeted marketing activities and advertising offers on The Unioncy website..."

This policy is vey much in line with Evernote and other leading personal data services. Similar to them we never want to compromise the user experience. Hope this helps!

The Gmail approach doesn't interest me, but a method using Amazon product lists and a search with autocomplete and images (to help me identify the products I don't know in detail) would be more useful.

Haven't tried your product as a result of the Gmail thing so I'm not sure if you already do this, but you could prompt people with things like:

What model fridge do you have? (Delete - I don't have a fridge) Washing machine Microwave etc

Thanks, you can manually add products through search (with images, title, brand, etc)

We don't prompt or recommend what to add at this point, but it's an interesting idea if you can do it well. I appreciate your feedback!

This sounds like a nice idea, and something that I could benefit from. I even clicked on the 'sign in with Google' button to have a look, something I wouldn't usually do. The next page presents me with the google warnings, including

(allow this site to) "View and manage your mail"

No! Would anyone other than the devs who wrote this site allow that?! That's insane!

That's an idea I meant to work on for a while. The potential is enormous.

Sorry about the paranoid people that don't want to give you access to their mails.

Add more semantics. Add other input methods (such as barcode). Add image recognition (hardest part). Add Mechanical Turk classification/identification.

Good luck.

Thanks, great to hear a different opinion. It is expected that giving access to Gmail is a concern for some and not for others. Luckily, there are many ways you can build out this area. Agree that the space has a lot of potential, it's currently very broken!

Hey, nice idea but not really new eh? I recently tested slice.com and itembase.com. Both allow me add products manually or forward emails to them and get the information extracted. So I don't have to give access to gmail. How does your service differ from that and why is unioncy better for me?

Thanks for joining in. They're certainly in the same space. I think that we focus on different things and provide different value. Itembase and Slice are very similar in terms of feature set with a focus on online shopping. Also, their business model is to sell/exchange your data as shown http://intelligence.slice.com/ and http://partners.itembase.com/

Unioncy on the other hand is all about your products and your ownership experience. In practical terms, one big difference is our data. We have gathered information around your products like user manuals and warranty details and provide this information for you instead of you having to enter/upload it manually. It follows, that we think that our user is different from Itembase and Slice. There are more differences and many directions that this can go so definitely room for more than one player in our view.

Regarding Gmail, I've already mentioned several times in this thread that this is our first solution and more ways of adding products will come. Thanks!

Ok thanks. I apprecate your feedback and the fast response time. I guess you're right there is room for more than one. So, how do you plan to make money?

I think there is huge potential to monetize in this space. I think the key is to maintain the integrity of our users. I don't want to give much detail in public to be honest. Happy to have a chat in person if you are really interested. If so, feel free to ping me @vfbod. Thanks!

Even if this might seem useful in theory or on paper, it's never going to fly in practice.

Thanks for weighing in. It would be interesting if you could elaborate your thoughts a bit.

Don't take my word for it. I thought the same thing about Facebook and look at them now.

> Protected by highly secure 256-bit SSL encryption, no one but you can see and access your information.

Assuming you have access to the data on your servers, shouldn't that read "no-one but you and the NSA"?

My guess would be: CIA, NSA, FBI, and probably Sheriff Random from Hillbilly Cove.

Like others, not interested in the gmail read access. I'll sign up if you drop the gmail requirement and simply allow me to add items manually (or forward amazon order emails to somewhere).

thanks, that's good feedback. If you are interested, register your email on the waitlist at the bottom of the landing page and we'll let you know when other ways of signing up are available.

i have a folder for this kind of stuff, and not on a computer. http://i00.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/411/912/331/331912411_939.jpg

that said, it's a nice idea, although not for me, because of the above, and because i don't want you to have access to my email

I opened the site using my iPhone, not responsive at all --- I'll give it a go once am on my PC (hold your horses people, I run Linux on it)

What does it matter if you run Linux?

this is true, we will improve mobile as soon as we have more resource.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com