Apps like this are funny. Looking through the comments now, it's as if every one of us has implemented one of these (yes, I have too.)
One simple explanation is that they're easy to write, and fill a need we all have. I suspect another reason is that as developers, we notice a problem: "I hate taking notes!" and then instinctively, we try to solve that problem with technology: "I will write a better note-taking app!"
I have no strong feelings about this variant, except that I really think it should size itself to my browser (with a reasonable max-width.) That would make it pretty multi-device friendly (mobile/desktop/tablet), and be basically 0 work on your part.
1. The inability to protect a note or do anything beyond create a note may fit the "simple" mantra it does not create good usability. There are so many essential features (no matter how simple the site is) that are missing. What if someone guesses my URL? What if I don't want anyone else to see my note(s)? I tried signing up and got "Thank You for signing up. We will notify you when user-specific features become available."
2. The ability to edit other peoples notes can create value with collaboration but it needs to be real time. If I open a note in another tab, edit it then switch back to the first tab and edit it I've just overwritten everything that the other edits contained. This is a big problem.
3. (Personal opinion with no real justification beyond personal preference) why have you put adverts on this? For me if you're building something that is "simple" and then putting adverts on it seems a contradiction, now instead of a basic notepad I have a basic notepad with a flash advert distracting me from the actual purpose of the site: typing. Yes, if you had large costs to cover it would be understandable, but you don't.
This isn't a bad start, the design is nice but "simple" is not synonymous for "lack of features", it means something is easy to use but has enough depth to make it usable, this doesn't. A very basic revision history is necessary at the very least, although personally I'd use one of the already existing text tools (pastebin, pastie, hastebin) or for collaboration google docs.
Personally I think if you were to expand this into having real time collaboration, customisation of permissions (using the "account" system?) and revision history it would become something worth having bookmarked :)
Edit: seems this is just a resubmit from a couple of days ago, not sure why it seems to match the previous comments, have you made any changes? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3719057
Just for reference I'd like to add http://substance.io . It offers some more options for structuring a document and has a lot of export options. Real time collaboration also missing, but seems to be planned.
Cool project. You might want to check out the etherpad github repository, if you want to add real-time syncing to your site. https://github.com/ether/pad
This shit is awesome!! I have been wanting something exactly like this for a while now. I even tried building it myself but then never finished. My use case was communicating with my roommate and this works perfectly for that.
In my opinion it doesn't matter that it doesn't update automatically. Its not for chat or real time collab, its for notes. I totally get it and I think the simplicity is beautiful. Really great work!
edit: didn't notice the add till I looked at comments and turned off abp. Is it even worth the couple bucks?
Love the simplicity. I've definitely seem something along these lines before, but this zero login, zero hassle approach should be used a lot more online.
I think this is the tip of the iceberg for ease of use... eventually we'll see everything get this easy, and once payment is on this list we'll finally see online donations for stuff we like comparable to throwing change in a guitar box downtown. Looking forward to that!
One simple explanation is that they're easy to write, and fill a need we all have. I suspect another reason is that as developers, we notice a problem: "I hate taking notes!" and then instinctively, we try to solve that problem with technology: "I will write a better note-taking app!"
I have no strong feelings about this variant, except that I really think it should size itself to my browser (with a reasonable max-width.) That would make it pretty multi-device friendly (mobile/desktop/tablet), and be basically 0 work on your part.