

Etacts (YC W10) releases first implementation of Gmail OAuth for IMAP - cominatchu
https://etacts.com

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cominatchu
HN -- just want to let you know that we listened to your collective feedback
on our Etacts launch post last week

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jbyers
Congratulations on the fast turnaround. I have the dubious distinction of
writing the somewhat snarky top-voted thread on your previous post [1]. While
I'd still like a better understand of etact's privacy features, not having to
enter my Google password is good enough for now. I've signed up.

1\. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1144606>

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yurisagalov
A couple of comments/ideas/suggestions/feel free to ignore me/etc...

1\. The lack of sign in button is confusing (this can be solved by simply
renaming 'Go' to 'Login')

2\. I've been waiting for etacts to finish importing whatever it is importing
for almost 6 hours, and with no ETA / status bar / email update I'm inclined
to feel that it's either not working, is heavily bottle necked, or something
went wrong

3\. Assuming the system is actually just busy doing all the processing on my
emails, as an end user I would prefer it to do all this in the background, in
a manner that is oblivious to me.

4\. This means you could/should display 'incomplete' information, as long as
it comes with the warning of 'We've still got XXXXXX emails to process' or
something similar :)

I really just wanted to see what the interface/experience is like, regardless
of exactly how much information you've processed (i.e. I'm ok with seeing a
'last contacted 3 years ago' message, even though I contacted them yesterday,
because I realize you're still processing the information, but I want to see
it now, not five hours from now :)

You do a great job at a very simple one-click login/signup, but having to wait
forever to use this will (imo) lose a lot of people down the road who just
"want to try it" (one of the best quotable comments I've heard a few weeks ago
was from one of the founders of BackType -- "Your biggest enemy is the back
button")

Anyway, I do look forward to using it asap :D

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howsta
Thanks for the feedback. 1) Login button text is fixed. 2) Sorry, having some
delays from too many users trying to sign up. We're working on speeding up the
import process now. Sorry for the delay!

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yurisagalov
So I know I said no worries, but it's been >24 hours now, and it's still not
done importing my contacts (I don't have THAT many ;)... Any ideas on what's
going on?

(I might not get a response here since this is on the 3rd page now... but
going to try anyway ;)

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jon_dahl
This is a big deal. I'm not going to share my Gmail password with anyone
(except my wife, maybe) - which was too bad, because Etacts is a really useful
service. Now I'm able to sign up without giving them my password. Hopefully
other mail providers will do the same thing.

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anthropocentric
To be clear, you still need to give Etacts your password IF you use Google
Apps (not simply gmail), right?

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fjabre
I just signed up with my domain account and I did _not_ give them my password,
although on their site they state that they need it for Google Apps accounts.
Pretty odd.

It's still in the 'setup' state so I can't really do anything in their UI yet
but it did let me login with my google apps email never the less.

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stanleydrew
If you set up a Google Account with your domain email address wouldn't that
explain this?

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akardell
Has there been an announcement on general availability of Gmail OAuth? Found
the techcrunch article about an expected announcement, but no announcement as
of yet.

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fjabre
I'd actually be really interested to look at those API specs. Anyone?

This has been a long time coming: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=849586>

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euroclydon
First I've heard of etacts. Aside form their actual product, I'm more
interested in them as a Ycombinator company, because I can't imagine what the
growth/exit strategy for this type of company is. It seems to me that YC is
looking for smart people that can crunch a bunch of data. In that sense, they
are competing directly with hedge funds for talent.

So if you're smart, know some stats, and crunch a bunch of data for a few
years, I'll bet you can then turn your collective brain power and IP and any
problem you choose.

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pg
_I can't imagine what the growth/exit strategy for this type of company is_

Here's a related puzzle for you. In 1975 a company appears whose product is a
Basic interpreter for a cheap microcomputer used by hobbyists. What is their
exit strategy?

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euroclydon
Are you saying their strategy is puzzling or not? If not, then is it similar
to MSFT? If it is puzzling, are you agreeing with the rest of my comment?

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netcan
I'm not sure if you are pretending not to understand.

The point being made above is clearly that it is not possible to have an exit
_strategy_ at that point because the world & the product will change.

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euroclydon
Okay, It's my naivete even mentioning the word exit. I'm sure nobody's at YC
is interested in an exit anyhow. I was just trying to get a sense for whether
this product had legs or whether the team and area of technology were the
driving factor. However, now that I've heard the term: PCMS, I see the value.
I didn't make the connection with CMS.

Now, if Etacts would just actually import my gmail...

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apgwoz
Are other people getting a revoked certificate error when accessing this with
Chrome? Firefox doesn't complain, but Chrome 5.0 on Ubuntu is all over it.

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anthropocentric
FYI: Finding it odd that there is no "sign in" button.

Tried putting my e-mail address back-in on the home page and I get "need oauth
token"

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zaph0d
Is it just me, or is Etacts really dog-slow?

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mixergyNOTES
MixergyNotes on the founder of Etacts <http://mixergynotes.com/howie-liu-
etacts/>

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covercash
Thanks for posting relevant content to this discussion. I think I would
appreciate it even more if your username and url weren't the same. It would
make it feel more genuine and less spammy. Perhaps try participating in the
discussions as well, not just posting links to your site (as of writing this
you have 2 comments, both are links to your site).

