

Show HN: Linkwok – Picking up where search engines left off - Superbloop
http://www.linkwok.com

======
notduncansmith
Okay, I think I've figured it out. This app is a mind-mapping tool, where
nodes usually represent web content (but can be text, files, charts, or
tables). It also has a somewhat convenient search interface built in which
mirrors results from a few popular search engines.

The use-case that sounds most reasonable to me is trying to do some heavy
learning on a new topic, and using this tool to organize your findings. They
cite some other use cases (such as buying a new car or phone, or planning a
trip) but those seem best-served by other tools. I was actually researching
cars to buy this weekend, and a simple spreadsheet worked very well (columns
were features I wanted/needed, rows were potential candidates). There are also
many trip-planning apps that I think would serve that need far better than a
general-purpose app like this.

Ultimately, it looks like a lot of time was invested into this app - that
said, I can't see it being terribly useful (at least to me). It's too complex
to be helpful for the 90% of tasks that can completed with a piece of paper,
or a notes/spreadsheet app, and it's too general to offer a better solution
than niche products for the other 10%. If I had invested in this company, I'd
be encouraging them to pivot into either a) a Google Keep/Pocket competitor,
or b) something much more minimal that actually enhances the search engine
experience (as the title implies).

P.S. You're not impressing anyone with your grid-style website. It's not a
technical feat, nor does it improve the usability of the site - quite the
contrary. Even if it were somehow easier/faster to use than scrolling (hint:
it's not), the cost of switching to some new navigation paradigm is far more
than what new users will be willing to invest for some new app. You have about
3 seconds to get my attention, don't waste it teaching me how to get around
your website. Even if users are willing to put up with it out of curiosity,
it'll make the pre-app experience worse, and that determines what lens they'll
view the app itself through: "Cool, let's see what this does for me" vs "What
other ways has this company devised to annoy me?" This may sound harsh, but
I'd like to see you guys get some kind of reward for your hard work and your
current website is actively preventing that from happening.

~~~
Superbloop
Hey notduncansmith, thanks for the candid (and detailed) reply. The target is
to spend more time creating a canvas that can be used to collaborate and
present on than juggling several apps- tabs, Notepad, Word, Excel, Powerpoint.

The end goal, our vision is to become an ecosystem of knowledge canvases (a
wikipedia of 'mindmaps'). 6 billion searches are made every day just on
Google, out of which 90% have already been repeated within the last 24 hours.
How awesome would it be if you did not need to go through the haystack to find
the needle that somebody else already found?

That said, the concerns you and others have pointed out are genuine and we do
need to address them.

I will be taking down this post in an hour or two to resolve the 500 error
that has suddenly crept up. Thank you all for the feedback... :)

~~~
notduncansmith
Thanks for taking the time to get back to me. I do have a few more questions:

> The target is to spend more time creating a canvas that can be used to
> collaborate and present on than juggling several apps- tabs, Notepad, Word,
> Excel, Powerpoint.

The example use cases that I saw on the site didn't really convey this - also,
I didn't see a "presentation mode" or anything similar in the app, maybe I
missed something in the app that would support this?

Also, can you give me an exact use case that would be better fulfilled by
LinkWok than any other tool (and why LinkWok is the best tool for that job)? I
hope you have a concrete vision of someone solving at least one specific
problem in your app - otherwise, you have bigger problems than a 500 error.

> 6 billion searches are made every day just on Google, out of which 90% have
> already been repeated within the last 24 hours.

Source? I tried Googling around for it, couldn't find any articles that
substantiate that claim.

> How awesome would it be if you did not need to go through the haystack to
> find the needle that somebody else already found?

That would be great. Unfortunately, all this app appears to do is create a new
haystack - one that I will probably use a search engine to discover and
subsequently mine for information.

Also, from your about page:

> until now there has been no way to take advantage of the (almost absolute)
> fact that somebody out there has already found what you are looking for.

In fact, there has: search engines. Search engines order the results by what
it detects are the best answers to questions you have. In a surprisingly large
number of cases, Google can answer the question I type into the Omnibar
without me even having to click on a link!

~~~
Superbloop
You're right- we didnt focus on the ability to see maps that others have made.
We reckoned that until we get a particular user base, pretending like Linkwok
has a network effect would be a waste of time and resources. Right now, there
is a very small hook to make this point- one of the search engines listed is
Linkwok- where you can search for maps that others have made. We have metatags
and other stuff built and kept ready so that the maps can be trawled by Google
and other engines too. We expected that this 'ecosystem' would come into its
own after we had some solid traction and focusing on that instead of creating
traction might be a waste of resources today.

As for use cases, a common one would be planning a holiday with your
significant other or friends- more time goes in communicating suggestions and
feedback over email, Word files and the like- Linkwok would be an easy
platform to send these back and forth. Here's an example:
[https://app.linkwok.com/map?id=cWzkjEghEgtqewHuP](https://app.linkwok.com/map?id=cWzkjEghEgtqewHuP)

Another example is creating an at a glance overview of something complicated,
namely the mess of kingdoms in George RR MArtin's Game of Thrones series:
[https://app.linkwok.com/map?id=cWzkjEghEgtqewHuP](https://app.linkwok.com/map?id=cWzkjEghEgtqewHuP)

Teachers can also use Linkwok to give more information about a topic. Here's
an example where a friend wanted to teach his class about the history of
Linux:
[https://app.linkwok.com/map?id=gNEtYqPbJyacbEfmd](https://app.linkwok.com/map?id=gNEtYqPbJyacbEfmd)

As for the number of searches, [http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-
searches/](http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/)

And you're right- search engines do a great job of giving you an answer, as
long as the answer is encapsulated within one statistic (weather in NYC, Welsh
corgi personality, etc) but anything that requires even a modicum of research,
finding the 'right' site is increasingly more difficult...

------
gone35
_Use your arrows._

B-but I'm on an iPad. Swiping maybe? Nope. Nothing happens. Just broken layout
pieces strewn about, plus some inscrutable green bar (seemingly) loading
something.

And then, just when it looks like _something_ is about to happen... the page
crashes Safari. Repeatedly.

I wish I could comment on the concept itself, but the UI keeps stubbornly
getting in the way.

~~~
iamshs
Some more things they can work on:- Even if you navigate right on PC, you get
stuck upon navigating down, only way out is to navigate up again. And then you
reach the blog, which breaks the arrow key navigation again, and you have to
use mouse scroll. UX like this should have been caught on early.

~~~
scorpwarp23
Thanks for the feedback guys. We put in a temporary fix without the whole grid
nav. We thought it was pretty cool. But good UI is always an iterative process
and we're working to improve this.

------
cr3ative
Please don't over-ride my scroll mechanism and force me to use keys to
mystery-navigate - there's no indication that there are panels to scroll to,
other than mashing the keyboard and trying.

If you need a pop-up alert to explain to users how to use your UX, it is
probably not as good as traditional UX like a nice scroll page.

~~~
emehrkay
For the first minute I thought that the product was the way you scrolled the
content website.

~~~
scorpwarp23
Sorry to hear that! And we didn't mean to override the scroll. We just wanted
to draw all the focus on what Linkwok is and get users to the app faster. In
any case we have put in a temporary fix without the whole grid layout until we
do an overhaul. Thanks for the feedback!

------
ninjakeyboard
I went there and immediately received a very nice looking 500 error

~~~
notduncansmith
So did I. Try clicking on Dashboard in the top right, that worked for me.

Edit: False start, it doesn't do anything unless you make an account. Lame.

~~~
rajanand02
Hey. So were you able to move past this or did it appear again. We're running
some tests and it appears that some users behind proxies or firewalls cannot
connect correctly to either the ddp client or the server itself and as a
result there's a data inconsistency that results in the 500 error. If you're
still facing this issue could you help us out by capturing your console logs
and emailing it to us on admin@cybit.in ? Part of the reason for the error was
that the oplog instance was down but part of it seems to stem from proxies or
vpns that we're not able to replicate. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

------
slunk
Although I agree with others that the video leaves a bit to be desired, I
thought I understood the point well enough and was looking forward to trying
it out... Then I attempted to do just that and was instantly greeted with
"INTERNAL ERROR

AN INTERNAL ERROR WAS ENCOUNTERED." :/

~~~
scorpwarp23
Sorry about that. Do give it another whirl now please.This was an error with
our db service provider. Apologies again.

------
jclos
I don't know how much success you will have as a general search tool but I can
tell you that with some tweaks here and there it would be an amazing tool for
people to help with mapping a literature review, by searching google
scholar/ACM/SpringerLink/IEEE/etc., drag&dropping results (which are papers or
web pages) and adding some "glue" (edges between papers, "clusters of
documents", timelines based on some metadata...).

------
bshimmin
As the other commenters have said, this was incomprehensible to me (I didn't
watch the video, unlike the others, but you should be prepared for people not
watching introductory videos - I for one hardly ever do).

Does this make more sense in other cultures? I know a wok is a round-bottomed
cooking pan - I don't know what that has to do with links or search though.
There also seemed sporadically to be some anime characters showing up - should
this have been a clue to something?

This could be something incredible, I just have no idea what.

~~~
scorpwarp23
Please refer my answer here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8283554](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8283554)

As for the name - The idea was that it's a wok(cooking pan) for what you find
on the web.

And the video - I agree entirely. Any app should be simple enough that when
you get there you know what to do. Unfortunately either we need to find a new
UI/UX and Interactions guy or more likely it's a process to get a completely
intuitive UI and we're working towards that. I'm just glad we hadn't posted
the last version on HN - I'll admit it was appalling! As one commentator on
Twitter said - it's like Prezi for research so please give it another go.
There's a feedback button in the app that you can use. Thanks.

------
willu
My recommendation would be to make your video more instructional in nature
rather than "edgy". Go through some real examples. I watched the video and ran
a couple of searches and had no idea what the value was or what I was supposed
to be using your product for. Sharing search results? Annotating them? Why? I
searched for "best falafel" and got a popup telling me I had 3 search maps
(what are those?) about things like cheap cars and startups in India.

------
iamshs
I somehow managed to navigate your atrociously laid out grid navigation. I
read the blog titled "The Maze of many things", and seems like you pitched it
to some VCs and were criticized. You resolved to make your pitch stronger, and
after 4 months you still haven't managed to do it, because I did not get what
is the benefit, and how I can achieve the said benefit. Please rework your
processes.

------
scorpwarp23
Hi Guys. I'm with Team Linkwok. We regret the issue that you guys faced. It
was because of our MongoDB service provider. Our oplog instance was offline.
We have subsequently added a fix for this. The internal server error should
not appear anymore. Thanks for your patience. As for the feedback you'll have
given us, many thanks, we shall take your points into consideration.

~~~
scorpwarp23
Many of you with the app running might face a reload as the page hot-code
reloads so that you have the latest version of the App.

------
borplk
Just wow. Did you have a competition on how you could tell as little as
possible with a video? because that video just won that competition.

------
Superbloop
To (most) of the comments regarding not knowing what to do, Linkwok is all
about DRAGGING AND DROPPING search results, annotations, files from your
computer and more to the canvas on the right side.

It has a few similarities to mindmaps, but where those force you to
concentrate on creating, with Linkwok, you get to concentrate on organising.

~~~
iamshs
Any link to one of the canvas?

~~~
scorpwarp23
Two 'searchmaps' about Linux: 1:
[https://app.linkwok.com/view?id=QSgnSYDj2rZ5sdxWf](https://app.linkwok.com/view?id=QSgnSYDj2rZ5sdxWf)
2:
[https://app.linkwok.com/view?id=eBLZYv5m66y3jTe9k](https://app.linkwok.com/view?id=eBLZYv5m66y3jTe9k)

Check them out. The idea that we seem to be failing to convey is that in most
cases of casual research online it ends up taking hours and is not completely
optimized. Also content ownership online is near impossible for the lay user -
For e.g. Who has the time to author a wiki - but what if you could just drag
and drop what's relevant and add some notes here and there, add connections to
show a flow of thought and share it with someone. I used to teach engineering
undergrads and signed up to work on Linkwok only cause I saw the value -
Imagine lecture notes and lesson plans as Linkwok searchmaps! Where teachers
and students can interact as well.

We get that search is private so by default everything IS PRIVATE on Linkwok
but then content authorship is NOT generally private. So Linkwok caters to
that as well.

Consider this: 1\. When users search online and you're distracted or switch to
a different task, it takes them a while to get their bearings with all those
tabs etc. Or when you bookmark, unless you open the page you often don't know
what it was. Here, every page can be stored as a visiting card - edit the name
and description to something you remember 2\. Users often don't remember how
they got to a particular page - what they searched for when they found it. On
Linkwok every page you add gets tagged with the search query. 3\. There are
several use cases where people need to collaborate when doing research and
Linkwok directly caters to this. 4\. It brings content authorship to the lay
user cause it is supposed to be simple - ideally - evidently we need to fix
the UI and UX a bit. 5\. People search for similar things - If someone has
found and curated the information for that topic why not continue from where
they left off?

Finally, to my mind there's three kinds of searches that occur - broadly. 1\.
Where the user searches for something, the first link is all he needs and he's
done. Linkwok is not for this case. 2\. Where a user needs to iterate queries
until he gets what he needs - Linkwok can come in mighty handy here. 3\. Where
one answer is not enough -one link is not enough - And here too Linkwok comes
in handy

And if Linkwok searchmaps can come in handy for 2 and 3 - won't a searchmap
also become a one stop for case 1 as well? That's what we're going for.

We're strangely positioned as an App. I will admit. But we do believe that
there's value and hope that we can somehow convey this.

You asked for links, I know I have said more. But I did feel the need to add
all that explanation cause we're obviously failing with our communication.

------
wiradikusuma
I watched the video, still dont understand. Clicked Get Started, and greeted
with Internal Error :(

------
wzy
Like everybody else... I made a search, got results, didn't know what to do,
then left.

I guess I can't figure out where(what?) google or bing is leaving off when I
search for something

------
bluewolf
This looks like a new kind of research tool, which is great. I love this kind
of stuff. Just show step-by-step how to use it and provide several examples.

------
wodenokoto
I watched the video and clicked get started, looked at the screen and left. I
still don't know what I should do or why.

~~~
ninjakeyboard
there is a samurai on the site. that's why.

------
Mithaldu
The site's completely broken in Opera 12.

------
st8ic
incomprehensible. Video failed to explain what the thing actually does. Really
struggling to see the value.

------
drdoooom
i'm not too sure what service it's suppose to provide.

------
animex
Startup down.

