

Ask HN: How can I get reviewed on TC/Gigaom/etc ? - ruslan

We recently started a new service (freeringer.biz). We flooded our press-release through a number of PR agencies, but it has zero effect (as it was expected). So, I'm desperately trying to contact bloggers and other startup press while the product is still hot, but all my attempts are futile. Any suggestion on how to get big guys' attention ? Thanks.
======
matt1
Few miscellaneous observations:

\- Seeing the ".biz" domain immediately made me suspicious of the site. Right
or wrong, ".com" still rules. I'd strongly recommend finding a better domain.

\- Why does the registration ask for DOB, gender, profession, marital status,
and children? Seems like a scam at first.

\- I signed up with bogus info and made a call. The app asked me to grant it
use of my microphone and camera. I declined, though my phone did ring and tell
me to call back a #. I stopped there.

Overall, its just... eh. Doesn't seem legit. It may very well be, but the
overall poor design really makes it seem shady. My 2c: Hire a designer to
improve the interface and go from there. If it really does let you make free
calls to all those places, you should have no problem getting your publicity.

~~~
ruslan
I appreciate your opinion, thank you.

The service is ad-supported, so we need to know about user as much as possible
to target ads. The ads will be interactive flash applications shown while user
is on call.

The problem with .com domain is known: there no more unregistered domains left
and all decent names are taken by moro^H^H^H^Hclever guys, which they sell
starting from $5000. We developed service on a very tight budged, so we could
not afford such expense on domain name.

Adobe Flash player always asks user to permit access to microphone, there's no
way to overcome this "issue".

By poor design do you mean design of the website or the app itself or both ?
:-)

Thanks again.

~~~
matt1
I'm no expert, but screw ad support for this app. You're not going to get
enough page views and in order to get targeted information you have to ask a
lot for a lot of intrusive information up front.

You can provide free long distance? A lot of people would love to use this.
But don't make it free. Make it, I don't know, $4.99/mo. Makes the whole thing
seem more legit and you solve the money issue. And you can hire a designer ;)

Good luck --

~~~
ruslan
Have you ever tried to charge end-users ? We are doing this on gtalk2voip.com
for past two years. I can tell you it's a bitch! We are trying to get rid of
this model soon as possible. I don't advise to any other startup to step into
this crap as we did.

Thanks anyway.

~~~
matt1
Can you elaborate? What's the problem with charging users?

~~~
ruslan
There are a lot many problems, starting from all kinds of frauds and ending
with offering $1000 support for each $5 paid, esp if you are in voip industry
where connectivity problems happen just out of thin air. If I manage to find a
spare minute, I'll try to put together all the things into another essay. I
put my essays on <http://www.gtalk2voip.com/essays>, just if someone cares.

------
pedalpete
After a few months of writing to TechCrunch personally, as well as sending
them my press release I finally managed to get www.HearWhere.com covered by
them this week.

This happened after TechRadar
([http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/20-websites-
you-n...](http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/20-websites-you-never-
realised-you-needed-478989)) covered HearWhere. I don't know if having another
site cover my site first had an effect, and TechCrunch never contacted me
directly, they just wrote, and I found out about it after i saw a traffic
spike.

I don't know if it is the current economic climate, but TechCrunch did not
drive near the amount of traffic I was expecting. Good reviews and comments,
but as far as traffic, I saw an increase of course, but it wasn't a great
spike in traffic I expected.

With respect to your comment about 'no good .com domain names left', I have to
call that a load of b.s. If I managed to get "HearWhere" as a domain name, as
well as some of other good names for other businesses, you can find a good
name. It takes time, and can be a pain in the ass (it took me about a week to
find HearWhere and maybe it was the 30th domain name I tried, but take the
time and find a '.com' name. At the least a '.net', but '.biz' just doesn't
cut it. Plus, when freeringer takes off, you would be increasing the value of
a .com or .net name, and making it a prime target for a competitor to get at
your market.

Much safer to get a new name I think.

Your reasons for DOB and other data doesn't quite cut le moutard either in my
opinion. Particularly if you aren't getting users because you are asking for
too much information, then you aren't going to get the add revenue either.

~~~
ruslan
Maybe you are right and our domain name choice was a failure, but do you
really believe that everything in this world depends on just a domain name ?
If so, I'm a retard.

~~~
pedalpete
No, I never said 'everything...relies on a domain name'. It isn't even the
name that is the problem, it's the extension and what that says about your
company.

You can look at all of the successful domain names that have little or no real
meaning, but they are all '.com' , or '.net'.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly when users type your URL, they are
gonna type COMPANYNAME.com - you are going to loose users instantly if by not
having a .com name. Sometimes users will know to try .net, but not everybody
will, and getting people all the way to .biz is a stretch.

I suspect the only companies who have been able to grab traction without a
.com name are the ones who have used clever play on words to make the
.EXTENSION work with their name, like Del.icio.us

Don't take my word for it, look around, make a list of how many companies you
can think of use a non-.com/.net name.

The problem is that you are creating barriers for your potential customers to
get to you, and as a start-up you already have enough challenges, no point
getting in your own way.

~~~
ruslan
Ok, let me tell you what users actually type. 90% of Joe Random Serfers never
type .com, .net or .biz or anything... they just don't have a clue about TLDs,
nor what they mean. They just type company/product name right into Google
search and hit enter. The others 9% type it into browser address bar, which in
most cases lead to same result! So, this .biz/.com matter has some sense for
you and me and to some of these insignificant 1% who happen to know some piece
of technology, but not for an average user, that's for sure.

------
SingAlong
As the TechCrunch news tip page says, they'll feature you only if you are news
worthy and if you break the news thru them. Its the same with Mashable.

But I suggest you get your first batch of users with just word-of-mouth
marketing. These users would stay with you if they like the service. Those
visitors who come by blog and advertising traffic give you no gurantee that
theyll stay with you. Most will just be one-time visitors.

By the way, is Talkster your site? Coz when I clicked the link _30 countries_
I was led to Talkster. Incase this is your competitors's site, don't link to
them. Just create your own page. You might lose users this way. Coz when users
click the 30 countries link and then click the home link(they'll be on tlkster
and signup for talkster).

I tried signing up my country isn't listed. Talkster also supports using
Google Talk if I'm gonna call from a non-supported country. Thats what I
noticed from their register form. Do you have any plans to support this
feature?

Your service sounds cool. You don't need TechCrunch/GigaOm/Mashable/etc. All
you need is a handful of friends to tell them about this. Free calls to 30
countries(!). Who wouldn't save phone bills?

Nice service! Good luck! :)

~~~
ruslan
Right. I read through their news-tip hints, but I still cannot get what it
means to "breaking the news through them" ? I send them a couple of tips, a
week before the launch, noone responded back. How do you make them responding
to your emails at all ? I believe my emails were deleted before reaching the
destination :-)

FreeRinger is a joint service made by us (GTalk2VoIP, Inc) and Talkster. We
are developing the gateway and the flash app parts while Talkster runs their
extensive voip network. That's why we refer to them on our site. The app
currently allows to make calls to SIP phones as well, calling to Google Talk,
MSN and Yahoo is coming soon. :-)

Thanks for reviewing.

~~~
SingAlong
"breaking news thru them" means that they wanna be the first one amomg the
mass media to break the news.

Hint hint: make sure the PRs you released weren't being indexed by a search
engine. A google search is the first thing they would do. :) make your emails
short and not an essay about what you do. Let you service not be common.
Atleast hav some different features. If these and 'more' conditions of theirs
are satisfied. You should be lucky.

Also mashable has a separate category which features a startup every week.
That category is sponsored by Sun.

Also, can the method u use to make free calls be used to send free sms? I have
a requirement in my startup to send sms. But there's only one carrier in my
country which has a free email to sms gateway. The rest charge millions. If
yes, then is the a way i can contact you?

~~~
ruslan
Yes, I understand that they want to be the first guy, but I was not able to
contact them in any ways before release, so we send PRs through the "standard"
channel. And my emails were very short, I can see it quite clear that nobody
expects to receive essays in emails :-). My frustration came when none of the
dozen top bloggers I sent tips to did not respond.

Our calling method cannnot be applied to SMSes, sorry. We are using Clickatell
to sends SMS notifications to users which cost us quite a lot.

------
wavesplash
Why do you care about TC/GigaOm? Neither of those sites will drive significant
traffic. Concentrate on SEO, real/traditional press, and smaller blogs. If
your site handles free calls internationally, hit the blogs that target large
groups of overseas callers. If you're trying to compete with Jajah, you may
wish to study their marketing.

~~~
ruslan
Traffic is not everything. It's much easier to pitch to investors once you are
covered by TC or some other "press that matters".

~~~
wavesplash
The exact opposite of that statement is true. It's easier to pitch investors
with an innovative service with a solid business plan that looks like 100x
growth in 5 years. It's much easier to raise your valuation with real
user/subscriber/customer growth and a well defined sales cycle. The A tier
investors see the good deals long before they ever break on TC/Om/Cnet/etc.

Getting a meeting on Sand Hill Road isn't hard. If you're relying on a blog to
get your investment, you're doing it wrong.

