
Bold: Make Your Words Stand Out - GuiA
https://bold.io/post/make-your-words-stand-out-udvqaw
======
guywithabike
This basic post with two images (four counting the logo and author avatar)
clocks in at 30 requests and a plump 6.10 MB. Bold!

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jdavis703
I'm clocking in at 5.1MB which is still huge, but 4.4MB are from images alone.
However their biggest image is a 2.8MB 24-bit monster PNG. That really could
be a JPEG, with moderate compression it could come in at only a few hundred
kilobyes I think.

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davidbyttow
Thanks for the heads up guys!

We spent a good amount of time compressing our blocking bundle size (html, JS,
CSS), which actually is JS for the entire app, not just that page. Certainly
have more work to do, but given the amount of code, our JS/CSS is pretty low.

I just compressed the large image and it dropped to ~430KB.

Meanwhile, the other large asset is the animated GIF, which I suppose we could
switch to a looping webm/mp4. Was hard to reduce the GIF further and keep the
same quality...

Where's Pied Piper when you need them?

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
> We spent a good amount of time compressing our blocking bundle size (html,
> JS, CSS), which actually is JS for the entire app, not just that page

The problem with this approach is that, whilst it might be great for readers
that view > n pages, the experience for viewing the first page is so terrible
that many won't get past that one. It's still running at 37 requests, 2.7 MB,
and 4.2 seconds even after your optimisations. Didn't load at all on my iPad.

If the javascript is for editing, it's clearly wasteful to deliver that to
people who definitely won't be doing any editing; isn't it possible to defer
that until it's needed?

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trymas
Why this gets so many upvotes? Just out of curiosity to know what it is
(though personally it does not excite me)?

It's a bloated site - bold [0], people do not understand what it is [1][2],
seems like a Medium clone [3], it does not seem to solve any problems [4].

To add from myself, to block ambient noise I launch my preferred music player
with my likeable music, which blocks noise and does not distract me (same with
many colleagues of mine), IMHO it's useless feature to have ambient music in
you word processor.

Also, do we really need another (too) clean, (too) minimalistic, hipster
writing/blogging platform, which looks like Medium clone and is probably 'made
with <3 in Bay Area/NYC/Seattle/whatever (c)'?

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11858972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11858972)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11859159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11859159)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11859201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11859201)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11858750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11858750)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11858795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11858795)

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ytjohn
After reading over their landing page a few times, I think that this is
writing assistant "service". You start writing out your proposal and some
automated "asssistant, not a bot" is supposed to analyze your writing and
provide suggestions to make it more memorizable and easy to understand (group
this into 3 phrases instead of sentences. Remove this adverb. Change this
sentence from passive to active). I assume once you write it up, it gives you
the ability to share your masterpiece as a link, possibly export to
word/pdf/stone tablet.

Much like Microsoft's Clippy, the idea is pretty sound, but a bad
implementation will make it more of an annoyance than a feature. Given the
confused meandering of their landing page, I don't have much hope for their
product.

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asimuvPR
Is this a new blogging engine? I can't seem to get a proper mental picture for
some reason.

~~~
ux-app
It's not that complicated.

The second paragraph.

    
    
      > 'Bold aims to provide the best experience for reading and writing long-form content at work so that your best ideas can be heard.'
    

Seems like an unique and interesting product. My work doesn't involve writing
'long-form content', so I'm not in the target market but I didn't find it hard
to work out what it does.

~~~
King-Aaron
So...

Is it a blogging engine? A notepad app? A ... ?

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ux-app
FFS. I hate snark. Developing a product is hard. did you take even 5 mins to
read the post. If you did then you wouldn't have any issues with understanding
the product and the value it's trying to add. I didn't. And I'm not exactly
Einstein.

~~~
King-Aaron
I read it numerous times. And nowhere does it mention whether it's a web app
in the browser, a standalone app for the desktop, if it's a social/sharing
site, etc. The page discusses lots of features, lots of solutions to problems
which they don't define the problem of, etc. It's one thing to assume what a
product is, but that's not good marketing.

~~~
mksaunders
Agreed. I've spent 18 years as a computer journalist and I still can't make
head or tail of exactly what "Bold" is. Really vague description on that page.
Certainly hasn't encouraged me to investigate or write about it...

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undoware
"Hi! It looks like you're trying to recycle an idea from the late 90's into
yet another SaaS product. Would you like to (a) post to HN a bloated landing
page with almost no details, (b) collect email addresses, or (c) both?"

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michaelmior
What is the idea? I can't tell from reading the link. I'm surprised this
managed to make it to the front page.

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undoware
Clippy? Remember Clippy? "Hi, it looks like you're trying to write a letter."

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jbob2000
What problem is this solving? I don't really need ambiance music in a word
processor.

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needcaffeine
I truly honestly have no idea what this is. Is it a blogging platform? A CMS?

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antod
My first thought was it was a new npm package for wrapping bold and/or strong
tags around arbitrary DOM nodes.

Was slightly disappointed.

~~~
redpanda_ua
So I am not alone! Thought this was a satire of sorts at first.

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acafourek
I can definitely see how this could be useful for teams that create content
collaboratively. When our team works on release notes, blog posts, support
articles, etc we use a combination of Slack and Google Docs.

After editing, we post to tumblr (product updates), Medium (blog/marketing) or
any one of half a dozen other places where we out stuff. Bold feels to me like
Medium with bonus collaboration features + integrations. Tools like
[http://www.hemingwayapp.com/](http://www.hemingwayapp.com/) built in sound
awesome. Add in the ability to create your own assistants (import brand
assets, pull up GitHub issues, insert content from your YouTube channel, find
the right gif for this paragraph) and it adds up to a much more centralized
writing experience for modern work-related content creation.

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bcherny
Looks like a Medium clone?

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chasing
As an aside: I do not like the idea behind the Hemingway app. Editing prose is
not the same as debugging code. Removing adverbs will not make you a good
writer. And the whole idea of having some bot making automated comments on my
text as I write it sounds distracting at best.

If you want to write better, write more. And let people read your writing.
Hear what they have to say. Style handbooks like "Writing with Style" or "The
Elements of Style" are great, but you should attempt to understand the reasons
they behind their recommendations, not just use them as a mindless checklist.

Craft your own voice.

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wcarss
The content is served in a span in a span in 11 nested divs in a span in a
section in 2 more nested divs -- at least it looks nice.

The "discuss on slack" feature is pretty neat. The thought of being able to
hop into a discussion with people on a topic rather than making static posts
would be cool.

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King-Aaron
How many times does the user need to read the page before they discover what
bold.io even is? I'm at about five now and just want to know before I move on
to my sixth.

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hungrybackspace
Until reading these comments, I was completely convinced this was fairly good
satire.

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aboat
Absolutely no clue what this is.

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libeclipse
What's the source for the first image?

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cdubzzz
[http://orlincultureshop.com/blog/2015/2/2/opera](http://orlincultureshop.com/blog/2015/2/2/opera)

