

QuickFuse - pak
http://quickfuseapps.com/app/edit?x

======
pak
Hey HN, I was the creator and lead developer of this project, and we've been
rolling it out for launch over the last few weeks.

The homepage is: <http://quickfuseapps.com/>

We think it's really neat stuff--it basically takes the web mashup power of
Yahoo Pipes and applies it to telephone calls. The technology behind it is
also pretty impressive. If you have any questions, please send them to me
here, and I'll do my best to answer them!

~~~
mcantor
This is absolutely tremendous, and I am already having a blast. Thank you!

Only one point of frustration: There should be an obvious way to get variables
from the call row. You can _update_ the call row with the "Update Call Row"
module in the "Outbound Campaigns" section, but there should be a "Reserve
Variable From Call Row" module, too. Otherwise, it seems the only way to do it
is to "Reserve Variable" for every one you want to use, and manually set them
as pre-filled every single time you create a campaign, which is a hassle.

Also, $0.05 cents per minute feels kind of steep. You have a very novel and
wonderful service, though, so maybe it isn't such a big problem. It was so
easy and intuitive to make a demo app, assign it to a number after I
registered and watch things coming together. You guys are Doing It Right.
Kudos, kudos!

One more thing... it'd be nice if there was an easy way to filter outbound
calls on whether the person has already been called, according to whether the
"outbound_result" field in their row is populated. There's a filter option
"is..." that lets you select between "present" and "not present," but it's not
clear whether that means "empty" or "is not even a hash key for that row," or
if those two things are even different.

Oh, and for God's sake, make sure you block requests on your site that have
"4chan" as a referrer... ;-)

~~~
pak
These are all great points.

Re: filtering, this needs to be better documented, agreed. "present"==="field
exists for row, with any value". There's a distinction between empty grey and
empty white cells that we tried to make but it may not be apparent to non-
programmers.

Re: price, we are only a couple cents/min higher than what other barebones API
providers are charging. But we are obviously much more than an API service.
Hosting all apps in their entirety, along with slick web-based tools to build
them, is the extra value we are hoping to provide.

~~~
barrkel
A "couple of cents" up to 5 cents implies charging 66% more.

------
KingOfB
Hah, thanks for the link! I just wrote a quick app to flirt with my
girlfriend. Multiple choice questions with no wrong answers are hilarious.
Punched in her phone number and waited for a callback.

Ok, maybe that's sad, but hey.

~~~
mcantor
I created an outbound calling campaign to ask all of my friends if they want
to hang out tonight, record their results in the database, and call them
losers if they say no. It took me less than 20 minutes to do. This is Awesome,
with a capital "A."

------
snarfman
Making an app was trivially easy and aside from the intro text (due to it
being a demo) it was nice to see there weren't extra instructions a la "please
select from the following options." Of course in testing this I made the old
"orange you glad I didn't say banana?" knock knock joke that switches paths on
the third time.

I'm not sure if this will work for everyone else since I didn't create an
account, but I guess you can try here if you'd like:
<http://quickfuseapps.com/app/edit?x#a=5WNw04UUdu0,r=1go>

~~~
pak
Yeah, sharing links to your apps should work. If you make an app without
creating an account, it is publicly shareable for about 1 day. Whoever creates
an account to save it will take ownership, and then it becomes private.

------
brown9-2
This is pretty impressive - especially the part where it highlights which
nodes are currently being played when you are on the phone testing the
application out.

------
dmor
gotta mention OpenVBX for drag-and-drop voice apps <http://www.openvbx.org>

~~~
josheastling
OpenVBX seems pretty limited in terms of features. The drag-and-drop
functionality only extends to simple call routing functionality like a phone
system/PBX.

------
natch
Will this let me invoke a URL on a remote third party server, and use the
result of that URL call in my dialog?

~~~
e1ven
Looks like it has integration for DB Queries, as well as SOAP requests.

~~~
pak
It actually includes a simplified integrated database that is built on top of
Amazon's SimpleDB. (Try going to Configure and then the Data tab.) SOAP is
currently our best option for external data integration. We are also
contemplating the best way to do modules for RESTful services and MySQL/PGSQL.
Current concerns include data format/protocol discovery for the former and
proper security for the latter.

------
willy123
Wow, what a cool tool! No need to be an expert developer here, someone who has
used a Visio like program in the past can quickly and easily build an
interactive voice app. I tested it to invite my family to a reunion and
collected all responses real time...the Amazon simpleDB is awesome!

------
kes
On the subject of the 'cool' factor, Yahoo Pipes has been around for years:
<http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.edit>

~~~
fdb
Are there specific JavaScript frameworks for creating these node-based
interfaces in the browser?

I notice that it's a mish-mash of div and canvas tags.

~~~
pak
We used jQuery UI as a framework, but built a _lot_ of custom widgets for the
wires, modules, nodes, receptors, etc. Yahoo Pipes was certainly an
inspiration for our design, but we rethought the concepts behind using wires
(using them as a control flow mechanism, not a data flow mechanism; e.g.,
there are no wires for variables, we use them in sort of the way MIT's Scratch
does).

We don't know of any framework for this sort of interface, and we did not want
to use Flash, so we just rolled up our sleeves and made it ourselves. jQuery
and jQuery UI, however, were instrumental; for this sort of new-ish UI, it was
useful to have the ability to progressively layer functionality onto HTML
elements. We also made extensive use of the $.Widget framework to construct
our widgets in the same fashion as jQuery UI's.

------
cmurphy
The great thing about QuickFuse is that the application does not require users
to have programming experience. Similar services typically require programming
knowledge, but with QuickFuse, it's sort of a you dream it, and the program
will easily allow you to build it type of application. The program is user-
friendly for everyone, from those with extensive programming knowledge, to
those with just an application idea!

------
chmike
I tried to look at it with my iPad and was unable to keep screen focus on a
part of the window content (i.e. Center). Every second, the top left corner of
the screen is moved to the top left corner of the image. Has this function any
use ? Please, consider removing it.

~~~
pak
We're working on compatibility with the iPad, when we began working on this
the only iOS devices were small screened and we had no hope of ever making
this useful there... now that the iPad is out, well that changes things, and
we hope to support it soon.

Thankfully because the interface doesn't use Flash, that shouldn't be too
difficult. We'd have to rework some of the event handlers, but that should be
it.

FYI, the reason we periodically reset the scroll position is because the main
<body> on normal windowed browsers is meant to never scroll in this editor
interface. Even if you disable scrolling in CSS, some browsers like to scroll
when you do things like (accidentally) highlight text near the window border,
and we needed a way to make sure the interface stayed within the browser
window.

------
dlynn21
I created a simple survey with dynamic questions based on responses using the
database. Very impressive considering it only took me minutes. Love the
feature that lets you see the call progress to each node as the call
progresses. Great Job!

------
lrm242
That's neat, but the voice world has been doing visual IVR for at least 20
years now. That it is easy to get started and accessible is nice, though.

~~~
vyrotek
Why the down votes? Its true. I've worked for a SaaS Call Center company
before and worked on applications like this. Of course, it was an installed
application though. This is actually a pretty neat service. I had always
wondered what a web-based one would look like. Perhaps I'll send the link to
my old company and rub it in that a startup pulled this off. They'll be
jealous :)

~~~
lrm242
The rule of thumb for telephony visual designers: every time a new switch or
service gets built, a new visual designer gets built too :). Not sure why the
down votes, shrug.

------
_mt
Fantastic work.

Out of curiosity, how long did it take to develop & launch? How many people
were responsible for the product?

~~~
pak
We used a very small team of developers. I wrote the majority of the code;
there were a few other auxiliary programmers and a couple testers. It started
as a "20% time" concept piece and took about a year to develop into a product.

We wouldn't have been able to develop as fast as we did without the foundation
provided by great projects such as Kohana (we used 2.3)
<http://kohanaframework.org> , jQuery, and jQuery UI. For us, these frameworks
turned out to be a superb combination.

------
mcantor
Finally, a way for me to automatically prank call my friends and record their
bewildered responses in a database!

