

Please review the alpha of our startup:  LifeThunder.com - dstorrs
http://lifethunder.com/

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icey
It _really_ needs some design. I'd suggest going somewhere like
<http://themeforest.net/> and picking out a cheap template at the very least.

I also never sign up for a site without seeing what I'm signing up for, so I'm
afraid I haven't checked out anything further than what I could see while
logged out.

~~~
dstorrs
Thanks for the suggestion about themeforest; I'm browsing that now.

As to the not being willing to sign up without seeing it, this is an issue
that we've been struggling with. By the nature of the site, we need to have an
identity attached to the information we store. If you have a good suggestion
on how we could safely do a demo version without compromising people's
security, there's an excellent chance that we'd do it.

~~~
icey
Screenshots or video make for an acceptable demo; it doesn't have to be
interactive.

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kylebragger
None of the interior pages loads - just getting a blank white page.

That being said, what kind of security protocols do you employ to ensure that
users' account details, usernames, emails, and passwords, etc. are safe from
compromise? (e.g. some kind of PCI-type compliance?)

~~~
dstorrs
I'm looking at it right now and it's working. Can you tell me what browser /
OS / URL you're using?

~~~
generalk
I'm on Safari 4 on Mac OS X. Same issue. View Source says I received all the
content, but it's showing a blank white page.

~~~
kylebragger
same here, safari, ff, webkit, chrome, camino on mac os x.

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Tichy
The only type of web site where I would consider the name acceptable would be
some kind of storm chaser community (where are thunderstorms happening right
now, that kind of thing).

Also the FAQ seems really silly (is it save? Yes, bla bla) - You think
scammers are incapable of writing "100% secure" on their scam pages?

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Travis
I'd like to concur on the design element. You're asking me to trust you, but
your site looks like it was designed by an amateur?

Secondly, I would change the presentation of your "is it safe" FAQ. Yes, I am
comfortable with Amazon or Gmail storing my information, putting it on the
web. But why should I trust YOU? It may be abstractly safe, but what
reassurance do I have that YOU won't rip me off?

And, finally, how will you do this? Are you writing adapters that call each of
the relative services' API to update information? What about my local credit
union without an API? Will you tell my grandma that I moved?

As a possible solution to the above, you might want to seriously consider
tying in with something like PostalMethods' API
(<http://www.postalmethods.com/postal-api>). There's an addt'l revenue source
opportunity as well; have people enter the info of everyone they want
notified, and you can send snail mail to those w/o an API.

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minalecs
I'm very hesitant to give any one website that much personal information. On a
side note, will you be storing passwords / otherwise how would you be updating
these sites with information. I think you need to work more on how you plan on
securing this information and consumer trust.

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mikeryan
So they always say when creating a startup find some "pain" and find a
solution. You've identified this well.

My concern is whether you see this as a real "startup" or a side project that
can bring in a few bucks. How are you intending to bring in revenues?
Monthly/Annual fees? Ads? The problem I have with both of these models is that
when I look back over the past year, only once would I need to use your
service, when I left my job to start a company. Looking forward outside of an
occasional title/profile or a rare move I'd use this very infrequently. Not
enough by far to do a membership or drive significant ad revenues.

~~~
dstorrs
> So they always say when creating a startup find some "pain" and find a
> solution. You've identified this well.

Thanks. :>

> [how do we plan to make money]

You're right that people won't need this every day, but even if you only need
it once every 2-3 months, it's likely to be worth it--consider how much time
is required to notify all your service providers of new information, then
multiply that by your hourly rate. Needing it every 2-4 months is also not
implausible: the individual changes (credit card expiration, email address,
postal address, job title, etc) are infrequent, but when you stack them up
they become relatively common.

Add in the fact that we provide a better interface than many of the services
we are updating (e.g. PayPal and Yahoo, which disperse your information across
multiple pages and show different versions of it in different places; e.g.
some pages show title (Mr), some show suffix (Jr), some show middle
name/initial, etc), and suddenly a modest fee starts to seem ok.

Our plan is to have a "one day" plan for very cheap--probably about $2--that
is useful for a one-time use. When you're done, you can either have us delete
all your data or archive it so that there is no charge until the next time you
need it...but there will be a moderate charge to reactivate it. Alternatively,
you can pay a small monthly or annual fee. In the long-term, we would prefer
to negotiate contracts with the service providers and have them pay us to
provide this service so it could be free to the users, but we will need a
significant user base before we can make that happen.

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dstorrs
LifeThunder is a central point of management for your personal information;
when your address / credit card expiration / preferred contact email / etc
change, we update all of your service providers (e.g. NetFlix, newspapers,
Amazon, utilities, PayPal, etc) at once so that you don't have to notify them
individually.

The service is in alpha; the interface is still rough, and we are looking for
suggestion on what the most important parts are to improve. NOTE: At the
moment we only support PayPal, Yahoo, and LiveJournal.

~~~
gcb
Bold.

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trusko
I am not sure here but none of the screens except index and forums works for
me. It just renders blank. I used both Safari and Chrome. Renders fine in
Firefox. Even for Alpha, it's just basic navigation. Should fix that, I nearly
gave up after it didn't work in two browsers.

Anyway, I like the idea but I am not sure I would trust anyone with all my
personal information. Some people might. Security is key point here and it
should be stressed out why people should trust you.

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clistctrl
This is a really fantastic idea... I love it. I didn't sign up though, first
the site doesn't give me any confidence that my information would be safe with
you, and It doesn't tell me how I can be sure you updated my information. I
think a better design, and some more up front info on how it works would
really improve it. Once again though, lots of potential with the idea.

~~~
dstorrs
Can you tell us what you would need to see in order to feel confident in the
site?

~~~
kylebragger
Enumerate all of the methods/protocols/whatever that you employ in keeping our
information secure. Most (all?) of the site seems to be behind https, so
that's a decent start. Are you PCI compliant? How to you store and encrypt our
data? Obviously, you don't have to divulge the secret sauce here, but
something more than what the FAQ outlines would be a good start. 37s has a
decent go at a security page: <http://37signals.com/security>

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TheSOB88
Facebook. The B isn't capitalized.

