

Receivd - beautiful, fast filesharing for everyone - skyfallsin
http://receivd.com

======
notJim
Feedback:

> Receivd - beautiful, fast filesharing for everyone

Everyone who has a Mac? Or everyone? I only see screenshots of a Mac app.
There are sketches of other apps, but I'm guessing those do not exist yet.

“Real time file sharing” as a tagline seems kind of meaningless. Two reasons I
don't like it: a) real-time seems overly technical, and b) real-time is
implied. No one expects that there would be a delay (beyond the amount of time
it takes to send the file.)

Finally, this seems like it occupies a weird grey area between dropbox and
email. All the examples you give are things that I can easily do with email.
If email proves to be too much of a hassle, I have to convince people to use
something else, and teach them how it works. Between this and dropbox, why do
I choose this?

Minor point: To look at all 4 screenshots in large-o-vision, I have to first
click one, then close it, click the next, and so on. Arrows within the
lightbox would be appreciated.

Also, I realize this sounds kind of harsh, but I don't mean it too—I'm just
putting out there the first things that come to mind. I think there actually
_is_ room between dropbox and email, but you're going to have to work a little
bit on positioning your product properly to define that space.

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statictype
_We're opening up Receivd to users slowly. If you'd like to get VIP access,
please tell people about Receivd on Twitter and Facebook using the buttons
below._

I got this message when signing up for access and I have to ask: Why would I
tell people on Twitter and Facebook about this if I haven't gotten a chance to
use it yet?

~~~
officemonkey
Do what I did: post to Facebook, and put in your message that you're testing
it out and this is just a test post, not an endorsement. Then wait for the
email (mine took ~30 mins).

Do this at late at night (like I did) and delete your FB post after you get
the email (like I did).

Alternately, you can go the whole +hn route described below. It took longer
than the FB route, but at least you're not participating in marketing of a
sight-unseen web service.

~~~
jessta
I think the point is that asking a user to do this (even though they can get
around it) is offensive. "Hey spam your friends and we'll give you free stuff"
is starting to get too common.

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jedsmith
Sorry to be Debbie Downer, and a little bit off topic: when will the trend of
dropping vowels from names end? Googling for "Receivd" autocorrects, and I
doubt they're going to be expedient in fixing that. Domain names are now
responsible for devolving English...

I need someone to hate for this. Was Flickr first?

~~~
dstein
I fear that in the future these mispellings will wind up being recognized as
correct spelling of the words.

~~~
aditya
That's what Mark Twain (purportedly) said:
<http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm>

~~~
statictype
"Every quote, given enough time, will be attributed to Mark Twain" - Mark
Twain

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huhtenberg
Uhm. So what is _the_ difference here? The ability to easily share with pre-
configured lists of people? The rest of what's outlined on a linked page does
not strike me as something that wasn't successfully done before.

Genuine question. Consider it a lead for _how to change the landing page for
more clarity_ discussion.

~~~
skyfallsin
Thanks for your comment - much appreciated.

We're optimizing the landing page as we go along. The difference is the ease-
of-use, and the ability for non-technical folks to pick it up really quickly
and get started with sharing files with the people they care about in a few
minutes. Not sure if you noticed, but the current landing page is not designed
with hackers in mind (we understand we're posting on HN, but technical folks
are not our primary audience).

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zachallaun
I'm sure that it exists, but could someone describe for me the main point of
differentiation between Receivd and a shared folder on Dropbox?

That is, what should be compelling me to download _another_ application to do
that which I can (seemingly) accomplish with one already installed?

I'm not trying to be simply critical, but rather just pointing out that, at
least from the landing page, there isn't anything necessarily motivating me to
sign up. (That said, as it's on HN, I'd love to sign up, if only to provide
feedback!)

~~~
skyfallsin
We built Receivd to not just share files with our friends and family, but to
have them share back photos and other stuff with us. Our parents and our
friends', for example, cannot understand Dropbox's shared folders, but they're
using Receivd to share photos they took with their kids. That's a big win for
us.

We love Dropbox and use it everyday, but we feel that Receivd does sharing the
way that most consumers understand. For example, people move stuff out of
shared folders all the time, which deletes it for everybody else - just a
consequence of the tech. We do know that Dropbox is killing it, and as loyal
customers we're very happy for them and wish them well.

~~~
bdclimber14
I don't understand how people that don't understand Dropbox shared folders
would understand Receivd, a more complex app?

However, some people I share folders with do use it as a transfer mechanism
and remove the files from it.

~~~
minusfive
Because it has a more explicit interface (vs. Dropbox's "implicit" interface.)

That is, for what I can see with Receivd the user explicitly "opens" an app
(as they're used to doing for almost anything else on their computer), which
in turn clearly states "drag and drop files here to share."

With Dropbox the user needs to understand the concept of a shared folder that
"magically" syncs with other computers. For many users this is an alien
concept and may confuse them. I know of many people who have a Dropbox
account, yet use the service exclusively through the web interface, simply
because typing a URL, logging in, browsing for a file, clicking and
downloading it is a concept they "get."

There's no such thing as "one size fits all" in this world---specially when it
comes to user interface design.

Edit: I should clarify I do not work for Receivd, nor have any connection with
the team, so I don't speak for them. This is just my assessment as a UI
designer.

~~~
patio11
Minusfive's point of view tracks with years of working with non-technical
customers, _many_ of whom have a mental model suggesting that files "live in"
the application as opposed to being in a folder somewhere.

I don't know how far dragging and dropping files is going to get them (many of
my users could not locate a file if it bit them on the nose), but hey, it
might work.

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brendanlim
If you guys sign up with +hn within your email, we'll make sure to give you
access right away.

~~~
tomrod
what do you mean, email@domain.com +hn?

~~~
bjtitus
Gmail allows tagging at the end of the address like me+tag@gmail.com. This is
what he is referring to.

~~~
Locke1689
This is in the email RFC 5322, it's not GMail.

~~~
bjtitus
What do you mean? Just because it's in the standards doesn't mean they are
treated as the same address, does it?

I don't see anywhere that myaddress@email.com and myaddress#this@email.com
must send to the same mailbox. I only see that an address must "[contain] a
locally interpreted string followed by the at-sign character."

Of course, this means that you can use - or ~ or # in your address but they
don't have to be treated (and probably aren't) treated as the same address by
most email systems.

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sidvis
Been using the Alpha for the past few weeks, and the product is super slick
and polished for the first release.

I'm not sure why people are talking about the landing page, domain name, and
other irrelevant stuff. Dropbox is really good at syncing files across
systems, but not that great for sharing files quickly and effortlessly.
Receivd in my opinion is trying to solve this problem.

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blasdel
The Mac app feels unfinished — connections, files, etc. aren't draggable,
reshare doesn't work (can't even select the files), but all of that is stuff
you'll obviously get around to.

I'm using it now, and it's _so close_ to being exactly what I need, with two
necessary pivots that seem almost predestined to happen from your current
position. The current basis of it being an inbox for files is already on the
right track, and something I haven't seen attempted before, but it needs a
little more verisimilitude to email:

1) The requirement to invite / induce signup / confirm "connections" needs to
be ruthlessly optimized out — I should be able to just send a file to any
email easily, forming a 'weak' connection. Maybe they have to do a 3 second
signup to download the file, but it needs to be all in one motion. This
obviously brings up a ton of issues like how to display the now 4 types of
connections and unsolicited files, but it's essential to you getting traction.

2) 'sent' files need to behave like a outbox — remember that one of the
biggest uses of email attachments is just sending stuff to yourself. Really
you should just implement that straight up, it's the biggest use I'd have, and
one I think you would find yourself as soon as you get the iOS client going.
The dropbox iOS app's UI is terrible for it (pick one photo at a time and
wait), plus really the filesystem metaphor is all wrong anyway! I actually
_want_ the transactional inbox feel of email here. If you don't explicitly
support this I'm just going to end up using it with a computers account and an
iPhone account.

~~~
skyfallsin
Hmm, all of those things you described up top are working well for us - can
you tell us what version of OSX you're running on? Also what version of
Receivd are you using?

1\. You _can_ send a file to any email right now - once you invite an email,
they'll be greyed out in the sidebar, then drag any files to them as you would
with a confirmed user. They don't even have to signup to download the file.
You can even add those folks to a list.

2\. Interesting point. We'll think more about this.

Thanks a lot for your comments. Can we reach you directly somehow to figure
out why you're seeing these issues?

~~~
blasdel
OS 10.6.6 (10J567), Receivrd 0.7.5 (16). I expect to be able to drag a
connection to a list, and drag a file from inbox/connection/list
activity/received lists and the "sharing activity" lists to all other targets
(including outside the app). The Re-Share button has not lit up, which did not
surprise me given that I can't really get a file into a selection state. If
all this is working for you, I can just try updating / rebooting.

I can send a file to any email now, but there's a lot of sharp edges. You make
me click through a modal sheet wizard to intentionally setup a contact first,
there should really be an email textbox / fb friend selector / etc. in your
app. The worst part about the current setup is that it forces you to first
send a no-context invite email minutes before sending a meaningful "x has
shared y with you" email. The first kind of email really needs to only ever
get sent when a user is explicitly inviting other people to share with them,
which is probably not going to be the default path.

My email is in the 'about' area of my profile if you want to reach me.

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p09p09p09
Hmmm mac only for now. I'd be able to try this out with Linux and Windows
versions. I have a mac, but it usually sends files to non-macs.

What's the advantage over Dropbox? Does your service go through a central
server, or is it more p2p? Or both? Are my files encrypted on your server?
Storage or bandwidth caps?

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makmanalp
> Unlike email, all photos and videos sent via Receivd are delivered at the
> same high quality resolution that your camera supports. No compromises.

What? Whose email client does this?

~~~
amahadik
That probably refers to the iPhone's options on sending a scaled version of
the images it takes.

~~~
johns
Windows Live Mail (the desktop client formerly known as Outlook Express) also
offers resizing options when sending.

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lars512
Looks a bit different from Sendoid (<http://sendoid.com/>), but still, are
they in competition?

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jlesk
Do you also own recievd.com? I'm sure a lot of people forget "I before E,
except after C."

~~~
brendanlim
We do, actually - it should be forwarding now.

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skyfallsin
We don't have screenshots up, but there's also a really hot iOS app in the
works.

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scottshapiro
I've been hurting since drop.io shut. This sounds like a good replacement.

EDIT: Functionality is quite different than drop.io and less anonymous in
terms of sharing (though powerful for sharing with small groups or
individuals). It would be great to get a private URL for each item shared, a
la google docs.

~~~
brendanlim
Thanks!

You can actually get a shareable URL for each item you share. Just right click
on a file and select Copy Public Link.

~~~
talmai
Is there an option to share sensitive files w/out going through your servers?
Just wondering....

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Animus7
After 5 seconds on the site, I'll share my first impressions before they fade,
because I think they could be useful.

In my nominal browser view, all I see above the fold is a logo the size of an
elephant, a blank field labeled "Submit", and what looks like screencaps from
iTunes.

~~~
wildmXranat
That's not iTunes. It looks like their OSX client.

~~~
roryokane
I think he knows that. He just saw “what looks like screencaps from iTunes”
for the first 5 seconds, and afterward, he realized his mistake.

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baltcode
I need to be able to upload files from the *nix/OSX command line. Is that
supported?

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dglassan
You need to label your input field better....all it is is an input field with
a button that says submit. It's not very clear to people that they need to
enter an email address

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nithyad
Have signed up! Waiting for the invite. My bro is tech averse and hence
Dropbox averse. I always find it difficult to share docs with him. Hope
receivd solves it for me!

~~~
skyfallsin
Invited! Email us at contact@receivd.com if you need anything at all :)

~~~
nithyad
Thanks. I would have missed it. Google didn't consider it important enough for
it to be in my priority inbox

~~~
skyfallsin
Thanks for bringing that to our attention, gotta fix that real quick :)

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sceadu
So.. dropbox + sync that always unions files from local source + interface for
access control?

Seems like the functionality could be copied pretty quickly...

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skyfallsin
Thanks for your interest, excellent comments and support! We're still giving
quick access to HN users - append +hn when you signup (ex: user+hn@domain.com)

------
skyfallsin
Also, we're based out of Mountain View (no offices yet). Let us know if you'd
like to sync up :)

~~~
sahillavingia
Hit me up. Email in profile.

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poshboytl
It's a awesome app. This is the way I want, for sharing files. BTW, is it
created by Macruby?

~~~
brendanlim
We didn't end up writing the Mac client in MacRuby. We considered it, but to
be on the safe side we decided to just go plain Objective-C.

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thekevan
Nice, but why would I leave Dropbox? Also, I like www.letscrateit.com for ad
hoc sharing.

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amahadik
Can't wait to get an invite to start playing with this!

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ronnoch
Will there be Windows support?

