

Show HN: SiteSupport.com - Remote Desktop For Webbased Applications - nichol4s
http://www.sitesupport.com

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amitvjtimub
Didn't got much response here but just few days ago I posted my MVP for this
same concept.

<http://www.sess.in/channels/3>

You can see my browsing in here...

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rexreed
Very interesting! What's the status of this project? how does it compare with
what the OP posted here? Can you attach a persistent video as well to guide
users?

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notahacker
Nice idea. If I wasn't leaving my current role (selling mostly web-based data
services to a niche b2b audience) at the end of the week I'd certainly be
using it when it's finished...

The demo experience is disconcerting without audio - at the beginning it looks
like I'm just getting a screencast with no ability to exit it. It would be
better to see mouse movements and browsing right from the start so people
instantly get the idea there's something much cleverer going on.

Which raises a second point - a big red "stop" button to end the session on
the user side would be nice to have, as well as a "now guiding you through our
site" text.

The current version doesn't appear to work on IE7 - are you intending on
covering this (and even IE6) in future? Assuming it's technically feasible,
the pain is probably worth it since I'm guessing a lot of the people calling
on tech support are using antiquated browsers.

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nichol4s
Yes, our final service will make it more obvious that you are being guided,
and more practical to exit.

Hmmm, too bad about IE7, we have tested it with IE8 and setted it to IE7, that
seemed to work.

We don't really have any plans to support IE6, it seems like more and more
websites are dropping support for it. So I am not sure if it is worth our
effort. But, who knows.

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estel
Whilst more and more sites are dropping support for it, I'd go out on a limb
and claim that IE6 users are disproportionately more likely to require support
using a website than others.

Great app though.

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pmjoyce
Looks great guys, I could use this yesterday. When do you think you'll open
out the beta? I understand an exact date won't be possible, just an idea of
timescales (days/weeks/months).

Also, I signed up for the newsletter and got the following message:

    
    
      Cheatin’ huh?
    

Is that what I should expect?

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nichol4s
Regarding the other question, we'll start with a private beta which will be
available to those registered at betacandy.com

We want to get it out as soon as possible, but the timescale will be x-months.

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rexreed
Can I alpha?

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nichol4s
If you want early access you really should check out the BetaCandy.com guys,
they will launch tomorrow at Launch SF and probably open up their signup list
a little more.

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rexreed
The betacandy.com site seems to be returning a blank page for me.

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nichol4s
We've been working in stealth for about a year now on our new startup. There
is still much to do, but I am very excited to release this demo, now.

If you have any questions, just shoot. I'll be here to answer them.

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Charuru
I didn't have sound on so I couldn't hear what you were saying. But my first
impression from that video was that you need to take a shower.

Then it got impressive, and I understood what was going on.

I think it would behoove you to just start the demo immediately without
preface. I can't be the only one without sound on.

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heyitsnick
I agree with going straight to the demo. The "wow, cool!" factor kicks in too
late, you may lose some people who stop watching after the first 10 seconds.

Just start with "Hi, guys, let me demo site support. Let's get me out of the
way <move video>, here I am demonstrating the site support website...".

Seems like you have a really nice product, and great domain. Good luck!

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mgkimsal
This looks truly amazing!

One thing I did notice is that I can't type when you were doing your
demonstration stuff - perhaps some visual indicator of 'who has control' so I
know when I can and can't use the site would be useful.

Looking forward to it.

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nichol4s
Thanks!

Yes, we are planning to add something like that. Right now the visual
indicator is an hour glass (cursor) but we will make it more visible in
someway.

We could even use the favicon trick on top of that, I think Gmail uses it to
show the number of unread messages.

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mgkimsal
I'd suggest something more obvious than that. A colored bar below the video
image, or a big icon floating at the lower right. This is a new style of
interaction, and it will help to reduce confusion by being very obvious about
the state of things.

Thanks.

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nichol4s
_nods_ I like the floating icon idea.

Thanks for the suggestion.

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rexreed
Yes - this is exactly what we need. I was advisor to a company called TimZon
(now snapengage.com) that originally had this idea (and even had threaded
discussion), but they pivoted in an entirely different direction. I still need
this. Signed up, ready to go when you are!

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ajju
What is the pricing going to be like? There seems to be no information on the
site yet.

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nichol4s
It will depend on the type of service and we will announce this soon. For now,
I can say that it will be very reasonable.

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soapdog
I can use that since last year or so.... :-D

one cool feature to add would be the ability to popup dialogs with little html
in it, this way, not only we could video chat but one could show a topic list
or diagram if needed.

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emzo
Nice product well excecuted. I personally thought the demo was just fine -
didn't seem to take too long to understand what was going on. A nice
additional feature would be to allow people to type in a question while being
shown through a guided tour.

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l0st3d
Didn't work for me (in chromium/fedora 14), I just saw the talking head and
when the speech suggested I should be seeing something happen, nothing did.

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nichol4s
Thanks for reporting, so it seems that the Chromium breed of browsers has
trouble with the Demo. Will add that to our test cycle for the future.

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gotrythis
What a beautiful concept. Support? Sure, I guess, but... I want my sales page
to run like that! How soon can I get in?

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matt1
This looks like an incredible tool--congrats.

Would you mind explaining more about how it works behind the scenes?

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jhrobert
Why limit that to "support"? I often would be happy to share a window with a
friend.

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nichol4s
We are not limiting ourselves to a specific semantic meaning of support. In a
sense you are supporting your friend or he you.

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NSMeta
This is a truly useful service. I would definitely be willing to pay for it.

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nichol4s
Thanks! Signup to our newsletter so we can keep you up to date on when you
can! :)

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ThomPete
Looks impressive but doesn't work in RockMelt browser

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nichol4s
Thanks for letting us know, we have indeed never tested it on that browser.
Will look into it.

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ThomPete
It's build on Chromium so I guess it matters a little.

Btw. works beautifully on the iPad, very cool.

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rokhayakebe
You guys built something people need. I would use this daily. In fact I need
this product for my day job and I would twist the right arm to get someone to
open their wallet and give me the company's credit card.

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vaksel
you have a really good domain...unfortunately it's not really all that
applicable for your actual product, and will just lead to confusion

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nailer
It's a support tool. For sites. Makes sense to me.

