

Ask HN: Does the demo video of my startup suck? - pankratiev
http://tagmask.com/video

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Shant
I think the video does a fine job (music is a bit jarring, perhaps).

But I actually think the video is the least of your concerns. Right now, when
I visit your site, I get no impression of what your site actually is -- a news
aggregation site.

As it is, on the homepage all I see is "Tune your feed" and a lot of
explanation copy. This all makes it look like an app or service.

Same thing on the video page -- after watching through the video, I had no
firm grasp of what exactly you were offering because you never planted the
simple fact at the outset that this is a news aggregation site.

Once I figured this out, it made a lot more sense. Advice: Before you do
anything, make sure they realize what on earth your site is at its core -- a
news aggregator. Then tell them why it's special.

~~~
pankratiev
Thanks for the feedback. However, I didn't understand about the homepage. Did
you mean that all texts there just explain how to configure the feed? And
contains no information what Tagmask really is? Initial headline was "Flexible
place for programmers to share and discuss technical stuff" but I thought that
the current headline is better.

~~~
Shant
Yes, that is what I mean. But I think this is less a text/copy problem than a
design/layout problem. You should probably make the articles the front page,
like Hacker News/Reddit/Digg. There's a reason that's the standard. Burying
the articles section of a social news site just doesn't work.

You will have to be clever about how to make it clear that there is something
different about how your news site works. A big "How It Works" link at the
top, or embedding your explanation video in the corner next to articles might
work.

~~~
pankratiev
The main feature of Hacker News/Reddit/Digg is that such site provides "front-
page articles" which was upvoted by the community, so put it on the homepage
makes sense.

Tagmask idea is to provide personalized feed for each user. So, that's why its
structure much like Twitter/Quora, they also didn't display any posts on the
homepage.

------
interro
the video was informative, but sound on background is a bit annoying. over all
i like the idea :) good luck

~~~
pankratiev
Thanks for the comment! Actually, I am little bit confused about the music.
Some people like it, some people say that it is really annoying. For now, I
cannot make the right decision about it.

