

Show HN: The best thing I made nobody uses - StavrosK
http://www.yourpane.com/?

======
jason_tko
StavrosK, I hope that you've posted this looking for some feedback, because
after seeing your site I really wanted to give you some constructive
criticism.

If you want more people to use it, I'd suggest making your site more clear and
easy to understand. I find it extremely frustrating now. Let me take you
through what's going through my mind. Firstly, I have to tilt my head looking
at a half formed image, and even then, I have trouble wrapping my head around
what's going on.

I look to the right, and it's asking me to log in. Ok, but log into what? I
thought this was a browser plugin? My two choices are Log in or "Persona" ?

Still struggling, I carefully read the description text in the bottom right
(however at this point, you've already lost 99% of your audience).

"Just drag the browser button to your bookmarks bar to install." Great! Let's
try it out. Wait, what browser button? I try clicking and dragging around
everything that resembles a browser button, but I can't figure it out. At this
point, I give up.

It's very frustrating, and it's a shame, because it's probably well made.

To make it better, I'd explore doing the following:

First, the low hanging fruit. Move your "Share your links, easily!" to the top
bar. The second 'heading bar' doesn't add anything, and is distracting. I'd
also come up with a better tag-line too, one that's less generic. "0.7 seconds
to send interesting stuff to your friend!" "Need to share? 'Share now!
Copy/paste' is more like 'Copy/waste of time'. 2 fast clicks and you're done."

Obviously, I wrote these quickly and need a bunch more thought.

Then, I want to see screenshots of what it actually does.

[Picture 1 - I see an interesting site, I want to share it!] [Picture 2 - I
click a button, select the people, and click done] [Picture 3 - I make a
coffee, because picture 3 is unnecessary, we're already done here]

Then, once I'm interested in it, I want to see how to install it. Once again,
ideally with screenshots and a very easy button that shows me where to click
and drag. Ideally, detecting browsers and showing browser specific
instructions.

Of course, none of this stuff will actually save you if this doesn't turn out
to be what people consider 'a real problem' worth investing the time and
effort to solve, even if it's just 3 seconds to install the browser add-on.
But following this advice and making the value proposition and instructions to
install it, will help you get that feedback, since you'll be removing the
considerable barriers currently in place to get people to give it a shot.

All the best and I hope everything goes really well!

~~~
StavrosK
Hey Jason, thank you for your feedback.

You're completely right, of course, the current landing page doesn't do much
to explain what the service does or how it does it. I'll try to add a video or
carousel showing exactly how it works, with a more standard workflow. I agree
that asking the user to log in is kind of abrupt there, now that you mention
it I realize it's not very well thought-out.

This will be my first priority, thank you very much for the feedback and the
improvements you proposed.

------
StavrosK
Hey everyone!

I wrote this little thing a few years ago to easily share links with my
friends. You just add a bookmarklet and click it on the page you want to
share, select who you want to share it with and it emails them. No accounts or
anything necessary.

It's been amazingly useful and that's how my friends and I share links daily,
but, for some reason, I can't convince people to give it a shot. Any hints or
tips would be appreciated.

~~~
boyter
Personally I don't have a big enough pain-point of emailing this out to use it
but I totally get having something I think is cool that isn't getting much use
<http://searchco.de/>

In your case maybe a video showing the advantage of this over copy pasting
emails and the like. For all I know it might be better then what i'm currently
doing, but for what I see as no gain I have no real incentive to try it. A
video would solve this for me.

~~~
tezza
Thanks a lot, this is great.

It looks like you have some excellent coverage, that's going to help with the
arcane things ( like WinApi ). Some things I struggled with manually that your
tool makes a lot easier:

<http://searchco.de/?q=GetMonitorInfo> \- get monitor configuration

<http://searchco.de/?q=UpdateLayeredWindow> \- alpha compositing windows

<http://searchco.de/?q=WTSRegisterSessionNotification> \- workstation lock /
unlock events

[Edit: Removed comment on infinite scroll ]

~~~
boyter
Thanks. The infinite scroll will be gone soon due to complaints. I personally
like it but I see everyone else's point of view.

------
dylanhassinger
It's not a very big pain point. If I want to share links with friends, I tweet
at them or send a DM, or use an IM client. So I would only need this app when
sending a link to a friend that's not on Twitter or IM, which is like once a
week. Not a big enough need to install a bookmarklet.

That said, it does appear pretty well done. I would consider taking the code
and pivoting to an adjacent concept - one that you've validated and proved
product-market fit.

<http://www.ashmaurya.com/2009/11/achievingproductmarketfit/>

<http://blog.clarity.fm/the-journey-to-product-market-fit/>

[http://www.slideshare.net/ashmaurya/10-steps-to-
productmarke...](http://www.slideshare.net/ashmaurya/10-steps-to-
productmarket-fit)

good luck

~~~
StavrosK
Hmm, I agree, but for me it's solved the pain point of not bothering my
friends with generic links they can watch whenever (you can configure YourPane
to send you a digest). IM interrupts them and DM/tweets take many clicks, so
this is better for me.

That said, I understand that this might be the reason people aren't using it,
so I'll see if I can add a bit more functionality to make it more useful.

Thank you very much for the feedback and the links, I will read them all.

------
csense
The reason nobody uses this is that it's solving a non-problem.

You can email links to friends just as easily by double clicking on your
address bar, copy, go to email, paste.

No third-party browserware required.

~~~
StavrosK
Sure, you're omitting around 6 or 7 steps, but that's the gist, yes.

~~~
revelation
Well no, these are exactly the steps. Or one click on the bazillion of
"sharing" widgets taking up pixels everywhere.

~~~
StavrosK
No, the steps are:

* Click-drag on the address bar and hope you get everything, or double-click if you know what it does.

* Right-click, making sure it's on the selection or you'll have to do it again.

* Click copy.

* Click "new tab".

* Enter your webmail's address, press enter.

* Maybe log in.

* Click compose message.

* Type a few characters of the person's name or email.

* Select the correct recipient.

* Maybe type a bit of a subject.

* Right click the composition area.

* Press paste.

* Press send.

* Press "yes" to the "no subject" warning if you have no subject.

* Click to close the window.

YourPane:

* Click the bookmarklet.

* Click the recipient(s).

* Click send.

* Close the window.

~~~
elithrar
You really seem to be conflating the problem. There's also plenty of
extensions (that can hook into webmail) for this too: e.g. the Send from Gmail
extension[1].

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-from-gmail-
by...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-from-gmail-by-
google/pgphcomnlaojlmmcjmiddhdapjpbgeoc?hl=en)

------
periferral
It is well designed and I like what you have built. Maybe a couple of reasons
why this hasn't taken off.

1\. You need to install something. I personally try not to install anything
unless I absolutely need to. Maybe this could easily be done as a bookmarklet
instead.

2\. Just email isn't interesting. In addition to emailing links, you could
provide the option to tweet it, publish it to well known blogs, post on fb
walls etc.

~~~
StavrosK
Thanks for your comment. Regarding #1, it _is_ a bookmarklet, although I call
it a browser button becaue most users don't know what a bookmarklet is.
Regarding #2, it's a good idea, I'll see how I can fit it in the existing
workflow (maybe an "also tweet" button), thank you.

~~~
tlrobinson
Why not just call it a bookmarklet, and explain what a bookmarklet is?

"Browser button" is really vague, and most users, including those who know
what bookmarklets are, won't know what it is either.

------
tlrobinson
Alternative bookmarklet that does basically the same thing (only tested in
latest Chrome):

 _javascript:(function(){ var a = document.createElement("a");
a.href="mailto:?body="+encodeURIComponent(window.location); a.click();})()_

Unminified:

    
    
        var a = document.createElement("a");
        a.href = "mailto:?body=" + encodeURIComponent(window.location);
        a.click();

------
Neepy
Personally, the benefit it would give me over IM isn't sufficient enough to
download, and convince others to (the latter being the biggest hurdle)

~~~
StavrosK
You don't have to convince anyone to do anything (nor do you have to download
it). It just emails them the links.

------
Greenisus
I was actually looking for something exactly like this and was considering
building it myself. Thanks!

~~~
StavrosK
That's fantastic, I'm glad you like it! I'd be grateful if you could drop me a
line after you've used it a bit and told me what you did and didn't like,
thanks!

~~~
Greenisus
It's nice and simple. I'm definitely going to use this. Only suggestions I
have: \- When I've sent a link to someone and go back to it later, it would be
nice to see who I sent it to \- I don't understand what Saved Links are or how
to save them

~~~
StavrosK
Saved links are links other people sent you that you clicked "Save" on. I
agree that it needs to show you who you sent it to (you can see links you sent
in the "sent links" section, but it unhelpfully shows your name).

There's a small issue in doing that, but I'll work on it and hopefully have it
ready soon, thanks!

------
StavrosK
Ruuttu, you (or your comment) has been banned.

EDIT: After coolsunglasses' reply below, I can see why. That was a mean and
uncalled-for comment.

~~~
coolsunglasses
Ruuttu - you got hellbanned because your VERY FIRST comment was
unconstructive, mean, and negative. You were trashing somebody's creation. The
problem with the world is that people aren't producing enough, not that
they're producing too much. You're part of the problem.

Your hellban predates and has nothing to do with the more recent comment about
a porn site.

If you're going to be negative, you will not be welcome here. Read the HN
community guidelines and internalize them.

P.S. Making bad stuff is the first step towards good stuff. It's a
prerequisite - period.

~~~
Ruuttu2
Hear me out. I fully understand your statement but I feel you may have failed
to judge my comment in it's full context.

The person who made that calculator wasn't inexperienced. He _knew_ that
building a calculator with CSS is objectively a bad idea. He built it anyway
just to see how ludicrous it would end up being, for laughs. That's truly the
real hacker spirit.

In this context my comment stood for "Well done, but you know that was a
complete waste of time". Or as one of his friends said on his Google Plus
page: "What a crazy hack!"
[https://plus.google.com/115030581977322198102/posts/Qo6T85W8...](https://plus.google.com/115030581977322198102/posts/Qo6T85W8sFQ)
That's not a putdown. It's in a way a compliment.

I would also argue that most users on HN _want_ to get negative feedback but
that's a separate issue.

I'm really sorry that you criticized me publicly without allowing me to defend
myself so I had to create this other account. Sorry about that.

~~~
coolsunglasses
We don't care about intent, we care about conveyed meaning and tone. You're
going to be judged on that, not what lives in your noggin. Nobody cares what
you think, only what you do and how you make other people feel.

I'll let the content of your original comment (which you tactically opted not
to include) stand on its own:

>Oh my god this is awful. I'm sure I should be impressed but this is just
awful.

That is not constructive feedback, negative or otherwise. It's just
negativity. That's literally all there was.

I'm not interested in a debate or what you think. Your behavior was
indefensible and that you think you can cover for it with sophistry serves
only to embarrass you.

Correct the behavior or move on. You're not going to convince anybody of
anything.

~~~
Ruuttu2
Wow. You must have missed the part where I said _everything_ :)

Here's a quote from Niklas himself: "there is absolutely no good reason to
create a calculator with CSS only, I just did it for the kicks."

The project was posted deliberately as a joke and I was commenting on that.
The submitter was saying "Look how awfully this can be done LOL" and I
responded by appreciating that it was indeed awful. The meaning is clear and
it's not a hurtful message just because it includes the word "awful" twice.
You must consider the content of the message and not just judge it because a
negative word is used.

"That is not constructive feedback" you say. You're right, it isn't. And
that's fine because the project wasn't posted to receive constructive
feedback. The author is never going to touch that project ever again. It's a
joke. What am I gonna say, "You might want to increase the contrast of the
buttons in your completely-ridiculous-project-you-built-just-for-laughs before
you throw it away"? The author doesn't care and nobody cares.

I know you're not gonna agree. You've clearly made up your mind already.
You've even done what very few sensible people would and admitted it yourself.
Whatever. I just want everyone else to understand that I'm not a bad guy.

I'm not a bad guy.

------
bmelton
It's always torment to watch your babies languish. You build it, and then it
just fizzles. I've got a few projects like that, borne of spare time and such,
most of which aren't particularly marketable.

This looks like a far more marketable thing than the last thing I built that
nobody uses (obligatory self-plug, <http://tweetasenator.com/>), which I sort
of halfway mention when I get the chance, but doesn't have the ability to make
me rich, so despite its utility, will almost certainly just languish as a tool
that me and a few friends use.

This looks nice, and while I can't tell if this is the obligatory marketing
kickoff post or if you've just noticed that nobody's using it, I wish it well.

Edit: For what it's worth, I'm not entirely sure that this is better than
Instahero, which you also wrote, and guessing that it's throwing a connection
refused, I guess nobody used it either.

~~~
StavrosK
Well, I wrote YourPane in around three days (two years ago), so it doesn't
really cost anything to run, and I sincerely believe it's useful, because it's
useful to me (and I did check, two people use it, one of which is me).

About Instahero, yes, it was many many times more effort to write and write
well, and I didn't see any response, so I shut it down. Instahero was more of
a legitimate attempt at making a product I could build a startup around,
YourPane is just a weekend's work (like <https://persowna.net/>, which is the
thing I built last weekend, and <http://www.getinstabot.com/> which is the
thing I'm building on various weekends).

