
Show HN: Chime - A Notification Center for the Web - trq_
http://www.chimeapp.com/
======
Yzupnick
This looks great, congratulations.

1) Do you have any plans to allow arbitrary RSS as notifications, or
integrating with ITTT? This could allow people to create notifications for
services that you don't support.

2) While I don't believe everything has to be monetized, I was wondering if
you do have a plan to make money, and if you do, would you mind sharing?

~~~
fananta
Thanks and great questions!

1\. We're currently looking at creative options to support personalized
notifications. One possibility is something similar to what Rapportive did and
provide sites with a way to deliver notifications.

2\. We honestly did this because it was a need we had. We're looking at a
number of strategies. The most likely is a set of premium features for a one-
time fee. That said, we might just leave it free too.

~~~
victoknight
What about limiting the number of services for the free version; say the first
five are free, then a one time fee to unlock additional.

~~~
fananta
This is certainly one option and we're still thinking. Our main goal is to
make cool stuff that people love, and then we'll focus on monetization. :-)

~~~
k3n
That's the only way to go about it, IMO.

It seems that in today's world, too many companies get a hair-brained idea
from some executive that thinks they've got it all figured out, spend 100's of
thousands building it, and millions to market it... only to discover that
nobody actually likes it and/or will ever use it.

I don't want to name names (as I'm not looking to start a flamewar), but off
the top-of-my-head I can think of several very prominent, very successful
(historically) corporations that seem to use such a marketing-driven approach:
instead of letting users fall in love with the product by their own devices,
instead the corp tries to make the product and only then do they try to sell
the user on why they should love it.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but when it doesn't it can be a
costly mistake. When you have a compelling product or service, marketing is
minimal; word-of-mouth is king!

Cheers, your service looks very cool.

~~~
fananta
Really appreciate your comment! I really do agree with your sentiments.

------
trq_
Just launched 5 days ago! Over 100k notifications served.

We're completely client side, so there are no privacy concerns.

~~~
aam1r
Congrats on the initial success!

If you are completely client side, how are you tracking the total number of
notifications served? I would assume you would have to send some data back to
the server to keep track?

~~~
gurumx
Haha, that's true. We use google analytics for anonymized data.

------
Erwin
I read that as "Crime" for a moment, thought it would be some kind of real-
time notification centre for when a crime is happening near you. I suppose
police radios are encrypted these days, otherwise it could be interesting to
recognize location from the calls, and show a pin on google map say: "bank
robbery in progress 2.1 miles north of you; adam-4 responding". Then you can
also add a social element: like foodspotting... but for criminals.

~~~
fananta
Hmm.. foodspotting for criminals. I like it. Do they get OpenTable
integration? haha.

------
dylangs1030
This looks fantastic.

Just one bit. Are you proudly developing this only for Chrome, or is that just
a support limitation right now?

I ask this because you didn't write something along the lines of expecting it
to be released elsewhere soon - you wrote "exclusively" for Chrome.

I ask this because I currently use Firefox most frequently (although I
installed Chime on my Chrome installation to test it). It might be a bit of a
market limitation later when you try to monetize this if you only develop on
Chrome.

And also, do you have any plans to allow independent hackers to write in their
own notifications? Will I be able to write in notifications for platforms too
obscure or unpopular to make a mainstream update for?

EDIT: I forgot one thing. Would you consider doing this for desktop
applications as well, like Growl on Mac?

~~~
fananta
Thanks! We developed Chime for Chrome first just to get it out in the hands of
our users. Based on the responses in the first week since launch, we're
already looking at support for Firefox/Safari.

I also mentioned this elsewhere in this thread, but we're hoping to create a
way for other sites to deliver notifications through Chime. Haven't considered
independent hackers just yet, but it is something we'll keep in mind.

~~~
ricardobeat
There are platforms like CrossRider[1] or trigger.io[2] that allow you to
deploy cross-browser add-ons, should be easy to port to since it's already in
javascript.

[1] <http://crossrider.com/> [2]
<http://docs.trigger.io/en/v1.4/modules/browser/index.html>

------
martius
Exclusively for Google Chro(Ctrl+W).

(But I liked the screenshot).

~~~
fananta
Haha, that's alright. We're considering support for Firefox and Safari soon
depending on the initial response. Thanks!

~~~
martius
Happy to read it, I'll give it a try when it's available :)

~~~
fananta
Awesome, make sure to follow @ChimeApp on twitter to stay in the loop

------
k3n
One feature that I can see possibly being valuable here is the ability to
filer, prioritize, or otherwise throttle the notifications.

An example would be my usage of Google Reader; there's a Chrome app[1] that
shows notifications for new items, but I haven't been under 1000 new items in
years ("1000+" is as high as it tracks). Yes, I have many feeds I need to
prune out, but even then, I may get upwards of 100 new items a day in my
reader and I sure as heck don't care about them all. I really just care about
items from a few select sources, but without a way to filter out the noise
it's useless.

I'm not sure if that use-case would be very common for your app, although
there's times when I make a popular FB post that I tend to ignore the
notifications once they get past about 10.

1\. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-reader-
noti...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-reader-notifier-
by/apflmjolhbonpkbkooiamcnenbmbjcbf?hl=en)

~~~
fananta
Hmm.. this is interesting, something we'll look into for the future of Chime.
For now, we only have filtering by sites.

------
wamatt
Color me impressed gentlemen. A useful idea with great execution.

Now how about:

1) Ability to sleep/snooze on notifications. The use case would be when we are
working in the browser and require focus. Some of us feel overly compelled to
click little red notification badges, which can be distracting. Yes shame on
us! :)

2) Make coffee and walk the dog

~~~
fananta
Thanks!

1\. This is definitely in the works. 2\. Uhh... yes, we'll put that on our
"backlog"

:-)

------
ne0phyte
All my Gmail notfications are 43 years old. I'm in europe so maybe it can't
handle the 24h time format?

Apart from that it's really great! Would love to see some common forums
supported (but that would be tricky as you would need access to many different
domains).

~~~
fananta
Thanks! This is something we've had a few reports about this morning so we're
working hard to fix it right away.

------
Swizec
This looks really cool, but one thing I'd love to see/know before I install.

Do you send me a notification whenever something happens, or can you pool them
together and only interrupt me every few hours? Hint: I want the latter.

~~~
gurumx
Right now we send a notification as soon as it happens. We're looking at
implementing a pause mode, so you wouldn't get interrupted by notifications
when you need to focus.

Pooling notifications is interesting, we'll definitely be looking at that in
the future!

------
josscrowcroft
Beautiful, thanks very much. Is it possible to not receive popups when new
notifications arrive? I prefer notifications to be totally silent until I
decide to look at them..

~~~
fananta
Thanks! Of course, click on the Chime pop-up ==> Settings ==> turn off desktop
notifications.

------
bluetidepro
Wow, this is a slick interface. I love the Windows Metro look and feel. Great
job with this, I'm excited to use this and not have to worry about keeping a
bunch of tabs open! How often does it check for new notifications? It would be
nice if you could set a variable to check for new notifications every 1 min, 5
mins, 15 mins, etc.

Do you have a donate link or something? I would love to say "thank you" with a
little money gift to thank you guys for your hard work! :)

~~~
gurumx
We added a small donation link to the bottom of our Help page:
<http://chimeapp.com/help>

Great to hear that you like Chime! The frequency is different for every
service, and is also based on a few other metrics. It'll pick up notifications
within a few minutes, usually.

------
edparry
Always the simple products that come through.

Quick question: I'm logged into multiple Gmail accounts - will it grab from
both, or just the active account?

~~~
fananta
Currently, just the active one. We're definitely working on multiple gmail
accounts, so hold tight!

------
pioul
This definitely looks like a great piece of software.

However, I believe different services, hence different types of information,
should have their own way of being displayed.

For example, seeing a one-line summary of an email doesn't appeal to me that
much.

That's why I always prefer using the web app itself (or a dedicated extension
in the case of Gmail).

~~~
fananta
Thanks! We tried to cater to the way users interact with different services.
We can look into adding more options to customize notifications down the road.

~~~
pioul
That'd be nice. Is there a way to be notified when such a thing goes live
(mailing list)? That'd be a shame if you didn't, seeing all the coverage
you're having!

~~~
fananta
You can follow @ChimeApp on twitter! If you have Chime installed, you'll see
the updates automatically. :-)

------
slajax
I didn't realize how little was going on in my extended internet life until I
installed this app.

~~~
fananta
I felt the same way... Thanks for the comment though!

------
will_work4tears
Looks pretty amazing so far. I've gone through a couple Google mail
extensions, and using Chrome for Linux and Chromium for Linux with my google
sync setup, I've had trouble finding one that works properly.

This seems to work great for Chromium on Ubuntu.

~~~
fananta
Thanks! The three of us working on it are all using different platforms and
we've had awesome beta users who have helped us out a lot!

------
bitskits
Love this idea and execution. Any plans to add rich notifications for G+? It
would be great to see info about the notification (and ideally interact with
it) from the extension (vs a notification page or redirect to
plus.google.com).

~~~
fananta
So we spent a good deal of time trying to do this. Google explicitly does not
provide notification details for G+[1] so our hands are bit tied here. Chime
does its best still convey your new G+ notifications with that limitation.

[1] [http://code.google.com/p/google-plus-
platform/issues/detail?...](http://code.google.com/p/google-plus-
platform/issues/detail?id=96)

------
CWIZO
I like this!

One problem though: if I click a notification for gmail (probably others too)
it opens a new tab. I already have gmail opened (I have it pinned), can you
please use my existing tab to open the email in (or make it configurable)?

~~~
fananta
Thanks! We've heard this feedback from a few others and probably will add a
few different configurations in the next update :-)

------
bmuon
Why Chrome only? This looks like something that could work just as well on
Firefox

~~~
fananta
Yup, we built Chime for Chrome just to get the product out in the hands of our
users. We've realized the response for Firefox/Safari is overwhelming so we'll
be looking into support for those browsers as well.

~~~
bmuon
Ah ok. Sounds great then! I was just surprised to read "exclusively for Google
Chrome"

------
cheez
Any plans to add other "social" source code hosting services?

~~~
fananta
We have Github already, but have had an overwhelming amount of requests for
Bitbucket. So it's on our radar!

~~~
cheez
Excellent, that was the one I had in mind.

------
notatoad
For people who don't want to be productive ever again.

Sorry, I shouldn't be so negative, it looks like a great app. I just know
that's the effect it would have on me.

~~~
Zak
I've actually found that having instant notifications about events on
distracting sites keeps me from _checking_ those distracting sites and coming
across other distractions on them. Net win.

~~~
fananta
I agree with you. Having my FB notifications delivered through Chime, I rarely
have to actually go on Facebook now. That said, everyone has a different
preference for their notifications. :-)

------
Meai
Not sure how this would work, but if I want notifications from everywhere,
this would need to include IRC chat when people ping me with my name.

~~~
SnowLprd
Perhaps the Chime folks would be kind enough to write a ZNC module to allow
for that type of integration: <http://wiki.znc.in/Modules>

~~~
fananta
Perhaps...

------
the1
can I have Microsoft Exchange OWA integration?

~~~
fananta
Thanks for the feedback! We're definitely considering putting this on our
roadmap.

------
floydpink
Great work. Really love the well refined interface.

Not that I care about it much, but as a feedback, I am not able to get
LinkedIn to work.

~~~
fananta
Thanks! Can you send us an email at support@chimeapp.com describing the issue
that you're having. Are you logged-in to LinkedIn?

~~~
floydpink
I am logged in, and I tried a browser restart, and a logoff-login as well, to
no avail

~~~
fananta
Send us a note support@chimeapp.com with a screenshot please of the "All
notifications" page :-)

------
jmduke
This looks awesome. What plans do you have for other services (off the top of
my head, I'd love Dribbble and Tumblr)?

~~~
fananta
We're looking at adding some of the most requested services (like multiple
Gmail accounts) first. We'll definitely add any requests to our backlog, so
I'll put your requests on there as well.

~~~
Zarel
I've been trying to find a replacement for One Number, a Chrome extension that
notifies for Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Voice.

Google Voice notifications aren't a big deal since I get them in e-mail
anyway, but having Google Reader notifications would be really nice.

------
factorialboy
Is it open source? Can I see the code?

Edit: Specifically I want to validate the claim "all my data stays on my
browser"

~~~
trq_
Feel free to inspect the background page and look at the network requests
we're making. We're doing requests to Google Analytics to store counts (e.g.
how many installs we have, how many notifications are clicked, etc.) but there
is absolutely no data from the notifications or any personally identifying
information about you.

------
extesy
I get this error on Chrome 26.0.1403.0: "Could not install package:
'COULD_NOT_GET_TEMP_DIRECTORY'"

~~~
fananta
Please ensure you're logged into Google Chrome as this is enforced by Google.
This may also be due to the instability of the nightly build for Chrome Dev.

------
gingerlime
Looks really neat and professional. Any chance to get notified about HN
comments/karma changes?

~~~
gurumx
Hey gingerlime, unfortunately hn doesn't offer notifications itself, so that
would be difficult to implement, and outside the scope of Chime. I'm
definitely feeling your pain right now, though =P

------
est
Reminds me of Friendfeed. Few quick mashups could do the same in the good ol'
Web 2.0 way.

------
slajax
Would love to have this on my iPhone lock screen with intelliscreen.

~~~
fananta
We would love to be on your iPhone's lock screen. That would mean a different
type of app for us though, with a server and all.

~~~
gurumx
Heaven forbid we have to actually _use_ a server.

~~~
slajax
I'll provide the server, you provide the client. _deal_?

~~~
fananta
Possibly haha.. Feel free to email us feedback support@chimeapp.com or tweet
us anytime @ChimeApp

------
dailyrorschach
Anyone else seeing the error: "Download was not a CRX"

~~~
fananta
It means you're not signed into Chrome on the webstore, which Google requires.
Are you sure you're running the most updated version of Chrome? If you're
still having trouble send us a note support@chimeapp.com :-)

~~~
dailyrorschach
Thanks, never saw that before. Was logged in to Google Account on the browser
sync, but apparently not the store.

------
binarymax
This is so awesome. Any chance of yahoo mail?

~~~
fananta
You're the second person to mention this (the first was my dad), so we'll
definitely look into it.. :-)

------
ricardobeat
The "Clear All" button is not working for me.

~~~
ne0phyte
I did a "Clear All" and the notifications just disappeared from the extension,
my Gmail mails are still unread.

~~~
gurumx
Clear all will just hide all notifications from Chime. Marking them as read is
too undo-able, we wouldn't want users to accidentally mark a ton of important
emails as read.

Perhaps we should change it to "Hide All"...

------
swlkr
This is really cool, nice job!

~~~
fananta
Thanks!

------
mehrzad
This supports the only browser thats ruining the Internet. Oh well. It looks
nice though.

~~~
gurumx
Hmm, why do you think that it's ruining the Internet?

~~~
mehrzad
It's creating a Google monopoly over the web. Chrome's not open source. Chrome
has light to moderate tracking issues. Developers are starting to only support
one or two browsers (talking about websites not extensions) , which I think is
absurd and it reduces competition. I think Firefox is a better browser than
Chrome/ium in a few ways and vice versa. You're the developer I'm assuming.
You've made a great product for a popular browser, so there's nothing to worry
about for you, but I think if people switched to Firefox, the Internet would
be a better place. Good luck!

~~~
mehrzad
Whoa, sorry for all the super short sentences, I can't seem to figure out
linebreaks, I don't comment often.

------
filipmares
This is awesome Fahd!

~~~
fananta
Thanks Fil!

