
Show HN: Subtome – Universal subscribe button - julien
http://www.subtome.com/
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ChrisNorstrom
Very nice. Btw, you should use capital letters to separate the words in the
name.

Like this: SubToMe

Otherwise I read it as "sub-tome".

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julien
Good idea. We are also looking for a logo that could work well. Any idea?

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dylangs1030
Use a logo that incorporates symbols normaly associated with subscribing
buttons, an "S", and symbols associated with universality and cross-platform
utilization.

This will give you a springboard for incorporating your project's name, and
illustrate that it's universal (a central point) along with showing its main
purpose - subscribing.

I would recommend something like an S with an infinity symbol overlaying the
top curve of the S, and the lower curve curling into an arrow pointing down
towards the bottom of the screen.

Hope that helps :)

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julien
It does :) Thanks!

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Xion
From the cursory glance at landing page, I cannot really tell how does it work
or what it is from user's PoV. Is it an RSS feed? An email digest? RSS-to-
social-media feed converter?

It could really use a more specific description, and maybe a diagram too.

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julien
It's a button. Maybe you could have clicked on it :)

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JangoSteve
I clicked on it and nothing happened. Using chrome on android. I still have no
idea what it is.

EDIT: [I realize you may not be the author, so this isn't necessarily directed
at you] Also, the button says, "Try it, Subscribe", which implies that by
clicking the button I'll be subscribing to something. I want to know what the
button is and what it does, I don't want to have to subscribe to something to
figure it out. Now curiosity got the best of me and I clicked anyway, figuring
I'd just unsubscribe (whatever that means) if I needed to. Of course, I
clicked several times and nothing happened, so now my curiosity is gone. The
point? A demo button should not make someone feel like they're committing to
something (unless that's the intention). And when someone asks what it is
after reading the page, it's best to answer them and maybe add it to the page.

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Kerrick
At first glance, this seems like a non-compatible subset of Web Intents [0]
that only pertains to subscriptions. Why use the SubToMe button over the Web
Intents shim?

[0]: <http://webintents.org/>

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julien
Well, we actually wanted to use WebIntents to do that, but then WebIntents
disappeared from Chrome, so we decided to create a similar approach which
would work specifically for subscriptions :)

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webwanderings
Like many others showing confusion as to what this does, allow me to add mine
as well.

You have to look at this from the reader's perspective, an average reader.
Everyone wants to, or should subscribe the web content, but not everyone
subscribe equally or subscribe through the same means. Some use email, some
RSS, some Twitter, Facebook, browser addon, extension etc. What I am looking
for an answer to "Where does this service meet the common-denominator
subscriber?" Does it meet them only if they know RSS, or email for that
matter? A universal subscribe button for that matter, should be answering such
a question.

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julien
We're obviously not clear enough, because this is exactly what this button
does: allow each web user to subscribe thru the app of their choice, rather
than force them own one specific choice.

Of course, this requires the "readers" (whether their RSS reader, Twitter,
Facebook, etc...) have to "register" (see the developer section) or the list
of defaults will be showed.

Most specifically, I see on your blog that you have a "Follow by email" field.
This is great, but if you had a SubToMe button instead, people interested in
following by email could still do it (using an app that does so) or maybe
follow by SMS, or by IM (I use that personnaly). People using Google Reader
could also do it easily... etc. As a blogger, you don't have to decice how
people are going to subscribe to your content :)

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webwanderings
May be you should consider having a different kind of launch for this service,
if what you describe above is exactly what you are offering. But either case,
IMHO, it would take a whole lot of people (a movement altogether) to get
people to shift their perspectives on how the "subscribe" thing should work on
the web. All the more power to you for attempting to solve this.

PS: the reason I have subscribe email button is because Blogspot provides it
by default through Feedburner. So I have opted for the platform's native
service instead of anyone else. I will give your service a try anyway but
asking people to subscribe to a service .... to subscribe to a service...well
you know where it leads.

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julien
You don't have to ask your readers to subscribe to a service at all! Again,
it's just a button :) There is not even a web app running on the back. Only
some Javascript and the use of your localStorage.

It's integrated on a couple sites like: <http://andraz.wpengine.com/> check it
out to see how easy it is to use.

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webwanderings
I don't see an option for email, browser add-on/extension etc (by browser
addon, I mean to suggest the type of alerts you get in Gmail when you have
that extension installed). The service is simply providing one relatively
known service and rest the unknowns (again, looking at it from common-
denominator average perspective).

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julien
Well, email is not app, nor is browser addon. However, apps that use email or
browser addons could very easily register with Subtome (see the Developer
section) so that if you used them, they'll show up.

We also have added Blogtrottr as a default, and yes they provide emails...

Again, SubToMe will not show you a foot long list of services, just the ones
that you used in the past (thru the registration mechanism) or a couple
default ones to get started.

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ricardobeat
Event after reading most of the website I was under the impression that this
somehow bypassed RSS or something, started wondering about polling/crawling...

in case you didn't get it either: it allows you to add feeds to
GoogleReader/NewsBlur/etc from a single button.

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solox3
You know how Opera does it, and how much simpler your solution can be?
<http://i.imgur.com/mehY4Hw.png>

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Inufu
I don't really understand the purpose of this. How is it different from the
subscribe bookmarklet provided by Google Reader?

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julien
What if one does not use Google Reader?

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dylangs1030
That's a good enough answer, but then take it a step further.

If your application and Google's cost the same, why use yours _over_ Google
Reader?

Google is a powerful brand and it's free. What can SubToMe offer to gain
users?

I understand this is open source so you're not thinking about things like
market share but just a helpful thought.

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julien
Well, to be fair, they really don't have the same purpose.

Say you're a blogger. You want to allow your users to subscribe to your
content. Would you only allow those who use Google Reader to do so? Certainly
not! SubToMe actually plugs nicely into Google Reader for the Google Reader
users as well as it plays nicely for those who use BlogLovin'... etc.

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onli
That is a good description.

I didn't get the button from the page alone - follow seems like the wrong word
for that. For me, that is a subscribe-button for a rss-feed. Which is a good
thing i would like to use for my own blog, as in my eyes the browsers went
crazy in removing their support for feeds. This seems very helpful.

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julien
Well, again RSS is actually too big of a constraint. Say I list on my blog
page the list of my social web profiles (Twitter, Facebook, Google+...).
Rather than have button for each of them, the button could very well redirect
the user to each of these services to allow them to follow me on there.

I know it's tricky to understand, bit this button just does 'subscribe',
without actually specifying to what (besides the page you're on), or using
what reader/tool.

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lh7777
Cool; I really like this idea. A couple of suggestions to make it even better:

1\. Add icons for the available services in addition to the names. 2\. Add an
"Other RSS" button that gives the user an easy way to copy and paste the feed
URL into their app of choice in case it's not listed.

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d0m
Sorry, wanted to try but I really don't get it.

