

Plerts Blends Check-Ins With Medical And Personal Safety Alerts - pxlpshr
http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/13/plerts-blends-check-ins-with-medical-and-personal-safety-alerts/

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thwarted
When I saw the "Most innovative life alert" slide on the root page, and the
"One-Touch Emergency" in the Tour, I thought of this bit from Snowcrash:

And then the dark mass of Meltdown fans turns into a gyrating, orange-red
galaxy as twenty-five hundred new stars appear. It's a mind-blowing sight, and
at first they think it's a new visual effect put together by Vitaly and his
imageers. It is like a mass flicking of Bics, except brighter and more
organized; each Kourier looks down on his or her belt to see that a red light
is flashing on their personal telephone. Looks like some poor skater called in
a Code.

~~~
pxlpshr
Hahaha. Well, the existing services are expensive ($400+ a year) and only work
inside a person's home because they require land lines. My mom is 60, doesn't
have a home phone (but has an iPhone), and she loves traveling so yeah... I
did it for the moms. :)

~~~
thwarted
Oh, it's a great idea. It's nice to see some actual utility from check-ins
rather than just game mechanics. I wonder how much concern there has been
about AT&T's spotty service playing into the reliability of this kind service.

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btucker
The money may be in landing some university contracts. Get them to offer it
free to students. They could then use it as a marketing ploy for how seriously
they take safety.

That said, I think the big flaw in the whole thing is the burden it puts on
the user to keep it up to date. I'm not terribly interested in having to think
ahead about where I'm going, when I'll be back, and to "check in" when I get
there. What I'd be more interested in is something like this:

It automatically tracks you via GPS at all times. This data is strictly off
limits to anyone but you with the following exception. You setup a short list
of people as your emergency contacts. In the event one of these people is
concerned about your whereabouts. They can send an email to an address which
distributes to your whole emergency contact list. If no one knows where you
are, 2+ (configurable) people can choose to independently log-in to the
service and once enough have used their "key" your GPS location becomes
available to them.

Also there's no reason the service couldn't become pretty smart about your
expected whereabouts (we're all creatures of habit after-all). If you strayed
far from behavior it algorithmically expected, it could trigger an alert on
the phone (probably best if it was obscure, so if you were kid-napped or
something you couldn't be forced to dismiss it under duress). If you didn't
dismiss the alert it would notify your emergency contact list.

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tbgvi
My first thought: "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!" for the 21st
century.

I see some of the use cases on the site are things like medical and personal
safety, but don't see anything about keeping tabs on kids. There's other
solutions out there I think, but that seems like a good use for this. Ex. Kid
walks to school, gets there and checks in. Then the kid walks home, and checks
in when they're in the door. A parent's peace of mind is probably worth $5/mo
if that's something they worry about.

~~~
pxlpshr
One thing I like about this service is that I would use it because we're not a
GPS tracking service. It's a single-player game unless there's an emergency.

I did my fair share of wild stuff in college like trips to Mexico border
towns. I'm fortunate to be here now but things could have turned a lot
differently. This services protects my privacy, nobody has to know what I'm
doing unless something bad happens.

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pxlpshr
Direct links:

info - <http://plerts.com> iphone - <http://iphone.plerts.mobi> web app -
<https://my.plerts.com/register/>

~~~
dabent
So how did you end up in TechCrunch?

~~~
pxlpshr
Well, besides sending them our pitch... we didn't do anything special. Just
don't send them a generic press release or spammed via PRWeb. Relationships
are important.

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aw3c2
Many basics:

Do not use PNG for photo material. Those images are easily 5 times a good
JPEG.

I have no idea what the site is about.

Does not degrade well if Javascript is disabled.

The grey serif text in the ribbon thing looks kinda pixely and tight. Might be
the font or the css shadows (you do not have to use them just because it is
possible)

I personally find the keyword spamming in the footer very immoral.

What does SSL encryption have to do with user data? Not too much. How do you
secure the data you actually store? What is a GoDaddy certificate worth? PS:
According to Opera there is a problem with TLS "renegotiation" on your site.

~~~
pxlpshr
For some reason the PNG didn't retain color settings and yeah, they look
really crappy on the TC article.

The keywords in the footer will eventually link to unique landing pages. Lots
of startups do it, like Mint.com for example. I don't consider it immoral, I
consider it marketing. I haven't had time to make the landing pages yet
because we're a small team of 3 and have been swamped with other stuff.

If you have javascript disabled, you won't be able to use our web app or a lot
of other web apps. This is largely a non-concern. The mobile application is by
far the best experience.

I'll look into the SSL issue, I've had it happen to me in Chrome but sometimes
it's completely fine.

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petervandijck
Interesting. I think you are going to have to market this heavily to some very
specific target groups (people with elderly parents, ...). Site and product
look great. Now that you've launched, it'd be interesting to see from which
niche you get the most interest/$, and the pivot and focus on those niches
first. Right now, it feels like a specialized product trying to aim too broad
(ie., it's a little hard to explain because you are aiming at too many
usecases).

~~~
pxlpshr
I agree, we've got a lot of marketing to do and some clarification as well.

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duck
Not to be a downer, because this is a great type of service, but I don't see
any of the elderly I know using this because it requires an iphone or using
the web. That is still just too complex for many of them and it is not the
app, but rather all the other factors (browser or opening the app) that is the
issue most of the time.

~~~
pxlpshr
I agree, I don't see my grandmother using this service but my mom just turned
60 (I'm 28 btw) and she has an iPhone as do all her friends. There's a
generation gap for my parents' parents when it comes to computing but I think
it's coming to an end.

We are putting a lot of focus on accessibility and will continue to do so. For
example, once a Pulse or Watchdog is created then you can check in via email.
We've got some more stuff similar to this to make the barrier low and
usability extremely simple.

~~~
Jones-Dilworth
I actually disagree, I showed my 82 yo g-mom the iPad yesterday and she loved
it and got it right away. Instead of getting her a Lifelock or whatever I can
get her an iPad, for cheaper, and she can watch videos etc. too -- and again,
she totally "got it". Super surprising. She's not that sophisticated at all.

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stretchwithme
Hey, thats a great idea.

Have you thought about facilitating an interaction between the person with the
service and the other party so that it is quite clear that someone will be
notified if something happens to them? I'd think deterrent is more than half
the benefit of something like this.

~~~
pxlpshr
If an alert goes out on your behalf then you are CCed (SMS/email/push) that an
alert was triggered.

We also have some plans to allow responders to communicate back to you that
they've received the alert and are taking action. We'll probably roll this out
in the next 30 days or so.

~~~
stretchwithme
I guess what I'm talking about is the craig's list or blind date situation
mentioned in the Techcrunch article. Can your service help prevent something
bad from happening by making the other party aware that you use the service?

~~~
pxlpshr
Aside from you informing that person, I can't think of another way off the top
of my head but I'll give it some thought.

I do think that it could deter a potential issue if you communicated the basis
of the service in regard to GPS breadcrumb and the alert if you don't checkin.
The Natalie Holloway case comes to mind.

