
Show HN: Bubbles - An option for people who don't want to write emails. - monsterix
http://bubbleideas.com
======
timerickson
The homepage is rather terrible at explaining the product. The two clearest
explanations on the page are in the smallest and most illegible type.

"@bubbles is a fast, cool and easy way to write authentic letters. Put hand-
written signature, draw, sketch, paint, write or collage on your letters and
mail it to anyone."

"@bubbles lets you write authentic letters straight from your browser. Add
pictures, draw, type, paint, sketch or collage just like on real paper – it's
as easy as pie."

I'd skip the "fast," "cool," "easy," "easy as pie" explanations and keep it as
honest and succinct as possible.

In fact, your enterprise page does a decent job of explaining the product,
especially since you have a video explanation, but I'm still not sure if
you're a social network, email 2.0, a paper distributor, or a tshirt printer.

~~~
monsterix
Noted. We will iterate the home page again and improve upon it. Well, I think
we're a social utility which is centered around letters, and sits very close
to emails.

We provide official letters heads to enterprise, so that employees can write
with brand on the top. And ordinary sheet-of-paper style letters to users on
which people can write/draw etc.

We will fix the design of plans page shortly, also.

------
dylanz
I spent time going through each page "and" reading through these HN comments
and I still don't know what the product does. Great graphics, but I didn't
grok what the product was in the first 10 seconds (and still don't after 2
minutes).

------
zoop
I hate to be that guy, but the page's design looks like a bad mishmash of
every contemporary trendy framework/web aesthetic.

\- the 3 columns at the base of the first page are misaligned

\- there is something wrong with the hover on the menu, enterprise, contact
us, and pricing all highlight at the same time despite going to different
places

\- contact us changes the menu on top

\- there are an insane amount of ways text is emphasized, from the angular
graphic border, ribbons, the {} thing, the round blue button on the enterprise
page, soft grey insets, soft blue insets, insets in insets, all-caps, bold,
random colors (blue, black, green, red), the checkmarks, the badges, etc.

\- the buttons are all different. different border-radius and color on almost
every page

\- i have no idea what the search bar on top is for

\- what is with the clocks? there are 2 on the front page, and the footer
provides a clock with a very corny digital font for every other page.

This is all on top of the fact that I have very little idea as to how you
actually go from the browser to a hand-written letter.

------
jessepollak
I connected with Facebook, went through the entire registration process, and
got the writing page...and still didn't know what I was doing.

It definitely needs to be more clear what @bubbles actually does (and why I
would use it).

~~~
monsterix
Hmmm, we're trying to lower the learning curve and improve on this. I just
connected with your @bubble profile. You can now try typing @arvind anywhere
on your letter and send it to me.

------
ChrisNorstrom
OMG OMG OMG... One big alignment problem. Please read this:
[http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up-
redesign-o...](http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/05/quick-fix-up-redesign-of-
tap11-com/)

Fix up your alignment and spacing problems. It shouldn't take more than a few
padding, margin, and width adjustments.

~~~
monsterix
Hey @chris, thanks for your f/b. Would love to hear more details on this.

As a note @bubbles doesn't use a regular pixel perfect approach to render its
views. We've not completed all parts yet, but even now we provide more
pages/app with less than a third of "style-sheets" as compared to say Twitter.

Try this trick. Open a published letter and press CTRL + / CTRL - on that
page. See what happens to the letter.

------
jasdeepnarang
I agree with all the comments that other gentleman posted here.

\- Need a Video Tour \- Homepage Needs a better Redesign shot at explaining
the product better.

You have a users first 30 seconds of attention when he/she first lands on the
page.. Lure them during that time.

Good luck with your endeavour!

+1 for the Gmail Plugin Idea.

------
chaud
The pricing page needs larger prices. It took me a few seconds to actually
locate the price for each plan. The titles / list of what you get at each
price point don't fit the site style and are not pleasing to read because of
the font / all caps.

~~~
monsterix
Alright, will fix this and iterate the plans page design. Thanks a tonne!

------
sooperman
Aha! So, I can basically write "rich" emails. That's cool. Wouldn't it be nice
to have some sort of a Bubbles-Gmail plugin using which I can do such a thing
inside my Gmail itself, while composing emails? Overall neat.

~~~
monsterix
Thanks sooperman. We explored the idea of mail plugins, but decided that real
fun would be on a ground-up idea! People tend to play hand drawn tic-tac-toe
on this virtual paper to and fro. :-)

~~~
brodney
An app and/or desktop client and I would probably switch to this full time.
Definitely a cool idea.

~~~
monsterix
Tx Brodney, we have a tonne of line-up ahead. Hope to see you more on our
platform :-)

------
impostervt
Beautiful site, but as others have said, I have no idea what it does.

------
brandoncapecci
You guys really should focus on getting a front end developer...

~~~
monsterix
Yes @brandon we've already upped the ante on front-end side. We just wanted to
have a feel of what HNers think about this whole thing. Which seems very
encouraging :-)

~~~
brandoncapecci
Hah, just trying to be constructive. I'm a bit of stickler for details. Glad
to heard your filling the gaps in the team to address these issues. Seems
promising :)

------
timaelliott
I have no idea what your product does and I'm not inclined enough to sign-up
(especially with my facebook account) to find out more.

Why is "@bubbles" all over the place? You don't even own the Twitter handle.

~~~
monsterix
We let users write letters directly from the browser and send it to anyone on
email. You can put hand-draw signature on your letters using
mouse/touchscreen, draw, sketch, collage etc.

Sorry, we're a bit early-on into our product, couldn't meet expectations :-(

------
adventureful
Big mistake: no video demo on the home page I can immediately dive into and
see @bubbles in action. This is a visual product, that's critical miss.

~~~
monsterix
Hey thanks for feedback. I will put up a "how this works" video up there very
soon.

------
timaelliott
I tried watching your video: <http://vimeo.com/29003525> and all I heard was
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N05WL2NlLo>

------
monsterix
@bubbles brings letter-writing to the web the good-old fashioned way. Our
users can write, type, draw, sketch, collage and put hand-written signature on
their letters and send it to anyone.

