

Cluck for iPhone – Never Miss a Text Again - arbesfeld
http://cluckwith.me

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joshstrange
So it's snapchat with slightly longer-lived messages and it rings your phone
like a call...

Seems to me like it contains the worst aspects of calling and auto-destroying
messages. My favorite parts of SMS are Async-non-intrusive messaging that I
can refer back to as a "paper trail" of sorts (What was that address again?
When did they want to meet? What was their friends name again?).

I've got to side with akfanta here, if not for the "Made at MIT" tag would
this have received any attention?

Congrats on shipping but I'm confused as to why this is such a superior form
of communication (as your launch page does little to explain). Lastly "Never
miss a text again" is misleading it's more of "Never text someone who will not
respond again" this app does nothing to improve SMS nor does it help you not
miss a text. The same could be accomplished by calling your friend to say "I
would like to start an SMS conversation with you" which, I think we can all
agree, is ridiculous.

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arbesfeld
Thanks for your thoughts and feedback. We created Cluck as a way to get some
of the advantages of phone calling (attention-grabbing and high-bandwidth)
while still preserving the casualness of messaging.

There are a lot of times where I either can't talk on the phone (in lecture,
in the library), or simply don't want to (out of social convention), and I use
Cluck to have meaningful conversations.

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RankingMember
This seems like an awfully circuitous way to talk to people. If you're going
to bother calling someone, why not just call them? The advantage of texting in
that it's less of a "crying baby"-style interruption compared to a phone
call's ringing is eliminated with this app.

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akfanta
ugh... that ugly indentation of the table view borders. I wonder how much
attention an app like this will get if it's not "Made at MIT".

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thejew
Phew that intro text is rough. I had to read it 10 times before I knew what
you were trying to say. "Ring your friend like a phone call to start texting."

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arbesfeld
Developer here: we made this at MIT to make text messaging as efficient as
possible.

It's a bit confusing, but the best way to explain is through steps:

1) Cluck a friend to vibrate their phone like a phone call.

2) When they answer, you start a real-time text conversation.

3) The messages are deleted when you end the Cluck.

We found that this is an ideal hybrid between texting and phone calling. Hope
you guys enjoy it as well!

~~~
rip747
you might want to explain that better on the site. at first glance, I had no
idea what this did or the benefits. only after I scrolled through all the
frames did I have some what of an idea.

personally I don't see that reason for having to scroll to find more
information. you only have 3 frames. i would have them all on the landing page
so that the usage of the product becomes more clear.

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baldfat
I miss text all the time BUT to wait for someone to pick up before I text
takes away the info dump that 90% of my text contain.

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post_break
Nah that's ok, I use Wuphf when I really need to get ahold of someone.

~~~
joshstrange
Hahaha, I was just watching this episode the other day. Youtube video for
those that don't get the reference [0], it's from The Office (US).

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytc9-wGCHW0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytc9-wGCHW0)

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aerialcombat
[http://fortune.com/2014/09/25/why-startups-fail-according-
to...](http://fortune.com/2014/09/25/why-startups-fail-according-to-their-
founders/)

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robotnoises
Interesting, though I'm not sure if it's solving an actual problem. I feel
like one of the major aspects of SMS that contributed to its rise in
popularity is that it is non-intrusive.

