

start.io - jacobbijani
http://start.io

======
brand
I'm guessing it's your site, since the name 'Jacob' is all over it. Why didn't
you post a comment about it in typical Ask YC style?

Anyway, outside of the marketing-counter thing, I would suggest that the
initial layout for a user's start page is the same as the one that is so
prominently displayed on the sample images (with the grey background and color
bars). Not that it was difficult to change, but it was a little disappointing
when I found just a simple white layout with my single forlorn link to HN on
it instead of the stylish advertised one... I almost took off right there.
Perhaps selecting a layout could be a more prominent initial setup step?

Why do you need my email when I sign up? The signup doesn't ask for a password
re-entry as well, which I found strange.

What do the ampersands mean?

Nice work. Looks great, too.

[edit] Why should I use it? Chrome and Safari (and FF in the near future)
offer close to the same functionality.

~~~
jacobbijani
The thought on a different homepage is you will go change it, and in the
process discover the fact you can change them at all.

Email is for password recovery.

In that theme, ampersands mean it has updated content. That's just part of the
template language. Some have bullets, some highlight the text. It's up to the
theme.

It's simpler and you can access it from other computers [and your iphone
(i.start.io/jacob)]

Sorry about not putting a description. Forgot! Looks like everyone else sort
of did for me though :)

~~~
unalone
Wow - so that's really how many clicks your pages have received,
approximately?

~~~
jacobbijani
The sum of all clicks on all links, yes. We track when you click one of the
links you add to your startpage. The click counts are one of the values
available to the themes.

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unalone
Heh, checking the source code reveals:

    
    
        <!--
                     _             _     _       
                 ___| |_ __ _ _ __| |_  (_) ___  
                / __| __/ _` | '__| __| | |/ _ \ 
                \__ \ || (_| | |  | |_ _| | (_) |
                |___/\__\__,_|_|   \__(_)_|\___/ 
                    
                    so much cooler than pHome.us
            
        -->
    

I think every New York start-up I've ever seen has an ascii-art comment.
Tumblr does too.

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hotshothenry
Looks pretty cool, but what is it exactly? Just a start page? I think if you
have more detailed description about what the site offers with additional
screenshots i think it would be better. Unless of course that's all there is
to it and I just completely missed it.

~~~
unalone
Think of it as bookmarks combined with a very simple RSS reading technology.

The RSS reading is a little spotty. Some sites update when there are no
updates. Additionally, sometimes Start.io just doesn't recognize an RSS feed,
and there's no option to manually input one. I also find I can't delete links,
so I have a thin column of "about:blank" links that are painted white so I
don't see them that I get from removing bookmarks.

That said, this really takes the pain out of RSS. It's comfortable and
functional and all the themes look really, really good.

~~~
brand
I think I missed the RSS reading part of it; it makes more sense now. Seconded
on the themes looking very nice!

@jacobbijani: I'm not sure if you care much, but Firefox users can remove the
start.io menu from their pages by adding a display:none tag to it in their
layout. Also, users can write javascript in the layout editor. Mine is
currently redirecting all visitors to google... Perhaps the layout editor
should be restricted to css?

~~~
unalone
I don't know if these pages are meant to be shown publicly so much: I link to
mine from my web site, but it's not a very social thing. It's not like a
social network where people see lots of pages and so redirecting can be seen
as hostile.

~~~
petervidani
Hey all. I'm the other dev on this site.

We were actually pretty surprised to see users sharing their startpages on
their blogs and such. At first we didn't really get it; I mean the only reason
we made them public was so that you could access it from where ever you were
without having to log in. Basically, we made start.io to act as an attachment
to a browser.

But some people really do like sharing their links. Maybe it's just that
they're used to sharing all their content online. One of the most visited
start pages comes from a ministry sharing belief-oriented links to their
visitors.

I'm not sure what un-prepped signups will use it for, but I don't really care,
either. We developed this to be a flexible platform from the beginning. That's
just what happens when you made a product customizable, and for a general
purpose. People will shape it to their needs. The obvious example here is
Twitter, which began as a service to publish away messages to the web. Then
people wanted to group their thoughts to channels, then they wanted to
message, now they want to network and expand their names and products. Twitter
is a good example of a platform that made getting information from the users
brain to a public domain incredibly easy.

Thanks for all the comments so far, this is great.

~~~
unalone
Absolutely! Best of luck to you guys: I love the minimal RSS style, and Rososo
wasn't exactly easy on the eyes.

Also: when non-logged-in users click a link, does it reset the bookmark?

~~~
petervidani
Yes. If you're worried about someone else using your startpage, you can make
it private in Settings. I'll tell you though, the startpages aren't indexed by
any search engines, and personally, this has never been a problem for me.

------
run4yourlives
Honest tip: If you're going to do the counter thing, tell the truth. Nothing
makes me trust you less to see bullshit marketing prominently displayed on
your front page.

~~~
jacobbijani
What makes you think it's not accurate? I just don't show it increasing in
real time for caching issues. Also, I figured it would make more sense to
devote my programming time to making the site and not figuring out an accurate
stats counter.

~~~
run4yourlives
The fact that every time I visit the site it starts at the same number is a
good clue.

Regardless, it's a perception thing. I'm not questioning your reasons for
putting it there or whether it's a close enough to accurate representation.
I'm just pointing out that others might see it the same way I did.

~~~
jacobbijani
Right. It's accurate as of last night--I updated the starting count.

I don't see what the big deal is. Gmail does (did?) this for the inbox limit.

------
pclark
How are you going to make money? Can I submit my site to be a "sponsored" link
on peoples start pages?

Why do I need to give you my email address?

~~~
petervidani
E-mail addresses are for password recovery, unless you have a safe place for
us to send our carrier pigeon to :)

