

Tell HN: Our iPhone app, Broadersheet, is now on sale [50% off] - pclark
http://iphone.broadersheet.com/2010/01/50-percent-off-broadersheet/

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maxklein
I'll be unpopular for saying this, but I really hate this web 2.0 marketing
speak.

Starting sentences with "Hi" or "Hey", sentences like "Drop me an email",
using unneccessary hyper words like "love", "excited", "we can't wait", "sneak
peak".

Then this fake chuminess like "I'm nursing a hangover", "my cat typed this",
"love to hear from you", smileys.

And then this self-deprecation: "it's really tough to know if we are on
track", "our little app".

Guys, get this : this type of language no longer has the effect it had when it
was used for the first time. This has become business speak - and real people
don't talk that way.

I'm not a guy that likes referencing other people on this site, but take a
look at the language that patio11 uses on his website. This is a normal way to
talk to people.

Stop talking to people like they are a bit stupider than you, but to get to
their level, you need to self-deprecate. It's not effective. That would be the
gripe I have about your website. And apologies for being harsh, but my asthma
is acting up.

~~~
teej
In the context of a blog, I frankly think you are wrong. I think it's
important to remember that the language in their blog doesn't match their
marketing message at all - if their front page emulated the same tone, I would
be with you 100%. But it doesn't.

I don't think broad claims of "effective" really make much sense either. It
seems silly to view someone's blog message from an outsiders perspective and
make claims to it's effect on sales. Did it turn you off to purchasing their
product? Do you know how many people it turned off? Were those people even in
the market to buy it in the first place?

Patrick also uses vastly different tones in his marketing messages and his
blog. His blog is about programming & business topics + the occasional silly
thing. His marketing is a rock-solid battle-worn message tested over hundreds
of iterations. Do you think that's ineffective?

There is plenty of place in the world for companies that act like humans are
running it. A blog is an appropriate channel for this to happen. Zappos has
shown that a human-sounding company approach can work. You are welcome to your
opinions - they very well may be right - but I would rather see the
stimulation of discussion instead of brash opinions. Saying "this sucks, don't
do it" doesn't get these guys any closer to a better business.

~~~
maxklein
You're right in that I should not say it sucks. What I should say is that I
dislike it. I don't speak this way in real life, and none of my friends do, so
when I see this cheery chirpy LA girl tone, it annoys me to no end. It does
not feel real.

I've read material that is humanized, but it sounds real. It sounds like
someone really means what they are saying. Like what you wrote. Or what I am
writing back to you. We are clearly human beings talking to each other. I
would not reply to your statement with a collection of over-hyper adjectives :
you would think I was strange.

I did not look at the frontpage, and my gripe is with the blog. It reads to me
like a trend language. I see a lot of designers doing this on their blog -
likely because other designers are doing it also. To me, it comes across as
fake.

Maybe there are people who love being spoken to in that manner. I just don't
know such people.

------
pclark
We'd love feedback on the app or website. Here are some promo codes (US only):
7TA7TR33LNRL XXKT3P9JMAEM HAKMJHK6EF74

~~~
rufo
Just grabbed the last code. Syncing it over now, some impressions in a bit.

EDIT: My main complaint so far: No mobilized version of the article? I'm used
to Byline and Instapaper, which both cache text-only versions of the page. If
it went to the mobile version of the site, I'd be fine with that, or if it ran
it through something like Instapaper's Mobileizer[1] that would be nice - with
an option to view the original of course.

It also crashed on me once while reading a rather meaty article from
Engadget[2], and didn't appear to save any of my read/favorite status.

I'm not sure there really needs to be the different ways of sorting the news
that up-front (Date/Source/Topic), but it does mirror the iPod app and it'll
take some using before I'm really sure - maybe I'll like it more than I think.

The article selection seems decent, although that'll really take a few days to
learn my preferences I assume.

Overall I'd say a decent idea that's executed well - a few tweaks and bug
fixes would seal the deal for me, I think.

[1] <http://www.instapaper.com/extras> [2]
[http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/12/engadgets-gear-of-
ces-201...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/12/engadgets-gear-of-ces-2010/)

~~~
pclark
thank you.

we'll look into mobilizing content via instapaper. we really don't want to
strip adverts out - wish more providers offered mobile versions of content.
We've had _lots_ of feedback about how slow articles are to load, so we might
be forced to optimize the content via instapaper or such.

thanks for the engadget link, we can totally fix that.

------
kyro
I'm not quite sure if this is a problem with only my computer - I assume that
iPhone graphic on the right is supposed to play some sort of animation as when
I scroll over it, it takes me through the frames, but at no time did it
actually play on its own.

Safari 4.04 on Leopard

~~~
Timothee
It's a QuickTime movie, so if you scroll over it, it actually scrubs through
the file in Pause mode. To play it, you can click on it and press Space.

I think that if you let it load completely, it will start by itself. (which
you can't know because the toolbar is absent)

I agree that it's a weird UX.

~~~
kyro
Yeah, that should change.

~~~
pclark
weird. should stream using the default quicktime thing (eg: asap)

will fix - thanks for the heads up.

