

Mod Notebooks’ Launch - marshallhaas
http://needwant.com/p/mod-notebooks-91470-launch/

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codezero
The page loads fast but the images are crawling, they really need to get these
things on to a CDN or scale them down to the size they are displayed at (the
file size of one of these things that I checked is 2 megabytes, and the server
is transferring at 50KB/s or less)

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vlod
Because their images are: 3264×2448 and they are using the browser to scale.

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marshallhaas
whoops, need to fix that.

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dm2
Here's their website: [http://modnotebooks.com/](http://modnotebooks.com/)

The secret is that you mail the notebooks back to them and they digitize the
contents for you.

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yitchelle
I don't understand the attraction to this service. For me, scanning the
notebooks would be good if there is some way of intelligently cataloging it,
and make it searchable.

I avoid writing stuff in my notebook that I know I need to find in the future.
I put into in an email and search it via Google search. Drawings and sketches
are different categories. I would scan then and attached it to an email. The
message of the email would provide context.

I think what Mod is providing is only half of the solution. At the moment, it
is the same as "only to forget them forever when I leave it in a dusty box
somewhere", only digitally. For me at least.

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trendyy
Definitely agree with this - but this service combined with handwriting
recognition to make notebooks searchable (a la Evernote) would be perfect!

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yitchelle
That is almost the final mile problem for this - doing OCR on handwritten
notes.

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AndrewKemendo
Congrats to the team for a successful launch. I will be interested to see how
this scales.

PS: Please make your images smaller - I only saw the first 50% of your images
by the time I was done reading

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manishsharan
Has the Snapscan scanner or equivalent become uncool for generation Y ?

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Someone1234
Why do people use K-Cups? Why do people use tea bags instead of tea leaves?
Why are microwave/takeout meals so popular? Why are washing machines and
dishwashers more popular than doing it by hand? Why are battery powered
watches more popular than wind-ups?

One word: Convenience.

It is easy to believe that people will pay for it, just look at the history of
the last one hundred or more years. Convenience has trumped almost all other
considerations (including enjoyment in a lot of cases).

So the only question that needs to be asked is: is this more convenient than
the alternatives (e.g. tablets) or is the lower convenience worth the lower
cost relatively speaking? I don't know, but that is the question to be asking.

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Someone1234
Love the concept. Too bad their web-site is buggy. When I visit i get a pop-
over which reads:

> Not ready to order yet?

> Get 15% off by entering your email address below

Blocking out the web-site and not allowing me to do anything on it (until
presumably I give them an email address). In order to view the site at all I
had to set display: none from the development bar on div class="modal-
background--light js-exitintent-modal-background is-top is-shown" which isn't
the best user experience ever.

Not sure why you'd do that? Fortunately it doesn't appear when I visit the
site on mobile (or emulated mobile) just PC.

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kbar13
not intuitive, but you can just press escape.

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Someone1234
Escape does nothing. I tried changing the focus (background, pop-over, email
box, etc) and escaping, still does nothing. Cannot clear it.

Even hitting the "join" button just opens a new tab without closing it.

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forgotpasswd3x
Title made more sense before changed, as now it seems like it is just
launching. Previous title was "Mod Notebooks $91,470 Launch"

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kbar13
why do you have to buy their notebook to get it scanned in? I feel like since
the differentiator is the ability to get things digitized, why not just sell
the scanning service instead of having to deal with inventory?

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Someone1234
I'm not them, but I'd imagine that scanning different form-factors would be
more expensive and complex. For example, users now have to measure your books
(length, width, and depth) in order to check they're conformant.

Also as the binds have to be cut off to scan, third party books with things
like metal ring and plastic binds might be a pain to disassemble.

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nickgrosvenor
I love these guys

