
juwo beta is released (at last!). Please use it and help improve it! - juwo
http://juwo.com
======
veritas
To be brutally honest: color scheme + horizontal scrolling + too much text +
general design = I ran off before learning too much about what Juwo does.

Please redesign!

Also try to condense what Juwo is trying to do into a short paragraph. So far,
all I can gather by a quick 10 sec browse is that it has something to do with
recording/playing back audio, table of contents for audio etc. Leave the
demos, instructions, examples for other pages. Give me the story in nice big
font and tell it to me like "I'm a 4 yr old." Hope that helps :)

I'll try to look around a bit more once I'm out of work.

~~~
jkush
I agree with veritas. Try to tell us in a few sentences what juwo is all
about.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
Based on a comment in another YC news post, I thought juwo was a tool for
automatically transcribing audio to text (is that correct?).

If so, then why not just say that; the demos can be simplified to be the raw
audio/video clip with the text, as transcribed by juwo next to/underneath the
clips.

~~~
juwo
no, that's not correct. It does not transcribe automatically. however the
labels can have functionality attached. for example, to run the speech
recognizer you have installed on your computer, on a voice note.

------
wammin
_Too many words!_ This is my most common criticism for evaluating an
interface. If you need so many words on the home page to describe how to do
something or what it is, then it's not easy enough. Remember you only have
about 20 seconds of somebody's attention before they decide to click away. I
got lost pretty quick (and I'm actually pretty smart).

The crap about Jesus on the about page turned me off, too. You're welcome to
your religious beliefs, but keep them on your blog or someplace more
appropriate.

~~~
juwo
why does Jesus make you and others so angry?

I will bet $10 that if instead, it were a short para on Hinduism or Buddhism
(and I dare say, even Islam), no one would have been so hostile.

~~~
rms
As an intellectual person, I find blind faith in Christianity outright
offensive. It doesn't make any sense to base your world view on the mythology
of a Bronze Age people.

Honestly, I'm glad that you have the right to spread the good word on your
website. But it's so rare I get to interact with a real, live Christian that I
delight in the opportunity. Maybe we can both gain something.

So let's talk. Why do you believe in the god of the Christians to the
exclusion of all the others?

~~~
juwo
why do you believe that 2+2=4 and not 2+2=5 ?

~~~
rms
Because I count two things, and two more things and see that there are four
objects. I can observe with my own eyes that mathematics works. You can't ever
see God, you have to take on faith that a book written almost 2000 years ago
is absolute fact.

So why do you believe in the god of the Christians to the exclusion of all the
other gods?

~~~
juwo
You obviously pride yourself on being an intellectual, yet you havent even
scratched the surface. Think deeper.

The answer lies in the answer to my question.

~~~
rms
Fine. Mathematics is generally based on so-called "non-logical axioms" -- non
proven statements that we accept based on what a person such as yourself would
call faith.

Still, I believe in mathematics because it works. Why do you believe in the
god of the Christians to the exclusion of all others?

~~~
juwo
You're getting the point - that we trust Mathematics even though it involves
faith, because there is plenty of correlation to the 'real' world.

Similarly, Jesus is a real person, not an emotional crutch. An absolute truth,
not a relative choice. Like 2+2=4 and not 2+2=5.

How do I prove it? Simple. Ask Jesus himself to show that he is real, to you.
However when you ask, you cannot have an attitude - otherwise he will ignore
you.

"you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart" [God]
([http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2029%20:%2013;&version;=31)](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2029%20:%2013;&version=31\))

He himself, will checkmate you.

~~~
ingenium
But you still never answered the question of why you have faith in the
Christian god as opposed to the gods other religions.

~~~
juwo
I did.

~~~
ingenium
I don't understand how you answered it. Can you clarify?

------
blader
I haven't downloaded it because the site doesn't inspire confidence that this
is anything I want to install on my machine. Some suggestions:

1\. Messaging.

I am confused about what Juwo really is as well. It seems to be a way to tag
audio or video by time? There is way too much text on the page. I know Juwo
probably has a ton of features, but you need to nail down your core message
and drill it in (and design your product around it). Can you describe what
Juwo is in 5 words or less? Now what about 2 words? Anything longer than that
and you've exceeded my attention span.

2\. Design

Horizontal scrolling plus web design circa 1995 plus religious proselytizing
doesn't inspire confidence that this is something I want to use and would
enjoy using. I strongly recommend looking at other websites featuring
downloadable apps such as Skype.com or Trillian, etc to see how they are
approaching this. This is compounded by the lack of a clear message as to what
your product is.

From what I understood of the core idea, it seems useful, but I can't see
myself downloading a standalone app for this functionality. Btw, Have you
checked out <http://www.veotag.com?> Seems like a competitor.

~~~
juwo
It goes much further than veotag IMHO. I have a comparison matrix with with
competitors, including veotag.

~~~
blader
I think the difference is that I can understand what Veotag is in about 2
seconds, and I am still trying to figure you what Juwo is after really reading
about it and thinking about it, and I did that only because I was asked to
check it out.

More features does not a better product make. More importantly, you can have
100x times Veotag's features, but it won't matter unless you can make people
understand, _instantly_ what your product is.

Now I imagine I'm a random stranger on the internet stumbling across your
site. You really have less than 5 seconds of time before I click off back to
YouTube or something. I just don't have that much attention.

~~~
juwo
so tell me, how should I explain it? _should I move the diagrams to the left,
or just one column?_

~~~
blader
I really don't know how you would explain it, because I don't understand what
your product is. Whatever your explanation is, it needs to be clear and
concise, e.g. "Juwo is the easiest way to organize and share your recordings."

The location of the diagrams on your website is the least of its problems - it
is almost irrelevant. I would suggest first getting rid of about 90+% of the
text on your frontpage.

~~~
juwo
I have reorganized the page.

~~~
blader
The new design is a huge improvement, but (and I know this is harsh) only
because the old one was so poor. There are still a lot of problems with the
page. Right now your homepage looks like (well, it IS) a manual. It needs to
look like a brochure. Put your manual somewhere else.

Paul Graham's suggestion to take a look at wufoo.com is a great one. That's
one of the best homepages you can find on the net. Simplify simplify simplify
and reduce reduce reduce.

~~~
juwo
my reply is here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14590>

Thanks for continuing to engage!

------
Goladus
When I visit the site, I have these questions, in this order:

(1) What is Juwo?

(2) How do I get it? (Or get access)

(3) How do I use it?

(3) What can it do for me?

Here's what happens when I visit the site:

(1) What is Juwo? After scrolling up and down trying to make sense of the
page, I gave up and just started reading from the top. After the first two
sections I still am not quite sure what it actually is. I feel I have to try
to piece it together from all the little clues in the text.

(2) How do I get it? As far as I can tell, there is nothing to get. I can't
find a download area or login box anywhere. Halfway down the page I see some
demos, but I can't tell if that's the actual software or what.

(3) How do I use it? This question is answered, although I had to scroll down
to find it and I don't really understand the explanation because I don't know
what Juwo is (1) and don't know how to get it (2).

(4) What can it do for me? This question isn't important for me, but it is for
some people. A lot of the page is devoted to talking about how the product can
help me, however because (1) and (2) haven't been answered, I feel like I'm
wasting my time.

~~~
juwo
"(2) How do I get it? (Or get access) "

Thanks for your feedback! I have added a line at the top.

Note: When you click on a demo, NP will automatically download and install. NP
can be run both offline and also connected to the internet. (see Technical
Requirements)

------
pg
I can't tell what it does.

Aim for this: <http://wufoo.com>

~~~
juwo
It is hard to explain juwo in one sentence because it can be used for at least
a dozen things. I dont want to leave anything out. IMHO, juwo is a new
concept. IMHO it is very powerful - but I am getting carried away...

I have reorganized the page so that the simple explanation with the diagrams
comes first.

I have to also say this. Your recommendation, wufoo.com; "Online HTML forms"
means nothing to the layman. Similarly, I think the layman will not understand
anything by _"juwo is...

A "Swiss Army knife" piece of software that gives more power to consumers to
structure snippets of audio, video and text as a bullet list, to more easily
index and annotate them, and to share the lists with others. Its benefits
extend to multimedia as related to more enriching broadcasts, collaboration
and organizing"._

Yes, it may look like I have put the Help manual there. That is intentional.
_For a new concept, I believe that if people cannot get help easily with the
details, then they will stop using it._ Help manuals tend to be secreted away
in software like a squirrel hides nuts.

Of course, it can be argued successfully that I have already scared even the
geeks away!

I am not justifying, but explaining my rationale. I hope everyone at news.YC
will continue to engage with juwo.

Anil Philip juwo.com

~~~
zaidf
You can either choose to emphasize how POWERFUL--as in scale--that Juwo is OR
you can emphasize how EASY it can make my life.

Right now even though you have glimpses of trying to show how it can help me,
the overall tone of your site(confirmed by your posts here) is on features
rather than practical use.

Any tool can be used to do dozen things. Our site can be used to post music,
lectures, pranks, cries of your first child and literally hundreds of other
things. But it has its few primary uses and you have to pin them down and
focus on those DEFINED audiences in the BEGINNING stages. Otherwise you end up
confusing EVERYONE as you seem to have done here.

I'll help you get started if you're interested. This should make for a good
mini guide too for folks in your position Answer the following questions for
me in LESS than 20 words each:

1\. What is the problem? 2\. Who is it a problem for?(note: everyone isn't an
answer; think age groups, job profiles of people MOST likely facing the
problem you describe in #1) 3\. How do you plan to solve this problem?
(theoretically, not what Juwo is) 4\. How is Juwo solving this problem

Use these guidelines: \- Be as specific as you can be. \- Use as simple words
as you can use.

~~~
juwo
Zaid,

Thanks for replying.

1\. What is the problem? 2. Who is it a problem for?...

is a very basic exercise. In fact it is on the first slide of my investor
presentation. I have thought through this in depth.

I will feel comfortable discussing one aspect of it on this board.

1) "I cant skip to the important parts when viewing AV" 2) Both publishers and
consumers.

thanks, Anil

~~~
zaidf
Too vague on #2.You're getting somewhere in #1 by defining specific user use--
just make sure it is ACTUALLY a sizable problem for the mass(not just you).

Best of luck with your presentation.

~~~
juwo
I dont have any presentation scheduled - but you do! (best wishes with it at
YC).

publisher: ABC, BBC, CNN, youtube etc...

consumer: you, me, joe, jane, hari, harry.

By "powerful", I am talking about how it can ease problems first, and scale
second.

~~~
zaidf
But you haven't convinced me I have a problem--let alone Juwo can solve it. It
could be that I'm not the primary audience which is why I asked you to define
it AS specific as you can. You're still swimming in vagueness friend...

~~~
juwo
can you visualize IJigg using it?

~~~
zaidf
I have to be honest I don't know what is Juwo. The exercise was not to tell ME
about Juwo but to in general clarify for everyone here. I do hope you'll be
able to answer those questions here at some point.

------
abstractbill
Your web pages do not render correctly in firefox:

<http://abstractnonsense.com/juwo.png>

~~~
juwo
that's weird - it is straight html, done in dreamweaver 8.

thank you for taking the trouble to get the screenshot. I shall run it from
firefox on Linux

~~~
jaggederest
done in dreamweaver 8 Yeah, that'd be your problem.

<http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fjuwo.com>

~~~
juwo
thanks, shall fix by hand

------
philc
Juwo, this is the most confusing thing I've ever looked at. I have a feeling
the product is not very focused itself, and thus is hard to convey. If you
can't convey it in a single page with a few terse sentences (ala skype.com),
you might need to redesign and make it simpler.

I'm glad you're a Christian, but a company-about page is probably not the best
place for pro/con links. It's distracting.

~~~
juwo
my reply is here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14590> Thanks for
continuing to engage!

What is a pro-con link?

------
jkush
One big issue is that the demo I downloaded had some audio pre installed with
it. Just a thought, but using audio from a speech given by a man with cerebral
palsey is not the best choice for a demo. It was very unclear and hard to see
what it was that your software was accomplishing.

~~~
juwo
Thanks for being the first public to drive it!. Try the BBC demo. it is video
- or pretty American Idol Katharine McPhee.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
For the BBC demo page, how about isolating the clip you want to show, perhaps
surrounded by whitespace, but with a juwo page header? (i.e., make it clear
this page still belongs in the juwo site, and you've just sampled a small part
of the BBC page)

People with ADD like me will start reading the news ticker or some of the
other stories (seriously, I had to back up twice to figure out what I supposed
to click on!).

Also, for people _not_ running XP and using Java plugins in their browser (I'm
one of them!) can you prepare a version that will still convey what the demo
does?

~~~
juwo
Do you mean, show the media player in the browser?

Or should I draw the link for the demo in large font?

Actually, juwo is great for people with ADD. you can sit in a class and record
lectures - and then review only the important parts.

I have some kind of ADD myself - and use juwo in important meetings.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
Basically, lose everything from the BBC page _except_ the href to the clip you
want to show and put it inside a "juwo" page, consistent with everything else
on your site.

For a while there, I thought I was at bbcnews.com and I started reading all
these extraneous links and photos.

~~~
juwo
the point is that a visitor to the BBC page would click on the video link, and
a juwo of the video would pop up.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
Yes, I understand how that would work if juwo were installed and I'm browsing
other sites, but copying the entire BBC page is unnecessary, esp. when the
only relevant thing from the demo's perspective is that single clip.

~~~
juwo
my website is updated. Please visit again. I have added screenshots.

------
brett
I have _no_ idea what's going on on that page. Is it a blog? Is it a product?

------
rms
want... to... troll... about... religion...

~~~
juwo
<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14583>

------
zaidf
My humble advice...

1\. Take this demo OFF now! People are going to develop a SUPER BAD bias of
your product that will be hard to overcome even in the future should you
improve the UI.

2\. Hire or partner with a UI designer who knows usability and design!

3\. I'll hypothesize that most people that visit your site will leave without
any clear idea of what your product is.

~~~
juwo
are you talking about the website? or the actual software, NP.

~~~
zaidf
The website. I've no idea what the software is and thus I didn't download it.

~~~
juwo
I have reorganized the page.

~~~
zaidf
What you really need to do is make a screencast demo explaining from the VERY
beginning a) what is the problem b) how juwo solves it. In very plain language
with in screen demo.

For a sample look at Mosoto:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpuU4l_4Nr0&eurl;=http%3A%2F%2Fmosoto%2Ecom%2F](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpuU4l_4Nr0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmosoto%2Ecom%2F)

You don't have to be anywhere near as crisp as these guys. If you can answer
what's the problem and how juwo solves it in 2minutes you'll have fewer
confused minds.

~~~
juwo
Arent the pictures clear and simple? The problem with screencast is what juwo
tries to solve.

However, as you suggest, I shall create a screencast and see which is better.

Also see: my reply is here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14590>
Thanks for continuing to engage!

------
bkmrkr
I still have no idea what the hell this is

------
davidw
<http://juwo.com/company.html>

"Juwo LLC was founded by Anil Philip in December 2004, and is based in Olathe,
Kansas.

We are"

... 'we' ?

Also, the religious stuff probably belongs elsewhere, on your own home page,
for instance.

~~~
create_account
It's not important, IMHO.

It could be single founder + employees (but unlikely given the site design) or
just him.

But he could always say he's using the royal we.

~~~
davidw
You think? As someone potentially in the same situation as he is, I would feel
uneasy about writing something that's not the truth.

~~~
juwo
'we' is the _truth_ because my wife does give me valuable advice and
assessment on juwo, on people I interact with for juwo. Even though she has 0%
equity.

------
juwo
You all gave me valuable advice here when I asked for help.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=1890>

I followed it! Please help juwo improve.

Thank you! I am grateful to you guys, news.YC and PG for this forum.

------
abstractbill
I tried the first demo and got this:

An error occurred while launching/running the application.

Title: Nodepad Vendor: juwo LLC Category: Unexpected Error

Unexpected exception: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException

~~~
juwo
I assume you ran it on Windows? The download JDIC libraries are for Windows.
If anyone is good with javascript, we can port it to run on other platforms.

~~~
abstractbill
Linux (ubuntu). I clicked on the first demo when I saw it, without reading the
rest of the front page (which was pretty overwhelming). I didn't see anywhere
that would suggest this was a Windows thing until later.

~~~
juwo
I really apologize. I am not a Windows guy myself. (Read my rant on how Java
harmed Unix and helped windows win).

It is my major priority to get it working on Linux and Mac.

------
extantproject
In one sentence, what is Juwo?

~~~
juwo
juwo is...

A "Swiss Army knife" piece of software that gives more power to consumers to
structure snippets of audio, video and text as a bullet list, to more easily
index and annotate them, and to share the lists with others. Its benefits
extend to multimedia as related to more enriching broadcasts, collaboration
and organizing.

~~~
kevinrose
is this for web or desktop?

~~~
juwo
both. please click a demo.

------
budu3
I agree with most people on this thread. There's an information overload. Plus
I suggest you hire a web designer. The design is not doing your service
justice.

~~~
juwo
I have reorganized the page.

------
woot
Hey! This is cool! But Crap Box is better.

~~~
juwo
"Hey! This is cool! But Crap Box is better"

Did you actually use juwo before stating that your toilet is better?

------
ecuzzillo
Who funds juwo?

~~~
juwo
me - or more accurately, my depleted savings did. why?

