

Rate my web app: 360 Voltage is in Alpha (see comments) - wmeredith
http://360voltage.com
Good morning, HN. We've been slaving for months and we're finally launch-ready.<p>This community was so amazing last time we launched a web site that we're taking our own advice (http://blog.200nipples.com/2008/07/launch-the-first-24-hours/) and doing a Hacker News launch. We're basically in Alpha right now, we'll be in Beta next week with all initial features online by 4th quarter 2009.<p>Anyway, this site was built with guys like you in mind, so let us know what you think.
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jeroen
I tried it out and got some very interesting and probably useful results. For
those who do not want to register:
[http://360voltage.com/voltmeter/?u=c0175cf2-d8a6-102c-aea2-0...](http://360voltage.com/voltmeter/?u=c0175cf2-d8a6-102c-aea2-003048c3ab50)

Bugs: The url field disappears on my iphone when it gets focus. Works fine on
my laptop.

The logo links to <http://index.php/>

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edw519
Try it right now by clicking "Run Voltmeter" forces me to join. No thanks.

~~~
bdmac97
I noticed that too but in their defense the signup was ridiculously painless.
Only required a login and password. Email was optional. No confirmation
required.

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brfox
People reuse usernames and passwords, so even though it is painless, now they
will have a database of usernames and passwords which can probably be used in
a lot of places. Thus, I only sign up for new things rarely and only for
things in which I suspect I will need to use frequently.

~~~
bdmac97
Hmm... I guess you have a point there. It's frustrating a bit as a developer
because in all likelihood if they've done their jobs as developers they DON'T
have access to your password at all. The problem is how do you trust a new
site when there are obviously some (many?) out there that still use plaintext
for passwords? Anyone have a solution for that? Some type of security audit
w/a badge that your site can display saying "Hey, we DON'T store your password
or have access to it!"

What would you say if they instead used some form of OpenID system (RPX Now or
something) so you didn't have to give them your password? Would that help?

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wmeredith
Good morning, HN. We've been slaving for months and we're finally launch-
ready.

This community was so amazing last time we launched a web site, that we're
taking our own advice ([http://blog.200nipples.com/2008/07/launch-the-
first-24-hours...](http://blog.200nipples.com/2008/07/launch-the-
first-24-hours/)) and doing a Hacker News launch. We're basically in Alpha
right now, we'll be in Beta next week with all initial features online by 4th
quarter 2009.

Anyway, this site was built with guys like you in mind, so let us know what
you think.

~~~
DirtyAndy
My thoughts: 1\. Like most people here I didn't really like to have to login
to see anything, especially with the bait-and-switch approach. I think you
either need to show a random result for people to see, or let them do a single
search and log an IP address to something (difficult as I guess multiple
people from one company can have same IP). Another option would be to show a
reduced set of information maybe show 1 or 2 of the test results in full and
all the rest just have the % without clarifying what is good and bad?

2\. Site looks really nice. I like the blurb and the site makes me want to put
a URL in and find out more

3\. Personally I think it is pricey. I would have thought perhaps a per domain
model or the like might work better - $10 to track a domain for a year - with
alerts when it goes down or up in score etc? $20 a month might work for some
design/development agencies because they can test loads of sites, but I think
you are limiting to your target market majorly if you do that.

I've never heard of Amazon payments before so I'm pleased I took a look at
your site - I learnt something! I think a lot of business people will prefer
that over google and paypal etc.

Good luck!

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allenp
I just tried it and it works great - I like that it produces real
suggestions/actionable items.

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nkohari
After the initial bait-and-switch annoyance, the app looks great, and it
generated some very useful information. Now I need to look into improving my
site's rating. :)

I'm definitely going to consider signing up for a pro account as you roll out
additional features. I think if you fix that one minor UX problem this could
be a very useful tool.

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bdmac97
Great idea for a site and I love the look of it right now. Simple to see what
the site does and visually appealing.

You should add your site to my startup launchly (<http://www.launchly.com>). I
started launchly (with a HN launch as well) to try to help other startups get
the feedback and exposure they need to succeed. It also comes with some
powerful analytics to track how your launch is performing. Oh and it's free
too so that helps!

*Edit. ROFL... "it seems like this is taking awhile... maybe you should grab a sammich"?? Ok that's the first time I think I've had a webapp suggest I go eat while it spins. Awesome.

Also you have a typo here "Upgrade to PRO now to lock in current pricing (over
50% off) for as along you have your subscription." Should be "for as long" not
"along".

~~~
wmeredith
Typo is fixed. We'll be on launchly next week.

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alexsolo
I noticed for my site that we are getting slightly different scores based on
whether we submit pagerduty.com or www.pagerduty.com. We have it set up so
that pagerduty.com does a 302 redirect to the www. The Voltmeter app should
see both of these as a single domain.

The problems I have noticed:

* For pagerduty.com, the "Keyword Targeting" section shows: 1) moved, 2) permanently, 3) nginx. Looks like it does not follow the redirect.

* For the "Incoming Links" section, I get different results for pagerduty.com and for the www. Again, you should combine the 2 resultsets, as some people might link to the www and others to pagerduty.com.

* In the "Search Engine Index Inclusion" section, it says Pages Indexed by Bing: 68. We don't actually have 68 pages, so I don't see how this is possible.

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streety
Why are you doing a temporary redirect rather than a permanent (301) redirect?

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Lukeas14
I love the actual product and results, very clear and concise (although it'd
be nice to allow users to probe for more information if they want). However,
the process to get there was not as simple. I definitely almost bounced a few
times. The homepage did not make it clear what the product was about in the
first few seconds (for most users that's all the time you get. Maybe some
screenshots would clear that up) The first thing the user should probably see
on the sign up page is that an email address is NOT required (maybe not
include it in that form but after the test is run allow the user to get weekly
tests sent to this email which he then has to input). Overall, a very
promising site that I would use again. As for the sign up funnel its nothing
that website optimizer can't fix

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Banzai10
Instead of blocking the search you should let the search happens and show in
some place, please create a user for have access to the features X, Y and Z,
but stopping the user when they click in "run voltmeter" doesn't do a good
impression.

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philfreo
Minor but helpful in UI: put <label>s on your checkbox text, like "Remember
Me", so I can click the words.

Also, it'd be awesome if you could show me which pages were 400/404. A number
on it's own isn't too useful in improvement.

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aw3c2
The "You must be logged in to do that. Log in (or create an account real fast)
and we'll send you on your way." text is almost unreadable for me (Opera?).
Thin red monospace font on big fat red background.

Good job on making your frontpage usable without Javascript (probably a SEO
thing, heh). It is not very beautiful but all information is accessable.

Maybe show some examples of what one gets from the Voltmeter? Why would I give
away my mail address for something I don't know much about. I too find the
"Run Voltmeter" -> "Oh nonono, you have to signup!" questionable.

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wmeredith
Changed the styling on that message. You don't need ot provide an email
address to sign up. We've tried to point that out more clearly.

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nkohari
Sort of unrelated to the app, but your blog is very difficult to read on
Windows. ClearType combined with the small size of Adobe Garamond Pro makes it
very difficult to read. Maybe try a web-safe font like Georgia?

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wmeredith
I went ahead and changed it all to the sans-serif. This was a point we were
back and forth on anyway. Thanks for a push in the right direction.

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thenduks
Errored for me on my first try (just a simple 500 in an alert box, that's
it)... So I tried a different URL and it yelled at me about upgrading to get
'more reports per day' -- I haven't even got one yet!

:/

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wmeredith
Ugh, sorry- that's a crap use-case. It's on the bug list.

