

Show HN: Address book storage you can trust. - tristanthomas
http://columns.co

======
casca
"Trust" is a big offer. There are 2 main trust issues when I give my contact
information to another company: 1) Will they keep as private as I would? and
2) Will they still be around in 5 years?

Your model means that I can somewhat believe 1), but 2) means that I
personally would not use such a service.

~~~
tristanthomas
Hi casca,

I totally understand and have actually stopped signing up for startups without
a clear business model (even YC ones). I hope that our model means that we
will be and if for some reason we aren't, because we make your data fully
portable and completely yours, it would be very easy for you to move. Please
feel free to email me at hello@columns.co if you want to discuss this further.

~~~
diminish
Could you please elaborate on privacy and security features you use, on
storing and transmitting the contacts.

------
unwind
As a somewhat meta comment, it kind of blows my mind that it's possible today
to market a product on the grounds that you, as a customer, _pay for it_.
"Look! We're not free!" is actually something the customer is expected to
understand the implications of, and appreciate as _a feature_.

I _do_ understand the implications, I'm not looking for explanations, I just
think it's quite ... funny.

~~~
davedx
Most people with brains understand the concept "You get what you pay for".

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AndrewDucker
Complete lack of details there.

Does it support Thunderbird?

Does it support CardDav?

Will it sync with my existing Google contacts?

~~~
tristanthomas
Hi Andrew,

Apologies for the lack of details - this is just our landing page and of
course will be built out further.

In answer to your questions: yep, it supports Thunderbird. Yep, it supports
CardDAV. In terms of syncing with your Google Contacts, I'm not 100% sure what
you mean but you can import all of your Google Contacts and keep them synced
up through Columns (if that's not what you meant please let me know!)

Hope that helps and thank you for your time.

~~~
noneTheHacker
iOS and WP8 both cannot pull in custom phone number fields from Google
Contacts.

For example, some people I have a mobile number, but then I also have a
"Google Voice" number with them. When pulling that contact in to my iPad, it
loses the Google Voice number.

Does Columns keep the custom free text fields? I assume iOS and WP8 don't
because they both pull in Google's contacts using Outlook.

------
commenter4694
Soocial is an existing service that does almost exactly this:

<http://www.soocial.com/>

Soocial is a contacts sync service. They have a free level and a paid
"premium" level of service ($5/month). I use Soocial (paid service) and I
really like it. There is a major problem with Soocial however: the company was
acquired in November 2011 by the French company Viadeo (blog post:
[http://blog.soocial.com/2011/11/29/soocial-has-been-
acquired...](http://blog.soocial.com/2011/11/29/soocial-has-been-acquired-by-
viadeo/)), and the future of the service is unclear. You can still sign up for
Soocial (I did!), and it works great, but this is a major worry for me as a
customer.

I want to describe my experience using Soocial, because I hope that Columns
will include all of the great functionality that Soocial has. The most
important feature for me is that Soocial syncs my contacts between two
different Gmail accounts (home and work), with Soocial acting as the "main"
contacts storage location. I use this feature to keep my home and work
contacts separate, while my iPhone has access to ALL my contacts. Also Soocial
allows me to sync contact groups to my iPhone, which is not possible just
using the MS Exchange server provided by Gmail. This setup allows me to keep a
contacts "archive". I have a bunch of contacts (friends from college who I
don't contact any more, ex-girlfriends, etc.) that I do not want to have on my
iPhone, but that I do want to keep for archival purposes. Soocial allows me to
keep those contacts in a central place (the Soocial web app) where they are
accessible, but they do not get in my way day-to-day. Actually, having now
described all the great features of Soocial, I've come to realize that I
really really REALLY like Soocial.

I sincerely hope that Columns is successful and that I can eventually switch
from Soocial to Columns. I would much rather be using a service that is being
actively developed than one that seems to be coasting.

Question for the Columns team: What is your level of personal commitment to
continue this service? Is it your intention to continue Columns as a service
"forever", or do you intend to build up a great service and get acquired by
another company?

------
adrianhoward
For me - not a pain point:

* I have backups - so my contacts are safe there

* I also already have multiple copies of my contacts (iPhone, Desktop, Google Apps, iCloud) without even really going out to get that

The USP for me - if there is one - isn't obvious or compelling.

------
drcongo
I'd love to know what the advantages are over iCloud and Google Contacts, both
of which sync all my contacts currently.

You guys could be in a good position to revolutionise this space by allowing
me to manage my own contact information as it appears in other people's
address books – so I can update my email address when I move jobs, update my
phone number when I lose my iPhone etc. – and have this information
automatically update in the address books of everyone I know. This, I would
pay for.

------
c1sc0
I'm not sure there is demand for this given that most people value convenience
over security

But these kinds of business models appeal to me personally though. Lately I've
been wondering if "It's like X, minus the evil part" is a valid startup
strategy. Reason is the whole Hacker News Cologne fiasco with Meetup.com.

Some examples:

Stripe is a less evil PayPal. (edit: I mixed up Parse & Stripe) App.net is a
less evil Twitter. XYZ is a less evil Meetup

~~~
brey
> Parse is a less evil PayPal.

Stripe? Square? not sure you mean Parse.

~~~
c1sc0
you're right, fixed

------
tptacek
To easily get my contacts to sync with my phone, which is the primary reason I
collect them at all, I still have to vouchsafe them to Apple or Google.

------
anonymouz
Somewhat tangential but related: I'm not familiar with data privacy regulation
in the US, but under EU regulation most of the "trust" guarantees made by this
startup would be legally mandatory.

Does anyone know: Under US law, would a company be legally allowed to sell
personal data without my permission? Would it be allowed to retain my data
against my express wish?

~~~
tristanthomas
One thing we want to combat against as well as direct selling of data which as
you note is normally illegal is the use of your data within the company for
other purposes (Google comes up as an obvious choice in selling advertisements
against the information in your personal email, contacts and documents).

------
slap_shot
I would remove a lot of this copy that is referring to 'business model' -
that's a term that you want to use with your business partners and investors,
but not with your customers. I understand why you are bringing it up - to
illustrate your transparency and commitment to privacy, but you should really
just say that. Also, "We want customers, not users." sounds equally as bad.

~~~
easyfrag
I don't know, "We want customers, not users." immediately made sense to me but
I think I'm part of the target market which seems to be people who are aware
of what "free" services do with your data and have at least some concern about
it.

The real question is if the target market is big enough to build a sustainable
business.

------
ruswick
I think their copy is doing them a disservice. It their most prominent,
preeminent feature is that I have to give them my money to use their service,
they ought to rethink their marketing strategy. Most people so not revel in
giving away their money. There are better facets of the product to play up...

~~~
tristanthomas
Hi ruswick,

There are lots of options for contacts storage for free, but we are aiming to
provide a service for people who care about their data and who has it. There
are many other great features of our product, but none as good (we think) as
our commitment to your ownership of your data.

------
EugenioPerea
My contact list currently lives in Google Contacts. It is used by Google
Calendar and my Android phone automatically, and by Thunderbird via Zindus.

Have you given thought to calendar integration?

~~~
tristanthomas
Hi Eugenio,

Yep - your contacts can be easily transferred from Google Contacts and then
used on your Android phone and in Thunderbird just the same.

~~~
tristanthomas
Sorry Eugenio, I obviously didn't make myself very clear or I'm
misunderstanding your need. They are automatically synchronised with your
Android phone and available in Calendars, Apps and the Phone. I bet you
wouldn't even notice the difference from using Google Contacts.

With regards to backups, already done! We have full versioning so that you can
roll back to anytime you want and backups are done continuously.

~~~
EugenioPerea
Cool, thanks. I'll sign up.

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diggan
How could one possibly know what they would pay for the service if they only
see one page with features and not even a demo? Listing benefits is also a
good thing on a product page.

------
endlessvoid94
I like the idea. Ignore the haters, listen to the prospective customers.

Congrats on the launch :-)

------
tristanthomas
Founder here - very excited to show HN and look forward to all comments and
thoughts.

~~~
sneak
I get iCloud for free. Why would I pay you for this?

~~~
tristanthomas
Hi sneak, A couple of reasons - by paying for the service you are a customer
and your desires align with ours rather than us wanting to use your data to
make money - we will never sell it. You fully own your data - no big companies
with complicated privacy policies. And we are transparent about backups and
security - [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-
hona...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-
hacking/) \- our versioned backups don't allow things like the above to happen
and result in the complete loss of data.

Hope that helps, please let me know if you have any questions either on here
or at hello@columns.co.

~~~
sneak
None of those things sell me. I have a local copy of my data on my Mac, and I
pay for the service when I buy an iPhone every year. I fully own my data now.

------
spot
i think you have mischaracterized the competition by accusing them of selling
your contacts. so you have lost my trust right there.

also, the contrast between the text and bg is too low.

~~~
tristanthomas
Hi spot,

I'm sorry you feel that way - can I point you towards my reply to anonymouz as
an extension of what we mean by that. Also, please feel free to email me
directly at hello@columns.co if you have further questions or concerns.

