

Show HN: Call emails, not phones - bertelet
https://dialzoo.me/

======
unwind
This was super-confusing, at least to me.

It uses the noun "email", which to me means "an email _message_ ", as if it
meant "an email _address_ ".

I found it very annoying and confusing. Perhaps I'm just old, though.

~~~
coldpie
I've definitely heard "give me your email" when asking for someone's email
address. It's not uncommon at all.

~~~
robbyking
That always sounds odd to me, like when someone asks " _do you have a
Facebook?_ "

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donut2d
This site is vulnerable to Heartbleed:
[https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#dialzoo.me](https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#dialzoo.me)

~~~
xShirase
Not anymore :
[http://safeweb.norton.com/heartbleed?url=dialzoo.me](http://safeweb.norton.com/heartbleed?url=dialzoo.me)

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kreek
For me this is a magical combination of two unpopular modes of communication.
There's a reason texting/chat is so popular, people don't like email and they
don't like phone calls.

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m52go
Make it paid, and you might have a fighting chance with executives and
salespeople. Executives get cold-called AND cold-emailed by terrible
salespeople all the time. Know why? Both media are essentially free.

Paying would create a much-needed quality barrier in these irreplaceable but
miserable media.

Free isn't always better...how are you planning to make money anyway?

~~~
SebP
Interesting, thanks.

The registered email address getting the redirection to it's own phone pays
for that service by the minute... at a rate comparable to SkypeOut. This is
TollFree at really great rate.

Oh, did I mention, once you have an account, you can also dial out to normal
phone number using simple URLs again... and pay for that. But this is really
an add-on.

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GUNHED_158
Where is the part that says this service is not going to use the obtained
email addresses for spamming?

~~~
hmsimha
That's not a guarantee they can make, since they're suggesting you share the
link that contains your email address in order for people to call you.

To be honest, I'm more comfortable giving out my phone number than my primary
contact email address. On the other hand, it's much easier to set up a
throwaway email than a throwaway phone number.

~~~
SebP
Right, Dialzoo does not share email addresses publicly.

But it's to the users of the service to share their dialzoo url including
their email. Like
[http://dialzoo/your@email.com](http://dialzoo/your@email.com)

Our assumption is that people would use email that are consider public info
already, and share that.

Perhaps this is more relevant for public profiles such as \- business website
\- public social profiles like linkedin. \- facebook \- google +

~~~
toomuchtodo
Couldn't you do a hash of the email?

[http://dialzoo.com/67135a14d3ac4f1369633dd006d6efec](http://dialzoo.com/67135a14d3ac4f1369633dd006d6efec)

~~~
ryan-c
The search space of email is small enough that hashing is not a good solution.

[http://www.developer.it/post/gravatars-why-publishing-
your-e...](http://www.developer.it/post/gravatars-why-publishing-your-email-s-
hash-is-not-a-good-idea)
[http://archive.hack.lu/2013/dbongard_hacklu_2013.pdf](http://archive.hack.lu/2013/dbongard_hacklu_2013.pdf)

~~~
richardwhiuk
They can add a random seed to the hash to increase the search space. In fact
it doesn't need to be a hash - they could just store a random string.

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tenmilestereo
What is being used in your app to check browser versions?

I'm using Firefox Nightly (34.0a1) and it says that my browser doesn't support
WebRTC, when it most definitely does.

~~~
SebP
We check the browser agent not to be IE or Safari. Strange, will try to figure
this out.

------
SebP
Dialzoo allows you to hide your phone number and get called for Free.

It also allows to send voicemails to any email address in a click.

Let me know what you think ?

SebP

~~~
webwanderings
I get audio files of messages people leave me on MagicJack. I think this is
something similar.

I communicate with someone consistently who does not like to type. So, you may
have a good use case.

Your website has 90s look. It gives a look of a shaddy service. Doesn't look
serious or even professional.

That is what I think. You asked for it.

~~~
SebP
Hehe, I was looking for that :-)

Is it the pictures, or all the rest ?

~~~
webwanderings
Look, if your service is useful enough, it will get traction even if you have
no website to boot. That has been the reality of supply and demand since ages.

------
SebP
Dialzoo got 500 users registered just in the last 24h, linking their emails to
a phone number. The buzz seems to be taking up :-)

~~~
SebP
Now at 1800 users !

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todd3834
I think this is a neat idea. It brings up some questions about telemarketing
and spam. I am not familiar with telemarketing laws but I'm a little more
familiar with the spam laws. Now that the message is going through an email, I
wonder if someone could get into trouble for breaking a spam law where a phone
call would have been fully legal.

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wodow
A bug: I clicked "SEND VOICEMAIL" multiple times and it sent a bunch of emails
to my test address.

~~~
SebP
Thanks, it's in our bug list now.

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kelvin0
Great Idea, I like it. Just afraid I might start getting 'telemarketing'
emails ... aw well ;-)

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wehadfun
Noticed you had that invest link down there are you looking for huge VCs or
have do you have the legal and technical ability to handle investments from
the public?

~~~
SebP
Would rather go the VC route atm, but open. We are yet to prove our business
model based on our beta launch.

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luchs
It's a bit annoying that your WebRTC-check also triggers on the "what" page,
even though it seems to render just fine (and then redirects away).

~~~
SebP
Fixed. You are right, no reason not to show it.

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p4bl0
Doesn't work for me. I get an email with no actual link to the audio message
(neither in the plain text part, nor in the HTML (yuck) part).

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u124556
Can I register and still get callers to leave voice mail?

How about using an alias instead of my email in the url?

~~~
SebP
Allowing voicemails when registered: #1 requested feature. allow us another
day or 2 :-)

About the alias, we are considering it as as great idea also. But we want to
keep it simple for now.

------
mfrager
Same as my idea: [http://ringmail.com](http://ringmail.com)

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xtrycatchx
looks similar with SpellDial
<[http://www.spelldial.com/>](http://www.spelldial.com/>)

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Mahn
Does this work internationally or is it US only?

~~~
SebP
International. You can check our rates in all countries in the world:
[https://dialzoo.me/rates](https://dialzoo.me/rates)

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jedanbik
No iOS support? Why not?

~~~
SebP
WebRTC is not supported on iOS. We will develop an iOS app shortly to fix
that. Currently a web based tool only, to test interest.

SebP

