

Tinmark is now free – fully for 30 days, read and edit after that - birchbird
https://tinmark.com/free

======
bpatrianakos
I really like the video. I think it's a great example of what you can do with
a low budget and limited toolset. I don't want to sound like I'm saying
whoever is running Tinmark is poor and doesn't have good/proper tools or a
lot/enough/useful experience with them. It's just that I've never heard of
Tinmark before and while watching this video I was thinking "gee, I wish I
could create a nice little video like this for my product" because I _am_ on a
low budget with limited tools as far as video making is concerned.

It's so...

\- Simple - just music and screen grabs

\- To the point - shows you exactly how you'd use the product... quickly!

\- Not boring - the video is clear, the music is apt, and it gets you thinking
of what you can do with the product even though there's no voice telling you
about it

I can't tell you how many times I've watched a video of some poor guy typing
out what he'd be narrating annoyingly slow and having to go back and fix typos
every other second either with no sound or the most irritating music one could
find laid over a blurry video so that you can barely read what's being written
anyway. Every time I see one of those, I wish they'd have just done exactly
what the video for Tinmark does. It can't be that hard. (It actually isn't,
I've done it once for another product).

Oh, and I love the idea of making this free. It's cheap as it is and making
accounts read-only after 30-days, at least to me, seems like it'd convert
really well. If you invest enough time in the product during those 30 days
then it's not a big leap to go from $0 to $2 for the ability to edit again.

~~~
stevejalim
> seems like it'd convert really well.

Yeah, I'm looking at a similar 'mothballware' plan (for want of a better term)
at a similar price point for something I'm currently building. I'd be
interested to hear of others' experience of it.

Yes, there's a risk of it seeming like you're cutting off something people are
using, but if they're that invested in it, hopefully they won't mind chipping
in a modest amount now they know they really do like it.

EDIT: apologies for this being a pretty vapid comment - curled up on sofa,
ill.

~~~
bpatrianakos
No apology necessary, I'm at work, ill. Bronchitis. Totally understand.

I don't know what you mean by mothballware. Care to elaborate?

I don't think there's a risk of seeming like you're cutting people off. So
long as you're up-front with people when they sign up then there's no problem
with this. The value is in the ability to add and edit your bookmarks. Being
able to access them later is trivial if you're looking at it from Tinmark's
perspective and from a user's perspective this is the same as getting a try-
before-you-buy premium account.

~~~
stevejalim
> I don't know what you mean by mothballware. Care to elaborate?

On reflection, it's a pretty lame term I tried to coin there. I was looking
for something that expressed the idea that after a certain period of time,
accounts that weren't dormant would need paying for before in order to be used
properly again, so a bit like them being mothballed
(<https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define%3A%20mothballed>) and unmothballed
when eventually paid for.

Like I said, lame term. Am sure there's a better word out there that'll come
to me when my head is clear.

------
moioci
It seems disingenuous to say the service is "free forever" when after thirty
days THE essential function of a bookmarking service is turned off. Compared
to Pinboard's model, this is a clear loser.

~~~
ch0wn
"Tinmark now offers a free trial" would certainly be more honest, but we all
know how titles and headlines work.

~~~
plansurf
Hi ch0wn (and moioci) co-founder here,

The reason we didn't call it a "free trial" is because you can still keep
using the service after 30 days. Some SAAS products have free plans that have
caps on the amount of data you can create. We're basically saying the cap of
data for the free plan is whatever you create in the 30 days -- that could be
hundreds or thousands of bookmarks. You'll still have access to everything you
own after the period but more importantly, if you weren't satisfied with the
service you can export it all anytime.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

~~~
mkmkmmmmm
Since you will eventually be limiting the core functionality I would say it is
more appropriate to say it is a free trial with persistent, exportable data.

~~~
bpatrianakos
Yeah, I'm sure that's what the marketing department's first choice was.

I think this entire line of discussion is coming from a place of thinking way
too much about it. Tinmark's cofounder's answer above is exactly what I was
going to say. There's nothing dishonest about and below the headline there are
3 lines of text that very clearly state what a user would be getting. There's
nothing ambiguous about the explanation.

~~~
mkmkmmmmm
I think the title is dishonest, but not egregiously so. It's not a real
problem, you are right about that.

------
alxbrun
I'm wondering who needs a bookmarking app in 2013, let alone pay for it.

~~~
fein
Possibly an unpopular opinion, but I agree. Google has had their bookmarks
service since 2005, and I don't even use that. Standard import/ export and
attach the file is all I've ever needed.

Perhaps there is a use case outside mine? I also don't give an iota of a shit
about socially sharing my bookmarks.

~~~
CrazedGeek
Cross-platform access is the killer feature for me (with Pinboard). I
frequently need to access my bookmarks on systems that aren't my own, so these
sorts of services are quite handy.

~~~
chronomex
I often send a friend a subset of my bookmarks. Having an online service with
good share-able urls is important to me.

