Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

monicahq.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 586 posts

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#411

Post by pedalpete »

robinhood wrote: post #5

Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my server popping here and there. Didnt expect t…

Congrats, this looks really nice, the feedback you're getting here is a good bit of proof that you're on to something people like.

My first reaction to the "CRM to manage friends..." was, what? Why do I need a business tool for my personal life.

I wonder if there is a better terminology than CRM. You bump up against the social network on one end, and a person tool on the other.

I wrote an executive summary for my business last week, and the feedback I got from an advisor was that they loved the idea that there are these two big existing markets, and that their is a middle-ground between them which hasn't been addressed. I think that is what you've got here, it needs to be named. I haven't quite been able to name mine yet either, so I'm not suggesting this is easy.

What do other think? Is the CRM a good label for a personal tool?

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#412

Post by alexeldeib »

pwenzel wrote: post #380
robinhood wrote: post #5

Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my server popping here and there. Didnt expect t…

I wouldn't mind being able to import a file from my Google Contacts. I've been using that as my friends-and-family CRM for over a decade now. Also, this may sound stupid, but how do you delete a contact?

+1 for importing Google Contacts, or any standard contact format I can import. Also just noticed no deletion...

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#413

Post by WorldMaker »

losteric wrote: post #336
WorldMaker wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still sometimes wonder if anyone else has a good name for what Facebook lost somewhere in the switch between the much more ephemeral "Status" system of 2004's TheFacebook to today's "Posts" and their littered, ad-filled home the "News Feed". Even the "Notes" system in the middle of the transition was more "opt in" than firehose and a bit more rare and curated by the fewer users using it. There is a spirit to the ol…

Separation of responsibilities? Statuses were great as a brief update of a friend's change in their state of mind. I could follow up as I saw fit, often just keeping it in mind for the next time we met up. Posts and news is just a steady steam of information... repeated opinions, content that forms their opinion, attempts at converting others, or minor events that would have been interesting to talk about but bland n…

I think this gets close to the meat of it, yes. TheFacebook in 2004 was still something closer to its yearbook metaphor: here's the people I met this year in college and here's what they wrote on my yearbook that year.

I guess the real emblematic touch point of the change over the years is much more from each person's "Wall" being the important push hubs of conversations to the "Wall" being subsumed by the modern "Timeline" and relegated to an annual flurry of birthday well-wishers and not much else.

That opt-in push mentality versus opt-out pull mentality is quite different: I'm going to go post this cool thing on my friend's wall BECAME I'm going to post this cool thing and maybe all of my friends might see it in their news feeds (if the algorithms deem it maybe worthy and my friends haven't muted me).

Maybe that's why "Events" still seems like one of the bright spots in Facebook? "Events" for the most part still retains a lot of an "opt-in push mentality"; for the most part you still create an event and explicitly invite friends to it. Certainly the News Feed has the pull sort of events and the "I'm Interested" interest pull buttons, but the events I really care about still follow that classic push model, and probably always will...

In TheFacebook we delegated responsibility to post things we cared about to our Walls to our friends. In Facebook we find that responsibility to curate the things we care about in our News Feeds has been delegated to algorithms and advertisers somewhat beyond our control.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#416

Post by david-cako »

cacarr wrote: post #384
WorldMaker wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2004 when I first joined was a year or so before a lot of the quizzes and games and such spam. At the time the "spam" was a large collection of "Groups" that had silly in-joke names specific to your College/University. That time "Groups" were more like a list of hobbies than the "Groups" of today. "Photos" also didn't show up until a few months after I first joined. I'm not saying we should romanticize the incomplete…

"Fun"? Facebook was fun in 2005. Now it's just ... addictive.

It's hard for me to think of it as "addictive". Every time I use it, I end up scrolling briefly through about 20 different 10 QUICK TIPS, YOU WONT BELIEVE WHAT THIS DOLPHIN DID, and RECIPES MADE TO LOOK QUICKER THAN THEY ARE before I leave.

Facebook was much more engaging when I actually saw words and images coming out of people who I know or once knew.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#417

Post by UweSchmidt »

lucb1e wrote: post #396
robinhood wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I just know web stuff. I did some .net like 15 years ago, but now I just know PHP and HTML, basically. Moreover, I'd love to create an app too, which would require an API, which requires to be available online.

Well I'm glad this isn't .NET, or almost as bad, Electron. I think web is a fine choice, provided it's open source and self-hostable for those who care.

What's wrong with .NET? Even if you don't like programming with it you'd get a native application.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#418

Post by CRConrad »

niklasrde wrote: post #173
rak00n wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain how it works? I wonder what 0 0 19 7 * means.

Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron#Overview . In short: At 00:00 hours on 19/07 (i.e. July 19) execute that command. The * means 'regardless of what day of the week it is'.

Regardless of what year, actually. So you're reminded of your friend's birthday every year, not just this one.

[Edit:] What the... Nope, sorry, seems you're right and I'm wrong -- weekly it is. [/Edit]

Post reply on HN