I hope GetPolarized succeeds as a funding model there need to be a way to fund Open source software instead of much of new SaaS being closed source and investor funded.
I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
131–140 of 163 posts
Re: I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
#132Site needs a designer or at least better cookie-cutter layout. It just looks mediocre. Today marketing is everything...
I know... I'm not a designer and this is one of the reasons I'm raising funding ;)
Hi, I'm a designer and I can help you with the website design (as well as some feedback/advice on branding and marketing if you are interested) - email is in my profile.
Re: I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
#133After you mentioned academics/scientific content in the video, is when all of this came into focus and I understood how a document management/annotation app intersects with one possible interpretation of "reboot the internet". But I think there's some misguidance there.
Academic content gets paywalled for economic reasons, not technical reasons. The basic web as it exists right now can do just as good a job distributing such things as it did 20 years ago. If your technology doesn't change the economic equation, it's not going to change anything.
Social content on the other hand gets walled-in for social reasons. This is closer to being solvable by new technology, but the primary drivers are ease-of-use and network effects, not technical architecture. I don't see Polar really addressing those things. Facebook gained popularity because 1) any regular person could just visit a website and be off to the races for free, and 2) other people were on it. #2 isn't really addressable directly, but by requiring a native app download, you're already behind on #1.
If you want to usurp a walled-garden with an open one, you can't just build better technology, you have to give regular people something that's both effortless and uniquely compelling compared to what they already use. That's an incredibly difficult (if noble) thing to try and do in this space.
Re: I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been good feedback (even if a bit rough) and will definitely try to refine it a bit more. One of the things I've found that I struggle with is trying to explain what I'm building as most things are obvious to me since I'm the one building it. Our users have done a GREAT job helping me out with that and pointing out the flaws with Polar regarding usability that I can't see. I wonder if this is related to inat…
Tell a good story. A strong narrative is much more engaging and memorable than a list of features. Your front page at http://getpolarized.io mostly consists of a huge screenshot. When I look at the screenshot, all I see is a PDF viewer with some highlighting. Everybody already has a PDF viewer included with their OS that supports highlighting; there's nothing interesting about that screenshot that shows me what is us…
Narratives are a huge turn off for me. They always just feel like marketing gimmicks, and some my understanding and interest in a product. I'm perfectly capable of seeing a list of features, and imagining how well they apply to my situation. So, if you use a story, you will lose customers like me (n=1). That being said, I love the idea of Polar, and I'm going to be researching more about it.
Re: I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
#135From a marketing perspective, it’s really advisable to tell people what your thing is before asking for money. Not being snarky - from taking a quick glance I genuinely couldn’t tell what the thing is and I’m unlikely to sit through a video without at least some high level intro of what I’m going to get.
I had the same issue. I have a rough idea (I think) of what Polar is trying to do -- but I'm not entirely sure. I'm also not sure how this would be "rebooting the internet", or what the overall benefit to the internet actually is. I may have missed it (that's likely), but I didn't see where that was explained.
It may be that the video explained it, but I'm not be in a situation where I can watch it right now.
EDIT: After reading the bulk of the other comments here, I am relieved that I'm not the only confused one. I thought I was just being stupid. I often am.
Re: I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell a good story. A strong narrative is much more engaging and memorable than a list of features. Your front page at http://getpolarized.io mostly consists of a huge screenshot. When I look at the screenshot, all I see is a PDF viewer with some highlighting. Everybody already has a PDF viewer included with their OS that supports highlighting; there's nothing interesting about that screenshot that shows me what is us…
Narratives are a huge turn off for me. They always just feel like marketing gimmicks, and some my understanding and interest in a product. I'm perfectly capable of seeing a list of features, and imagining how well they apply to my situation. So, if you use a story, you will lose customers like me (n=1). That being said, I love the idea of Polar, and I'm going to be researching more about it.
> Narratives are a huge turn off for me.
Yes, I get very suspicious of them as well. But in this case, the site is heavier on the "what" than on the "why". A little more "why" would be welcome.
Re: I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
#137Here's a better pitch based on your feedback and maybe more tailored to the Hacker News crowd. The Internet is broken as content primary pools behind walled gardens like Facebook and Twitter. These platforms are not open in the sense that the metadata is locked up inside them. Additionally, they're not very respective of the rights and privacy of their user base. Polar tries to reboot this by building out a generic d…
> The Internet is broken as content primary pools behind walled gardens like Facebook and Twitter.
Wait, this confuses me even more. My understanding is that Polar is basically a content management system. Is that not correct? If I understand correctly, then it is an entirely different beast than the likes of Facebook or Twitter.
If the comparison to Facebook and Twitter is apt, then I have no idea of what Polar actually is.
Re: I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I suck if my goal is anything other trying to make the world a better place. I've been working on Polar for free for the last six months ten hours a day 6-7 days a week because I want the world to be a better place. But hey.. I guess I should be doing this for free because I'm grandiose and trying to make the world a better place.
You have to put the effort in to something that you expect people to actually pay for. I’m not gonna lie, I’m sure I’m not the only one who gave a giggle at $27. I would use this if it were free and so would many others. Tons of people dedicate months or years to FOSS projects and tons of people dedicate months or years to achieve something great, and, as you say, helpful, without ever getting so much as a thank you.…
> I’m sure I’m not the only one who gave a giggle at $27
To be fair, it's not hard to imagine software that allows the easy sharing of content that would be worth $27. It all depends on what, exactly, it really does and how much benefit I'd get from using it.
Re: I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
#139Is "RSS" treated as a generic term for 'syndication format', or does it actually mean the file format (as compared to including Atom/RFC4287)?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(Web_standard) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
Re: I'm one of the inventors of RSS and I need your help to reboot the Internet
#140So how exactly, will Polar "re-boot" the internet, deflate inflated tuition and decrease the cost of textbooks? What exactly does "re-boot" the internet even mean? Honestly, this seems like a whole lot of snake oil to me. If you have no intentions of directly combating tuition prices, which would require political intervention at the highest level of government, then why would you mention it? Unless of course your in…
True.. I think part of this is that some of the more long term features I plan on implementing in Polar are pretty revolutionary and I don't really want to discuss then until we're ready to release. I'm worried of larger and more funded companies like Facebook simply running off with the ideas and not contributing back the way I intend. But fair criticism.
> I think part of this is that some of the more long term features I plan on implementing in Polar are pretty revolutionary and I don't really want to discuss then until we're ready to release.
Then you shouldn't even hint at them yet. It will just be confusing. I know that with products I've developed and sold in the past, I've always had much grander plans for them than what I actually told people at first.
> I'm worried of larger and more funded companies like Facebook simply running off with the ideas and not contributing back the way I intend.
That's a common and understandable fear, but I think a misplaced one. Truly, ideas are a dime a dozen. The value is in execution. Execute very well (and don't forget the "do one thing extremely well" advice -- it's a truism for a reason) and it doesn't matter if anybody else has lifted your idea.
Well funded companies like Facebook, etc., will be in a position to implement their form of your idea in the end anyway, even if it's just by buying and using your product. The protection from the big boys that you get from secrecy is largely illusory.