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Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#491

Post by selcuka »

mike_h wrote: post #197
jasode wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And then suddenly, you got a GB of storage. For free. No questions asked. And its UI was simple and easy-to-use. And you could search it. Also don't forget that Gmail at the time had the most intelligent spam blocking algorithm compared to AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail/etc. It was a big enough deal that some observers that switched to Gmail considered the email spam problem as "solved" because Gmail seemed so good at it. (On th…

Is there a better spam filter today?

Define better. Gmail does a pretty good job for most use cases but it's all about compromises. One person's spam is another's ham; so you will unavoidably end up with false positives and/or false negatives. For some organisations you might want a system that you can fine tune those.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#492

Post by selcuka »

jakevoytko wrote: post #17

Gmail. Using web-based email clients was a nightmare before Gmail. They had limited storage space, and the UX was pretty bad, they were hard to search, etc. You spent all your time figuring out what you wanted to delete, or seeing your emails bounce when people had full inboxes. If you didn't log in for a while, your account would disappear. And then suddenly, you got a GB of storage. For free. No questions asked. An…

The Gmail web interface also (re)invented AJAX. The number of web applications that used XMLHttpRequest increased exponentially after the success of Gmail.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#493

Post by redis_mlc »

apohn wrote: post #58
jakevoytko wrote: post #17

Gmail. Using web-based email clients was a nightmare before Gmail. They had limited storage space, and the UX was pretty bad, they were hard to search, etc. You spent all your time figuring out what you wanted to delete, or seeing your emails bounce when people had full inboxes. If you didn't log in for a while, your account would disappear. And then suddenly, you got a GB of storage. For free. No questions asked. An…

Gmail also automatically saved drafts. I can't tell you how many long emails I wrote and lost before hitting the send button with other web email UIs. Gmail was not just 10x. I think it redefined what a good web based email experience could be. I think it completely changed what people realized and expected the web browser could be from an interactivity standpoint.

Yahoo Mail is a lot nicer than gmail to actually use (no silly tiny window for editing), and automatically saves drafts.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#495

Post by csa »

I made a basic CRUD app that 10xed the productivity of a group I was working with.

The big differences between my app and other solutions that they had used were:

1. I talked to users not only to get the work flow right, but also to refine it. This also helped with buy in once the app started being used.

2. I made it easy to use for the user base (most were not very tech-savvy).

3. Related to 2, I made it hard for a user to fail.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#496

Post by mokus »

Saleae Logic. Their USB3 “pro” analyzers are fantastic and the software is clean, fast and user-friendly. Using host RAM for capture buffer is great and completely changed my workflow. I can capture hour or days of trace and sift through after a fault occurs.

We have the usual other test equipment from the usual big names, stuff that costs 40x as much. For many jobs, I’d rather have the Saleae.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#499

Post by jensvdh »

dragonwriter wrote: post #287
deliriousferret wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was Gmail really 10x better than Hotmail?

> Was Gmail really 10x better than Hotmail? No. Gmail did not suck badly enough to be merely 10× better than Hotmail. Gmail was lightyears beyond other early free webmail services.

Hotmail had a 2MB e-mail limit. Gmail came with 2GB.
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