Introducing Quip • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Quip

#21

Post by aresant » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:42 AM UTC

The messaging challenge Quip is going to have is that they have to call themselves a "modern word processor" so we have context to understand what it is.

But from the landing page this looks / feels drastically different from any word processing / document creation tool I've used in the past.

It might be interesting to test a variant that starts with a screenshot that centers visitors around what this has in common with today's word processor, and then hammers home the "awesome" part after that.

Re: Introducing Quip

#22

Post by SCdF » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:42 AM UTC

Hilyin wrote: post #17

All devices, except your laptop. Who actually wants to write more than a few sentences on anything but something with a keyboard?

There are pictures of it being used in chrome. On a laptop. Am I missing something?

Re: Introducing Quip

#23

Post by gurraman » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:44 AM UTC

Hilyin wrote: post #17

All devices, except your laptop. Who actually wants to write more than a few sentences on anything but something with a keyboard?

That "something" can be almost any device. I'm writing this comment on a keyboard attached to an iPad.

Re: Introducing Quip

#24

Post by _frog » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:45 AM UTC

Hilyin wrote: post #17

All devices, except your laptop. Who actually wants to write more than a few sentences on anything but something with a keyboard?

> Today, we are extremely excited to launch Quip. Quip is a modern word processor that enables you to create beautiful documents on any device — phones, tablets and the desktop. If you haven't already, download Quip to try it out.

Literally the first paragraph on the linked page.

Re: Introducing Quip

#25

Post by dchuk » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:51 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #13

Is it just me, or are a lot of startups borrowing each other's value props? It's like a Mad Lib that everyone just fills in: "[Product] is a [app category] that enables you to create beautiful [output]." Everything's about "enabling the creation of beautiful" XYZ. Nothing against these guys in particular, I just happened to notice it while reading the site, and am thinking back to the N other new product announcement…

Well, it's pretty well known that using "beautiful" in your headline makes for a weak value prop, but it's also a hard concept to argue with. No one wants to make an ugly anything.

Re: Introducing Quip

#26

Post by wilfra » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:53 AM UTC

pud wrote: post #2

Quip is Bret Taylor's new company. Bret founded Google Maps and FriendFeed. Then he was CTO of Facebook for 3 years. So this should be interesting.

According to https://quip.com/about/ he seems like an underachiever on the Quip team.

>>Ryan's resume intimidates small children and household pets. After co-founding Google App Engine with Kevin, Jon, and Bret, Ryan boarded his hot air balloon and ascended to low earth orbit. He then won a Nobel peace prize, seven Olympic medals (all bronze), three Oscars, and the jackpot at Caesar's Palace. Since landing, he's cured cancer, penned the sequel to Ulysses, and achieved nirvana. That was on Tuesday.

They've evidently already raised $15 million as well. This should be really interesting.

Re: Introducing Quip

#27

Post by samstave » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:58 AM UTC

Schwolop wrote: post #19

Interesting though this sounds, I get irritated whenever I read about someone changing the existing paradigms of [insert topic here], and then continuing to use all the existing metaphors from the existing paradigms, e.g.; 'desktop', 'inbox', etc. And despite my rant, I'm not sure if there's a solution to this. You need customers to understand how you're asking them to change, and without reference to the old termino…

Honestly, this wont change until we drop the skeuomorphing of paper...

Someday, someone will build something where "documents" may look like little blocks, with little indicators on them as to which data-streams they connect to live and how much social activity is happening about them - their popularity, their rated completeness, how many links to that info, security level, capabilities etc.

Take the whole idea of an entire stack and call it a "document" when you open it - it may contain whole DBs, connect to N other things and be able to produce X based on Y input from you or others. They may be intelligent enough to know to ask you to input a certain set of content before they can move onto the next phase of becoming complete, even with training information inside telling you how to enter into them the info they need to realize completeness.

Compressed abstraction and virtualization into a single finite functional datablock that can be moved sent secured monitored etc... just as much as any other stack/cluster....

/daydream...

Re: Introducing Quip

#28

Post by shiftb » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:04 AM UTC

The danger in building a product like this is that you can try to be everything to everyone and end up being nothing to anyone. They've combatted this by positioning it as a simple word processor.

After playing with it, the product is much more than just a simple word processor. It's really well designed, especially considering how complex some of the ideas it tackles are.

Excited to see how things play out.

Re: Introducing Quip

#29

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:09 AM UTC

wilfra wrote: post #26

pud wrote: post #2

Quip is Bret Taylor's new company. Bret founded Google Maps and FriendFeed. Then he was CTO of Facebook for 3 years. So this should be interesting.

According to https://quip.com/about/ he seems like an underachiever on the Quip team. >>Ryan's resume intimidates small children and household pets. After co-founding Google App Engine with Kevin, Jon, and Bret, Ryan boarded his hot air balloon and ascended to low earth orbit. He then won a Nobel peace prize, seven Olympic medals (all bronze), three Oscars, and the jackpot at Caesar's Palace. Since landing, he's cure…

[deleted]

Re: Introducing Quip

#30

Post by ryanSrich » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:09 AM UTC

This looks great and I'm hopeful that it will do well.

Having said that I can't help but think how strange it is that the launch of another word processor is novel enough to reach the front page of HN.

I understand that the co-founders are big names in the valley but a word processor? Perhaps I'm missing something but the technology here seems anything but front page worthy.