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Rate my web app: 360 Voltage is in Alpha (see comments)

360voltage.com

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Re: Rate my web app: 360 Voltage is in Alpha (see comments)

#31

Post by DirtyAndy »

wmeredith wrote: post #2

Good morning, HN. We've been slaving for months and we're finally launch-ready. This community was so amazing last time we launched a web site, that we're taking our own advice ( http://blog.200nipples.com/2008/07/launch-the-first-24-hours... ) and doing a Hacker News launch. We're basically in Alpha right now, we'll be in Beta next week with all initial features online by 4th quarter 2009. Anyway, this site was buil…

My thoughts: 1. Like most people here I didn't really like to have to login to see anything, especially with the bait-and-switch approach. I think you either need to show a random result for people to see, or let them do a single search and log an IP address to something (difficult as I guess multiple people from one company can have same IP). Another option would be to show a reduced set of information maybe show 1 or 2 of the test results in full and all the rest just have the % without clarifying what is good and bad?

2. Site looks really nice. I like the blurb and the site makes me want to put a URL in and find out more

3. Personally I think it is pricey. I would have thought perhaps a per domain model or the like might work better - $10 to track a domain for a year - with alerts when it goes down or up in score etc? $20 a month might work for some design/development agencies because they can test loads of sites, but I think you are limiting to your target market majorly if you do that.

I've never heard of Amazon payments before so I'm pleased I took a look at your site - I learnt something! I think a lot of business people will prefer that over google and paypal etc.

Good luck!

Re: Rate my web app: 360 Voltage is in Alpha (see comments)

#32

Post by brfox »

bdmac97 wrote: post #6
edw519 wrote: post #5

Try it right now by clicking "Run Voltmeter" forces me to join. No thanks.

I noticed that too but in their defense the signup was ridiculously painless. Only required a login and password. Email was optional. No confirmation required.

People reuse usernames and passwords, so even though it is painless, now they will have a database of usernames and passwords which can probably be used in a lot of places. Thus, I only sign up for new things rarely and only for things in which I suspect I will need to use frequently.

Re: Rate my web app: 360 Voltage is in Alpha (see comments)

#33

Post by bdmac97 »

brfox wrote: post #32
bdmac97 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed that too but in their defense the signup was ridiculously painless. Only required a login and password. Email was optional. No confirmation required.

People reuse usernames and passwords, so even though it is painless, now they will have a database of usernames and passwords which can probably be used in a lot of places. Thus, I only sign up for new things rarely and only for things in which I suspect I will need to use frequently.

Hmm... I guess you have a point there. It's frustrating a bit as a developer because in all likelihood if they've done their jobs as developers they DON'T have access to your password at all. The problem is how do you trust a new site when there are obviously some (many?) out there that still use plaintext for passwords? Anyone have a solution for that? Some type of security audit w/a badge that your site can display saying "Hey, we DON'T store your password or have access to it!"

What would you say if they instead used some form of OpenID system (RPX Now or something) so you didn't have to give them your password? Would that help?

Re: Rate my web app: 360 Voltage is in Alpha (see comments)

#34

Post by mildweed »

brfox wrote: post #32
bdmac97 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed that too but in their defense the signup was ridiculously painless. Only required a login and password. Email was optional. No confirmation required.

People reuse usernames and passwords, so even though it is painless, now they will have a database of usernames and passwords which can probably be used in a lot of places. Thus, I only sign up for new things rarely and only for things in which I suspect I will need to use frequently.

We PHP CRYPT() those passwords and never see them. I am disappointed you think we'd store passwords in plaintext.

Re: Rate my web app: 360 Voltage is in Alpha (see comments)

#35

Post by wmeredith »

aw3c2 wrote: post #12

The "You must be logged in to do that. Log in (or create an account real fast) and we'll send you on your way." text is almost unreadable for me (Opera?). Thin red monospace font on big fat red background. Good job on making your frontpage usable without Javascript (probably a SEO thing, heh). It is not very beautiful but all information is accessable. Maybe show some examples of what one gets from the Voltmeter? Why…

Changed the styling on that message. You don't need ot provide an email address to sign up. We've tried to point that out more clearly.

Re: Rate my web app: 360 Voltage is in Alpha (see comments)

#36

Post by wmeredith »

bdmac97 wrote: post #4

Great idea for a site and I love the look of it right now. Simple to see what the site does and visually appealing. You should add your site to my startup launchly ( http://www.launchly.com ). I started launchly (with a HN launch as well) to try to help other startups get the feedback and exposure they need to succeed. It also comes with some powerful analytics to track how your launch is performing. Oh and it's free…

Typo is fixed. We'll be on launchly next week.

Re: Rate my web app: 360 Voltage is in Alpha (see comments)

#37

Post by streety »

alexsolo wrote: post #24

I noticed for my site that we are getting slightly different scores based on whether we submit pagerduty.com or www.pagerduty.com. We have it set up so that pagerduty.com does a 302 redirect to the www. The Voltmeter app should see both of these as a single domain. The problems I have noticed: * For pagerduty.com, the "Keyword Targeting" section shows: 1) moved, 2) permanently, 3) nginx. Looks like it does not follow…

Why are you doing a temporary redirect rather than a permanent (301) redirect?
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