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Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

phonejanitor.com

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Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#71

Post by jzawodn »

joshcanhelp wrote: post #61
aresant wrote: post #34

I think it's a stroke of genius to launch something so aesthetically terrible on HN / PH (aka the early adopter crowd). For a group of people that see a dozen bootstrap / sandwhich vid style launches a week this stands out, and got me to read 3 paragraphs of ad-copy. Other notable examples of this launch strategy, intentional or not, in recent memory were Pud launching DistroKid (1) and the team behind Magic (2) I th…

I was thinking "ugh, this looks terrible" and read all of the copy as well.

How odd that I didn't really "notice" the look.

This sounds like a useful service that fits in an area where Google Voice totally dropped the ball and Burner hasn't gone yet.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#73

Post by david-given »

joshcanhelp wrote: post #61
aresant wrote: post #34

I think it's a stroke of genius to launch something so aesthetically terrible on HN / PH (aka the early adopter crowd). For a group of people that see a dozen bootstrap / sandwhich vid style launches a week this stands out, and got me to read 3 paragraphs of ad-copy. Other notable examples of this launch strategy, intentional or not, in recent memory were Pud launching DistroKid (1) and the team behind Magic (2) I th…

I was thinking "ugh, this looks terrible" and read all of the copy as well.

It looks terrible? Really? It's an uncluttered layout with the tl;dr description of what it actually is prominently on the front page, and with easy-to-find navigation links to everything else above --- and if you notice, the informational links are on the left, and the actionable links are on the right.

To me, it's exactly what I want out of a product's website, and I wish more looked like it!

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#74

Post by eevilspock »

kazinator wrote: post #69
eevilspock wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it does. We all collectively pay for the economic and social costs of advertising. Advertising makes nothing free for anyone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237 Maciej Ceglowski (idlewords) also calls for an "anti-free-software movement" in Don't Be A Free User : https://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/ There are better ways to screen out unwanted callers. As Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manag…

I was writing from the perspective of taking it for granted that this service is not actually free. From that perspective, ads versus fees are just different points in the price structure. (The very term "price structure" clarifies that it's not free.) Ad-supported services are quasi-free, in the sense that the the display of ads is not actually eroding any dollars from your financial portfolio. Ads potentially rob y…

> the display of ads is not actually eroding any dollars from your financial portfolio.

I honestly don't think you followed my links and read carefully. And you're ignoring the opportunity costs and social costs, also explained in my link.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#76

Post by kdamken »

TodPunk wrote: post #53
kdamken wrote: post #26

This seems like a cool service, but you may want to think about a site redesign. The bare bones look may appeal to the Hacker News crowd, but most people may hesitate to port their number over to a company with a site that looks so dated, which in turn makes you look less legitimate/professional.

I agree. We were doing a soft launch to convert some beta customers to actual customers and get feedback, and the site was on the agenda for this upcoming week before announcing it. Then cue one of those customers posting to HN and now we're kind of exploding a bit more. Thanks for the added data point, you are heard loud and clear and we will do our best (we're not designers, we can't be good at everything) Cheers!

Thanks for taking the criticism so well! If you're looking for an easy solution where you don't have to worry about design but still want a nice, modern site, I'd recommend looking into purchasing a Bootstrap or Wordpress theme that you can just plug your content into.

Good luck with your business!

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#77

Post by tyingq »

Are there screenshots of the interface somewhere? I don't see any, and it's not clear if signing up without paying would let you see the interface.

Today, I use Anveo.com for this sort of thing. It also suffers from a relatively stodgy web presence, but the call flow builder, used to route incoming calls, is pretty much a full fledged IVR...really nice. Screenshot here: http://i.imgur.com/54aJqGn.png

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#79

Post by lucb1e »

$15 a month. That's the number I was looking for but couldn't find until after creating an account and trying to add a phone number. Then a popup came for my credit card number (which I don't have) and finally, in the confirmation button, was the price.

Edit: Oh, it's in the FAQ. I checked all other pages except that one (seemed logical to be under either home or features, or perhaps policies). My bad.

Edit2: Giving the price a second thought, is this a normal fee in the US? Our landline costs just over 4 euros and the cheapest mobile subscription I've been able to find is 3.50 a month.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#80

Post by mastermojo »

lucb1e wrote: post #79

$15 a month. That's the number I was looking for but couldn't find until after creating an account and trying to add a phone number. Then a popup came for my credit card number (which I don't have) and finally, in the confirmation button, was the price. Edit: Oh, it's in the FAQ. I checked all other pages except that one (seemed logical to be under either home or features, or perhaps policies). My bad. Edit2: Giving…

It's in the FAQ. But "Pricing" really should be a top level tab.
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