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Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

blog.cheddarapp.com

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Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#21

Post by pivotal »

lukifer wrote: post #12

Rule #1 of a release announcement: don't assume we already know what your product is . Every time you fail to give a 1-sentence elevator pitch in your blog post, hundreds of potential customers say "meh" and hit the back button, taking their thousands of friends, family and colleagues with them.

I was very frustrated by this. The feeling was only compounded when I couldn't easily find an "about us" link. Eventually I did, but that only made some vague hand waving about organizing life and syncing between devices. I'm still not sure what this is all about.

Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#22

Post by ineedtosleep »

dcope wrote: post #8
amishforkfight wrote: post #7

Another blog that talks about an ambiguously-named product and provides no links to or descriptions of said product. I had no idea what Cheddar was after a couple minutes of skimming the blog posts.

What's wrong with navigating to the product's homepage to learn more?

That's the problem: You have to go to the homepage of the app and there isn't a link on the official apps blog page.

Here's the process I went through:

* Click HN link

* Okay, so what does this do? Click on Cheddar for Mac

* Great, known issues and a download link, but _what_ am I downloading? click "our blog" to go to blog front page

* Scroll through the most of the front page. I see open sourcing news, shirts and other stuff, but not what it does.

* Okay, I see a GitHub link. Let's go there.

* Top of the GitHub page has "Cheddar for iOS — Read more" still not helpful enough. Fine, I'll read more.

* Finally at the end of the first line: "a simple & instant task manager."

Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#23

Post by jentulman »

dcope wrote: post #16
colomon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it makes it "simple to organize your life" or something. It still doesn't tell me what it does in a meaningful fashion.

There's a video on the homepage that shows it in use. Showing something actually being used will resonate much better than stating a feature list.

Video is great, but as an expansion on a brief introduction.

I for one would prefer to at least read a couple of sentences that tell me what an app/service does before I have to watch a video, especially if I'm mobile at the time and/or it's hosted on Vimeo (great quality but looooong unforgiving buffer times in the UK)

Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#24

Post by lojack »

dcope wrote: post #8
amishforkfight wrote: post #7

Another blog that talks about an ambiguously-named product and provides no links to or descriptions of said product. I had no idea what Cheddar was after a couple minutes of skimming the blog posts.

What's wrong with navigating to the product's homepage to learn more?

> What's wrong with navigating to the product's homepage to learn more?

If you're talking about the "Cheddar" homepage, there isn't actually any navigation linking to it. If you're talking about "Cheddar for Mac"'s homepage, thats equally as ambiguous.

Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#25

Post by cilo »

dcope wrote: post #16
colomon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it makes it "simple to organize your life" or something. It still doesn't tell me what it does in a meaningful fashion.

There's a video on the homepage that shows it in use. Showing something actually being used will resonate much better than stating a feature list.

Personally I'll only ever allow flash to load and watch a video if a product page has sufficiently grabbed my attention first. Doubly so if I'm at work.

They should focus more on the real time nature of the updates and why I should care if my ipad gets a update in real time when I make an change on my iphone. I'm sure there's some scenarios where real time is useful and even more so once they start supporting more platforms but users are unlikely to try and come up with these scenarios for long before they move along to something else.

Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#26

Post by dcope »

ineedtosleep wrote: post #22
dcope wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with navigating to the product's homepage to learn more?

That's the problem: You have to go to the homepage of the app and there isn't a link on the official apps blog page. Here's the process I went through: * Click HN link * Okay, so what does this do? Click on Cheddar for Mac * Great, known issues and a download link, but _what_ am I downloading? click "our blog" to go to blog front page * Scroll through the most of the front page. I see open sourcing news, shirts and o…

I can see how that can be quite cumbersome. I guess we just navigate websites in a different manner. Navigating to the homepage via the URL field is always my first instinct.

Different strokes for different folks.

Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#27

Post by harisenbon »

lukifer wrote: post #12

Rule #1 of a release announcement: don't assume we already know what your product is . Every time you fail to give a 1-sentence elevator pitch in your blog post, hundreds of potential customers say "meh" and hit the back button, taking their thousands of friends, family and colleagues with them.

I was actually coming to HN to say the exact same thing. I assumed the link to "Cheddar" in the blog post would give me some information -- also assumed that the logo would take me a top page that would have information about the product.

What I have learned: * Cheddar is out for Mac * Cheddar is opensource for iOS * Sam is the creator of Cheddar * Archiving is not supported

What I have no learned: * What Cheddar is * Why I should care

Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#28

Post by iamben »

dcope wrote: post #8
amishforkfight wrote: post #7

Another blog that talks about an ambiguously-named product and provides no links to or descriptions of said product. I had no idea what Cheddar was after a couple minutes of skimming the blog posts.

What's wrong with navigating to the product's homepage to learn more?

Clicking the logo just goes to the blog homepage.

Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#29

Post by joelrunyon »

harisenbon wrote: post #27
lukifer wrote: post #12

Rule #1 of a release announcement: don't assume we already know what your product is . Every time you fail to give a 1-sentence elevator pitch in your blog post, hundreds of potential customers say "meh" and hit the back button, taking their thousands of friends, family and colleagues with them.

I was actually coming to HN to say the exact same thing. I assumed the link to "Cheddar" in the blog post would give me some information -- also assumed that the logo would take me a top page that would have information about the product. What I have learned: * Cheddar is out for Mac * Cheddar is opensource for iOS * Sam is the creator of Cheddar * Archiving is not supported What I have no learned: * What Cheddar is…

>>What I have not learned: * What Cheddar is * Why I should care

Anyone want to summarize those two points?

Re: Cheddar for Mac Public Beta

#30

Post by tankbot »

dcope wrote: post #26
ineedtosleep wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem: You have to go to the homepage of the app and there isn't a link on the official apps blog page. Here's the process I went through: * Click HN link * Okay, so what does this do? Click on Cheddar for Mac * Great, known issues and a download link, but _what_ am I downloading? click "our blog" to go to blog front page * Scroll through the most of the front page. I see open sourcing news, shirts and o…

I can see how that can be quite cumbersome. I guess we just navigate websites in a different manner. Navigating to the homepage via the URL field is always my first instinct. Different strokes for different folks.

The whole point is that you shouldn't have to go looking.

If you want me to use your product, you damn well better tell me what it is first.

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