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Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

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Re: Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

#21

Post by noneTheHacker »

tristanthomas wrote: post #6
AndrewDucker wrote: post #4

Complete lack of details there. Does it support Thunderbird? Does it support CardDav? Will it sync with my existing Google contacts?

Hi Andrew, Apologies for the lack of details - this is just our landing page and of course will be built out further. In answer to your questions: yep, it supports Thunderbird. Yep, it supports CardDAV. In terms of syncing with your Google Contacts, I'm not 100% sure what you mean but you can import all of your Google Contacts and keep them synced up through Columns (if that's not what you meant please let me know!)…

iOS and WP8 both cannot pull in custom phone number fields from Google Contacts.

For example, some people I have a mobile number, but then I also have a "Google Voice" number with them. When pulling that contact in to my iPad, it loses the Google Voice number.

Does Columns keep the custom free text fields? I assume iOS and WP8 don't because they both pull in Google's contacts using Outlook.

Re: Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

#22

Post by kijin »

casca wrote: post #7

"Trust" is a big offer. There are 2 main trust issues when I give my contact information to another company: 1) Will they keep as private as I would? and 2) Will they still be around in 5 years? Your model means that I can somewhat believe 1), but 2) means that I personally would not use such a service.

> Your model means that I can somewhat believe 1)

What makes you believe that your data will be kept private? Is it the fact that they have paid memberships and they have something that looks a bit like a privacy policy on their landing page?

As for me, I'm not sure whether I want to use the word "trust" to describe my relationship with a company that offers "storage" in the "cloud" without any mention of, for example, encryption.

Trust is not something that you can naturally expect people to have toward a brand-new web service in this day and age. If you really want to use the precious T-word, you'd better do something that leaves any reasonable customer very little choice but to trust you. For example, solid encryption (preferably client-side) and easy exportability would minimize the risk of anything bad happening to my data even if you decided to sell yourself out to some evil corporation next year. If you already have such features, please put them on the landing page.

Not trying to bad-mouth your project in any way, just trying to point out some potentially worthwhile possibilities.

Re: Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

#23

Post by davedx »

unwind wrote: post #17

As a somewhat meta comment, it kind of blows my mind that it's possible today to market a product on the grounds that you, as a customer, pay for it . "Look! We're not free!" is actually something the customer is expected to understand the implications of, and appreciate as a feature . I do understand the implications, I'm not looking for explanations, I just think it's quite ... funny.

Most people with brains understand the concept "You get what you pay for".

Re: Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

#24

Post by tristanthomas »

spot wrote: post #19

i think you have mischaracterized the competition by accusing them of selling your contacts. so you have lost my trust right there. also, the contrast between the text and bg is too low.

Hi spot,

I'm sorry you feel that way - can I point you towards my reply to anonymouz as an extension of what we mean by that. Also, please feel free to email me directly at hello@columns.co if you have further questions or concerns.

Re: Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

#25

Post by c1sc0 »

brey wrote: post #13
c1sc0 wrote: post #8

I'm not sure there is demand for this given that most people value convenience over security But these kinds of business models appeal to me personally though. Lately I've been wondering if "It's like X, minus the evil part" is a valid startup strategy. Reason is the whole Hacker News Cologne fiasco with Meetup.com. Some examples: Stripe is a less evil PayPal. (edit: I mixed up Parse & Stripe) App.net is a less evil…

> Parse is a less evil PayPal. Stripe? Square? not sure you mean Parse.

you're right, fixed

Re: Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

#26

Post by antidoh »

anonymouz wrote: post #18

Somewhat tangential but related: I'm not familiar with data privacy regulation in the US, but under EU regulation most of the "trust" guarantees made by this startup would be legally mandatory. Does anyone know: Under US law, would a company be legally allowed to sell personal data without my permission? Would it be allowed to retain my data against my express wish?

If the company is bought by another company, then your data is now owned or managed by the new company. Hopefully it will be a company you trust.

Re: Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

#28

Post by adrianhoward »

For me - not a pain point:

* I have backups - so my contacts are safe there

* I also already have multiple copies of my contacts (iPhone, Desktop, Google Apps, iCloud) without even really going out to get that

The USP for me - if there is one - isn't obvious or compelling.

Re: Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

#29

Post by tristanthomas »

EugenioPerea wrote: post #27

My contact list currently lives in Google Contacts. It is used by Google Calendar and my Android phone automatically, and by Thunderbird via Zindus. Have you given thought to calendar integration?

Hi Eugenio,

Yep - your contacts can be easily transferred from Google Contacts and then used on your Android phone and in Thunderbird just the same.

Re: Show HN: Address book storage you can trust.

#30

Post by tristanthomas »

kijin wrote: post #22
casca wrote: post #7

"Trust" is a big offer. There are 2 main trust issues when I give my contact information to another company: 1) Will they keep as private as I would? and 2) Will they still be around in 5 years? Your model means that I can somewhat believe 1), but 2) means that I personally would not use such a service.

> Your model means that I can somewhat believe 1) What makes you believe that your data will be kept private? Is it the fact that they have paid memberships and they have something that looks a bit like a privacy policy on their landing page? As for me, I'm not sure whether I want to use the word "trust" to describe my relationship with a company that offers "storage" in the "cloud" without any mention of, for exampl…

Hi Kijin,

We haven't put enough details about encryption on the landing page (because we didn't want to overload the page) but we will do very soon.

With regards to exportability, if you check out the feature in the bottom right (Full Ownership) you can see details about how easy it is to take your data elsewhere.

Hope that helps and thank you for your comments, really appreciate it.

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