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Magic+

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Re: Magic+

#281

Post by ethbro »

petke wrote: post #135
rootedbox wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be more price effective for you to hire a personal assistant; through one of your companies?

I never heard of this before but it sounds it scales better to big and small jobs, and is more efficient use of available manpower. Say you have a huge job, or many small jobs, that one personal assistant couldn't do at once alone. Or if you don't have enough jobs at all times of the day to keep your personal assistant busy. etc.. Its kindof analogous to renting time on a server farm vs owning a pc.

Or analogous to renting time from from a fleet of at-will drivers vs owning a car. ;)

Re: Magic+

#283

Post by prawn »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #274

Another service for the 1%. This one will go the way of homejoy. These kids don't understand how tight the household budget is for nearly all Americans. You can smell the elitism dripping in their examples on the site. Private helicoptors, $31 grocery delivery... most people will pay a little extra for convenience, but this is ridiculous.

The 1% is likely to be a fairly large market.

With Homejoy, you could avoid the middle-man and go straight to the person doing the work. Here, you don't meet the person doing the work and the middle-man is where your time is saved.

Re: Magic+

#284

Post by cmikec »

rtpg wrote: post #166
paul wrote: post #106

A lot of skepticism here, which is understandable given the somewhat unbelievable scope of what they are promising. I'm a very active user of Magic+, so I'll give my perspective. (and of course I've been working with them from the beginning at YC, so you're also free to discard my opinion as biased) For me, Magic+ is basically the impossibly good personal assistant, kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man, or Emily in The De…

>but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service Call me skeptical, but where exactly is the tech involved? Currently this is just text messages going to people + people doing the things. One possibility would be through AI (a bit of a weasel word most of the time, honestly), but Google and Apple…

We are highly focused on software that automates and/or makes parts of Magic and Magic+ more efficient. Most of the founding team are engineers, including myself. At this time we can't say much about our specific technical approach, other than that it is a very difficult problem, we have a novel approach, and we are making progress.

Re: Magic+

#285

Post by ivanca »

tempestn wrote: post #230
paul wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have a personal assistant, but for many tasks, Magic+ is simply better (and completely responsive 24/7, which I would never demand of an employee).

Can you give some specific examples of things that Magic+ does better than a local personal assistant, besides being available around the clock?

Well, for one, it is ubiquitous, you can ask for task in NYC or SF without paying fly tickets or waiting for it to land.

Re: Magic+

#286

Post by jaksmit »

cmikec wrote: post #266
jaksmit wrote: post #246

I tweeted about this last week and was surprised no one else noticed sooner: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2F_... their roll out of this pivot has been a disaster: 1) Last week the homepage was saying it was free: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6v7ctgeakcya1wi/1.png?dl=0 but when you signed up it asked you to pay $100/hr or $3000 a month 2) Then yesterday they updated the homepage to say it was…

Before we rolled out Magic+ today, we did quite a number of split tests regarding prices and messaging. We also have had a private beta of Magic+ going for some time. Venturebeat as well as a few others seem to have screenshotted our website when it was in various stages of being split-tested.

@cmikec it wasn't just split tests on the messaging. if you signed up last week you ONLY got texts telling you to sign up to a payment plan. If you sign up today then it offers you the paid version OR the free version

Re: Magic+

#287

Post by mpeg »

Pharaoh2 wrote: post #250
jaksmit wrote: post #246

I tweeted about this last week and was surprised no one else noticed sooner: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2F_... their roll out of this pivot has been a disaster: 1) Last week the homepage was saying it was free: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6v7ctgeakcya1wi/1.png?dl=0 but when you signed up it asked you to pay $100/hr or $3000 a month 2) Then yesterday they updated the homepage to say it was…

Ahh, the people who can't read. It says magic+ is paid, magic is free. Also, pretty sure a service like this doesn't give a shit what the website says. If you are reading the website, it's either not for you or you have an interest in tech news and the exact pricing structure doesn't matter to you anyway. Pretty sure this service doesn't need to advertise.

Neither of them are free, magic+ is hourly with minimum commitments and magic is pay per request, with free consultation before you get a quote.

Re: Magic+

#288

Post by davecraige »

A few thoughts and questions

1. This is fascinating to watch

2. How is Magic going to compete with Facebook M and www.GoButler.com? Butler does all the things Magic does but for free. And Facebook M is being rolled out to more and more people.

3. Is there space for a premium concierge assistant that gives even better service than Butler or M can do? What prevents Butler or M from simply rolling out a premium $25/hour service and undercutting Magic if this segment proves valuable.

4. Isn't the real money in massive scale. Will Magic simply be a small concierge shop for the very wealthy and will we all use Facebook M for most tasks in the future?

Re: Magic+

#289

Post by themartorana »

meowface wrote: post #169
rtpg wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but my expectation (as an investor) is that as the tech improves they will be able to bring down the price while maintaining or even improving the quality of the service Call me skeptical, but where exactly is the tech involved? Currently this is just text messages going to people + people doing the things. One possibility would be through AI (a bit of a weasel word most of the time, honestly), but Google and Apple…

It's an interesting idea, but I agree, I don't see how it's a tech company in any way.

This is weird to me. It may not be pushing the bar forward on AI or NLP, but it uses one of the most commonly used interpersonal communications technologies today to put a human experience in front of a seemingly boundless personal assistant.

Look, it may not be Tesla, but there are a couple of unicorns that seem tech savvy now, that weren't so much for the first little while. AirBnB comes to mind - their analytics now are probably amazing, but they started as a website with a database. Doesn't make them any less of a technology company.

Leveraging technology to break down barriers (immediate, constant, on-demand availability and scalability of a personal assistant) is a technology solution to a problem.

Re: Magic+

#290

Post by mikeash »

mpeg wrote: post #287
Pharaoh2 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, the people who can't read. It says magic+ is paid, magic is free. Also, pretty sure a service like this doesn't give a shit what the website says. If you are reading the website, it's either not for you or you have an interest in tech news and the exact pricing structure doesn't matter to you anyway. Pretty sure this service doesn't need to advertise.

Neither of them are free, magic+ is hourly with minimum commitments and magic is pay per request, with free consultation before you get a quote.

The screenshot says "free to chat," which Magic is.
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