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Magic

getmagicnow.com

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Re: Magic

#311

Post by sfrechtling »

everyone wrote: post #307

Does no one else consider the idea of this horribly decadent? They give as an example, ordering a delivery pizza for you, which is already a decadent activity and something you can accomplish with a single phone call anyway. Maybe for the rich high-flying silicon valley types, your time and brain space is so valuable that this service makes sense. But if that is the case maybe you should re-examine your lives.

I do. I feel as if this solves nothing important, but makes it easier for people to be lazy - if they have money.

While businesses have to be focused on the markets that have money, I feel like this has gone to far; how can this be used to solve the problems of people who are busy but do not have money?

Re: Magic

#312

Post by BillFranklin »

petercooper wrote: post #96
cmikec wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Yeah, honestly, after deciding to launch this we released a really minimal landing page which I saved here: http://getmagicnow.com/index-old.html - As you can see I made that in about 20 minutes, and was not expecting this. After someone posted it on Product Hunt I spent whatever time I could polishing it up. In general though, I agree, simple websites are much better. Thanks for the kind words.

While you have changed the copy and a few other things a little, I was quite amused at how people on ProductHunt considered it untrustworthy mostly through virtue of using Times New Roman rather than a nice Sans. An interesting example in the psychology of running counter to fashion..! :)

Not just the design. No Terms and Conditions, no incorporation, no IDs of owners/operators - really doesn't seem like a legitimate business (despite money being handled by Stripe).

Re: Magic

#314

Post by matznerd »

slaction wrote: post #230
bhaumik wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, well here's a startling difference between the HN and Product Hunt community. The PH comments: This website looks extremely untrustworthy, purely from a design standpoint. I feel a lot of potential users would be put off by this! Interesting idea. Terrible site design. Unclear if they're charging for this added convenience. http://www.producthunt.com/posts/magic

ProductHunt is just a useless hype machine for starts that don't hold any real value at all.

Not true, Product Hunt delivers quality traffic, with high-level people who are hungry for products and convert very well.

Re: Magic

#315

Post by nezumi »

bgodlove88 wrote: post #264
avn2109 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting someone to push back on ATT bill errors would be an amazing feature if Magic could make it work.

We're happy to call ATT on your behalf :) Try us out!

The last time I had a problem with ATT I had to make multiple calls and spent over an hour in total on hold. How would you charge for that?

I'd have gladly paid for someone to take that pain away. There's probably a viable business model in there somewhere if someone can independently put a competent customer service layer in front of companies like ATT.

Re: Magic

#316

Post by xccx »

click170 wrote: post #165
api wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how can you disrupt without parallax? ... And thanks. I thought I was the only one who thought the video fad was dumb. Now it's just a toll booth for getting a product presented, and I never watch them. How about others? Do you find videos actually useful or are they just glitz?

Glitz IMO. Annoying glitz too if they include information in the videos that isn't in text form on their website. Videos play at one speed, I can't fast forward the video if I'm a faster "video-watcher" like I can with reading. And if I'm on a VPN I'd rather avoid loading the video altogether if I can avoid it, which is what my browser plugins are for. Well, perhaps I could just watch the videos faster, interesting t…

if youtube in focus on chrome, then shift+> for faster playback

Re: Magic

#317

Post by jamesrcole »

everyone wrote: post #307

Does no one else consider the idea of this horribly decadent? They give as an example, ordering a delivery pizza for you, which is already a decadent activity and something you can accomplish with a single phone call anyway. Maybe for the rich high-flying silicon valley types, your time and brain space is so valuable that this service makes sense. But if that is the case maybe you should re-examine your lives.

I don't see it as horribly decadent. At least not in any obvious sense.

Anything that is more convenient than things were previously can be seen as decadent. I suspect so much that everyone takes for granted today would have seemed decadent to people 50 or 100 years ago.

Maybe there's a number of people that such a service would really help out? I don't know, but single parents are one group that comes to mind. For helping them get items that they can't easily go out and get themselves because of having to stay at home with the kids. It's hard to predict how new services may end up being used and being useful.

Maybe the current cost is too prohibitive for many people at the moment (i don't know what they charge and don't live in the US so wouldn't know how to judge the figures anyway), but if such a service proves useful and popular maybe the prices will come down. Anyway, I don't see anything inherently wrong with a service that not everyone can afford.

Re: Magic

#318

Post by prawn »

MichaelGG wrote: post #298
vacri wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because it's just such a PITA to do things like order pizza Is this sarcasm? I can't see how wrangling an order through an intermediary is easier than just ordering from the local pizzeria's website. Not to mention that it takes a non-trivial time to confirm - in exogen's example above, it was 69 minutes plus delivery time. Small questions about relatively trivial things really drag out that confirmation tim…

What?? No, not sarcasm at all, I'm dead serious. Often I'm just on my phone at night, no tablet/laptop. So say I want to get some food. I've got to go find the damn website. Remember a login maybe. Or deal with some JS-laden thing that doesn't render smoothly on my 6" Android. Sort all that shit out. Wonder if I have cash for a tip, cause I feel obligated most times. Or calling. I gotta actually dial, talk to someone…

Agree generally, but I do wonder why in 2015 this has to be driven manually by humans. I understand we're flexible decision makers, but we're also a significant cost in these sorts of processes. I can appreciate this definitely follows the "do things that don't scale" line.

If there was a standard by which browsers stored payment and delivery details, a little beefed up from what we have now, would that get us part way? And then an endorsed way of interacting with an ordering system that can answer questions by default (no newsletter signup, no insurance, no warranty, default shipping, etc).

Loads of security issues, but we're going to have to solve this sort of thing eventually.

Re: Magic

#319

Post by highCs »

everyone wrote: post #307

Does no one else consider the idea of this horribly decadent? They give as an example, ordering a delivery pizza for you, which is already a decadent activity and something you can accomplish with a single phone call anyway. Maybe for the rich high-flying silicon valley types, your time and brain space is so valuable that this service makes sense. But if that is the case maybe you should re-examine your lives.

It's automation. That extra cost you mention will soon become / is amortized by what one can do with the time and energy win, properly reallocated.

Re: Magic

#320

Post by comrade1 »

From some of the comments here it sounds like you're using a long code (phone number) rather than a short code for your sms messages.

The FCC has been cracking down on the use of long codes in marketing. Not sure about an app like your's though... But you probably should move to a short code anyway.

There are also very strong requirements for how opting in, opting out, etc works.

http://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-forward/2013/01/02/s...

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