Magic+ • Hacker News Board

Re: Magic+

#331

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 5:14 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #199

patio11 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of income would a person need to fathom affording something like that? What kind of income do you need to spend $200 on a Valentine's dinner? Probably not $1k a month. It's a stretch at $2k but not impossible. It does not feel "absurdly not socially normative" at $3k -- I did it when I was a young twenty-something. To the extent that there is a real class-based difference here, it may be "degree of comfort…

> What kind of income do you need to spend $200 on a Valentine's dinner? Ordering dinner from across the country overnight isn't spending $200 on a Valentine's dinner, though, it's spending $200 on leftovers .

[deleted]

Re: Magic+

#332

Post by voltagex_ » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 5:18 AM UTC

exadeci wrote: post #299

joslin01 wrote: post #34

Looks like the reception isn't doing too well. I remember when Magic launched here on HN and it BLEW up. I was one of the people who tried it out. I live in NYC and actually had a poor experience. The first two times, I said "hey I want a sandwich with [x]" and I got it but it took a lot longer than if I just clicked the necessary buttons on Seamless. Then I kept getting random calls from time to time from pizza deli…

You don't even need to be that rich to have an assistant 24/7: Personal Assistant™ Offers MasterCard® Black cardholders the convenience of a personal assistant, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Going beyond the service of a concierge, Personal Assistant is available to free up time for busy cardholders, with services such as: Child care services (such as pick-up and drop-off at school). Pet care. Personal shopper (dome…

Crap, this could have really saved me over the last month - what's the catch? Have you used something like this? I think my last card had it (calling it "Concierge") but my current bank doesn't mention it anywhere.

Re: Magic+

#333

Post by istorical » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 5:21 AM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #54

cmikec wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all real requests that our users have actually used Magic+ for. We obviously cant divulge their identities, or show photographs, etc. (since these are personal things), but it's important to convey how people really use the service. I'd love ideas on how we can communicate this point better. Part of what our users love about Magic+ is that you truly can do some pretty amazing things with it.

If there's a way to anonymize data (or even just flag requests as anonymous in content), it'd be nice to have a bit more of a randomly picked live feed. I think some of the incredulity is that there's... an authenticity skepticism as to how much these represent average requests (and therefore responses). But like you said -- if you don't have a marketing problem, who cares what the HN peanut gallery says. ;)

These aren't supposed to be average requests, they are there to demonstrate how Magic+ can handle even really difficult tasks without easy solutions (order me a pizza).

Re: Magic+

#334

Post by istorical » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 5:21 AM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #54

cmikec wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all real requests that our users have actually used Magic+ for. We obviously cant divulge their identities, or show photographs, etc. (since these are personal things), but it's important to convey how people really use the service. I'd love ideas on how we can communicate this point better. Part of what our users love about Magic+ is that you truly can do some pretty amazing things with it.

If there's a way to anonymize data (or even just flag requests as anonymous in content), it'd be nice to have a bit more of a randomly picked live feed. I think some of the incredulity is that there's... an authenticity skepticism as to how much these represent average requests (and therefore responses). But like you said -- if you don't have a marketing problem, who cares what the HN peanut gallery says. ;)

These aren't supposed to be average requests, they are there to demonstrate how Magic+ can handle even really difficult tasks without easy solutions (order me a pizza).

Re: Magic+

#335

Post by nilkn » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 5:22 AM UTC

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 problem with Homejoy, in my opinion, was not price. It was the fact that it made little sense to keep using them after you found a cleaner you liked. As a middle man, they simply did not provide much value.

Magic feels more like Uber to me. You don't use Uber once, then establish personal contact with that one driver, never using Uber again. The value of Uber is that you can get a driver on-demand, at any time, wherever you are; this is not possible if you just have one driver's cell phone number. Similarly, asking Magic to send some flowers to your girlfriend doesn't mean that you'll never have a use for Magic again. It's a middle man that can provide value repeatedly.

Magic's generality is why it might actually stand a chance. For instance, you could probably use it as a makeshift Homejoy, asking for them to find you a cleaner who will come to your place once every two weeks. Once they find you a cleaner, you won't need them for that particular service again, as you'll have personal contact with the cleaner. But because of their generality you'll be able to find many other uses for Magic most likely.

Re: Magic+

#336

Post by flylib » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 5:23 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #313

free2rhyme214 wrote: post #271

Why Magic+ instead of Operator?

Because Operator is Dave Morin's "one of a kind, custom, bespoke" app he had built for his PA... http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/46539276780/...

he is talking about Garrett Camp's (Expa) Operator https://operator.com

Re: Magic+

#337

Post by voltagex_ » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 5:24 AM UTC

I said to myself that I'd start less HN comments this year with "I'm in a wheelchair and..." but:

I'm in a wheelchair and access to a personal assistant (especially for travel arrangements) would be excellent.

Access to a personal assistant in the departure country and the arrival location (to check just how wheelchair accessible that Days Inn wheelchair-accessible suite really is) would be phenomenal.

There's a business idea there, just that the market is small and difficult to cater for (lots and lots of different needs)

I'm one of the lucky ones and I'm relatively well off, but 100/hour (~$140AUD/hour) is way, way out of my price range.

Re: Magic+

#338

Post by tpg » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 5:33 AM UTC

BillFixers wrote: post #206

jacobevelyn wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be BillFixers? ( https://www.billfixers.com ) The Bloomberg article you may have read: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-10/billfixers...

That's us! I don't want to do a sales pitch or any thing, but if I can answer any questions about the service (or Comcast or whoever), feel free to ask away! (also our hosting isn't handling the traffic super well, so if you have any trouble visiting the site, but want to sign up or have questions, feel free to shoot me an email personally at ben@billfixers.com

have you considered a B2B offering? I'd love to have somebody do what you do but with the software / hardware vendors that I deal with at work.

Re: Magic+

#339

Post by JoshTriplett » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 5:40 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #330

JoshTriplett wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UPS rate calculator for overnight cross country shipping of a 7lb package is $285, not "about $100". I used FedEx overnight for a 5lb package, which came to less than $100. > a couple of hundred for a meal that's not "cornershop Chinese" I'd assumed a meal for 2-4 people at most, thus roughly $50-100. > the time for the service Given foreknowledge of the services needed to put together such a request, that should t…

Not to nickel and dime, because I appreciate your response. I had a hard time getting FedEx's rate calculator to show up on my Mac... Still, UPS at 5lb from NY to SF Next Day Air Early is still $150+. If I'm overnighting a meal it's probably not going to be a $25/head dinner. I'll go out and enjoy that but it's not an 'across the country' experience. It's not even a steak from a non-steakhouse. Here, it's a chicken a…

> If I'm overnighting a meal it's probably not going to be a $25/head dinner. I'll go out and enjoy that but it's not an 'across the country' experience. It's not even a steak from a non-steakhouse. Here, it's a chicken alfredo with no appetizer or sides.

I think we've both relied on our own local price scales here. I don't live in San Francisco; here, $25 per person will generally get you any entrée and dessert on the menu, from anywhere other than a high-end steakhouse or similar.

And in any case, I was making the assumption that the selection of meal was driven more by some specific shared nostalgia than by five-star cuisine. If anything, I'd be less inclined to attempt to ship the latter, since quality would suffer more from transit than nostalgia would.

> 2-4 people is going to be more than 5lb after you load up on dry ice.

I don't think you can even ship dry ice via normal shipping processes; it falls under "hazardous substances". The couple of times I've had chilled items shipped (http://www.spokandy.com/product/murphys/ , highly recommended), they arrived packed in gel-like sealed "ice"packs, still cold to the touch.

> Anyway - like you said, I'm also erring on the higher side of "what, to me, would make a meal worthwhile to ship like that". But hey, we had a civil discussion about it. Yay us.

Indeed!

Going back to the original point, the examples given on the homepage for this service certainly target people with seven-figure salaries. But I could imagine people using it for somewhat saner purposes while having "just" a high-five-figure/low-six-figure salary.

Re: Magic+

#340

Post by Splines » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 6:04 AM UTC

toddmorey wrote: post #303

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…

There's a decent amount of innovation that can make the assistants more efficient, so you can improve profitability without driving down wages. But there's also something else: Since a high percentage of services will likely end in a transaction, there's a huge opportunity to become the Amazon-scale retailer of services. I find I don't even google products I want to buy anymore, I just immediately search Amazon. Amaz…

Personally, Amazon's UI has a long way to go and doesn't look like it's going to get better anytime soon.

If you know what you're looking for, it's fine, but as soon as you try to comparison shop it falls apart fairly quickly.

I've gotten into the habit of looking for experts on other sites that do hands-on comparisons for the thing I want to buy (some recent examples: rain jackets and fitness meters). Amazon is honestly a terrible UI for this sort of thing.

I know that they're trying, but at this point they've lost my trust that what they show in search results is relevant unless I'm being extremely precise.