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Magic

getmagicnow.com

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Re: Magic

#391

Post by zxcvcxz »

swandive wrote: post #362
kitcar wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're basically describing ODesk, Elance, Mechanical Turk, etc... Not saying this execution will/won't work, but there are lots of firms that seemed to have make it work to solve a similar / the same problem set.

So you'd SMS ODesk or Elance looking for a pizza?

That's just it, I wouldn't. This seems only useful for people who are maybe just too busy to do it them selves and have enough disposable income that paying a couple extra bucks to the guy handling your business isn't a big deal.

HN seems a little out of touch.

Re: Magic

#392

Post by kolinko »

k__ wrote: post #358
kitcar wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're basically describing ODesk, Elance, Mechanical Turk, etc... Not saying this execution will/won't work, but there are lots of firms that seemed to have make it work to solve a similar / the same problem set.

Things like Mechanical Turk are just creating minimum wage jobs and we were better of without them, I think. Magic will create many call-center like jobs...

In what universe creating additional demand for jobs is a bad thing? (Rhetolical, don't bother answering)

Re: Magic

#393

Post by biomimic »

cmikec wrote: post #8
jonheller wrote: post #5

Besides questions about revenue and such, can I just say that I absolutely love the landing page. No gimmicks, no parallax, no videos, no fake testimonials, no hero images, no marquees. Just good copy. Not sure if this is because of how quickly this blew up, but well done.

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.

Just take a look at Google's initial page when they started.

Re: Magic

#394

Post by amirmc »

api wrote: post #109
jonheller wrote: post #5

Besides questions about revenue and such, can I just say that I absolutely love the landing page. No gimmicks, no parallax, no videos, no fake testimonials, no hero images, no marquees. Just good copy. Not sure if this is because of how quickly this blew up, but well done.

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?

When I want to know what a product does or how I might find it useful, I prefer text. I don't have to wait for a video to get to the point.

However, when I've decided to actually try it out, I find the video extremely useful as I expect it to demonstrate the onboarding process for me (ie how do I get started quickly).

Re: Magic

#395

Post by zxcvcxz »

scrollaway wrote: post #310
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.

This isn't interesting because of pizzas. This is interesting because of the potential to centralize and offload all decisions of a certain type. It's like a pay-per-use secretary. What I do find.. "decadent"... is people like you, judging masses of other people on the basis of what they find interesting or useful. Especially when you can't see past the low hanging fruit and aren't able to grasp any potential a servi…

It's also not an interesting idea because it will never get off the ground. It's like one of those businesses that go on that TV show with the billionaires who bid on their ideas (forget the title). You pretty much never really hear about them again. Like some kind of American Idol of the start-up world. I'm sure these guys will make a little bit of money, but how hard would it be to get current AIs to do this crap for you for practically nothing?

"order me pepperoni pizza"

>ok all I need now is ur credit card # pls

4024 0071 5223 8456

>expiration date?

12/16

>security code?

845

>Name on the card

>?

Jorg H. Jorgensen

>ok thanks jorg ur sausage pizza is on the way!

MAGIC

Re: Magic

#396

Post by jusben1369 »

albertwang wrote: post #215
puppymaster wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uhm they are not. The text is just a link to a site that uses stripe to collect your CC data.

I wonder how they are able to pay for 3rd party transactions with Stripe? Charging the customer's credit card with Stripe then paying with your own payment method incurs a transaction fee and potentially chargebacks (Disclaimer: co-founder of Perssist, a tech-enhanced virtual assistant service)

Yes I wonder too. They're storing the card in Stripe. But then they're paying the Pizza joint for the Pizza (who probably doesn't have a Stripe account) So they're charging your card against their Stripe account and then I assume using their own cards to charge for the Pizza manually. It seems like that'll have some scale challenges.

(Disclaimer: I work at Spreedly where we see a lot of these cross merchant/PCI compliant services launching.

Re: Magic

#397

Post by laxatives »

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!

Do you have the authority/credentials to make customer service calls on my behalf? Like if I wanted a refund on my flight or wanted to reduce the cost of my ISP payments?

Re: Magic

#398

Post by psp »

api wrote: post #109
jonheller wrote: post #5

Besides questions about revenue and such, can I just say that I absolutely love the landing page. No gimmicks, no parallax, no videos, no fake testimonials, no hero images, no marquees. Just good copy. Not sure if this is because of how quickly this blew up, but well done.

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?

My vote goes for the short 1-minute video with understandable presentation of how the product works and solves my problem rather than reading paragraphs of text.

Re: Magic

#399

Post by colechristensen »

ozi wrote: post #163
colechristensen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take "hidden fees" to mean asterisks. That is, offering something for $10 and adding 7% for tax, a $1 service charge, 10¢ convenience fee, 5¢ concierge vetting fee... you get the picture.

They could make everyone happy by switching "hidden" to "extra"

I think "extra" means wrong things though.

Perhaps it should be something along the lines of "final price exactly as quoted including tip, nothing more" the key being that they aren't one of those services (like so many others) that advertise one price and charge you another.

"no hidden fees" is a recognizable meme though, and being pedantically correct is perhaps – and this is a pedantic concern – not as valuable as the phycological grab of that phrase.

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