Magic • Hacker News Board

Re: Magic

#511

Post by schoen » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 4:58 AM UTC

Can you somehow handle requests that are primarily research questions, that don't necessarily culminate in an immediate (or an intermediated) financial translation?

I'm just thinking about requests that ask for a recommendation for a product or a service that won't be purchased right away (like finding a certain kind of restaurant with certain parameters, but not getting food delivered from it, or finding a certain kind of professional service without immediately contracting for it).

Or for that matter factual questions like "Who won the 2014 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature?".

Would this somehow look like "I found 3, and I'll tell you about them for $5, OK?"? Will people be more resistant to paying the fee if the fee is the only item they're paying, rather than bundled with the price of some other transaction?

Re: Magic

#512

Post by mdnormy » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 5:02 AM UTC

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?

Most people can't watch video during work hour. We should always treat video as 'optional extra'.

Case in point, technical support/call center and room where you're constantly 'monitored'(NASA control room/datacenter NOC etc).

Re: Magic

#513

Post by physcab » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 5:40 AM UTC

schoen wrote: post #511

Can you somehow handle requests that are primarily research questions, that don't necessarily culminate in an immediate (or an intermediated) financial translation? I'm just thinking about requests that ask for a recommendation for a product or a service that won't be purchased right away (like finding a certain kind of restaurant with certain parameters, but not getting food delivered from it, or finding a certain k…

There was a service that used to do this called ChaCha. It raised a bunch of money but never became profitable and went out of business I believe.

Re: Magic

#514

Post by ufmace » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 5:51 AM UTC

Procrastes wrote: post #237

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?

I hardly ever watch product videos. I'm usually in locations where It would be rude and I don't want to put in earphones just to find out what's going on. But I'm a curmudgeon, and may be an outlier.

I'd join that too. I never liked videos that are just some person reading from a script. Just give me the script, I'd rather read it at my own pace and time, and I don't care if you really want to be youtube-famous.

Re: Magic

#515

Post by frostnovazzz » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 6:10 AM UTC

weisser wrote: post #505

frostnovazzz wrote: post #502

My first thought to this is: How is it going to scale? This requires human labor to be behind every service requests! And then I was reminded of Uber. Isn't Uber in the same sort of service model that requires a human driver for every request, but is doing super successful? (let's not talk about regulation.) The more I think about it, the more it appears a good business model. It definitely helps users save time and…

Eventually Uber will fire all drivers and replace them with self-driving cars. In many ways Uber is currently doing things that don't scale with regard to relying on humans to drive customers. Eventually the cost-intensive humans won't be needed and Uber will grow massively. I could see this happening in many business models. Obviously Magic may fail entirely (it appears to be pretty much just an idea currently) but…

Or maybe Magic could pivot to serve a few niches that AI serves well, e.g. food ordering, tickets/flight/hotels booking, etc.

Re: Magic

#516

Post by laxatives » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 6:30 AM UTC

schoen wrote: post #511

Can you somehow handle requests that are primarily research questions, that don't necessarily culminate in an immediate (or an intermediated) financial translation? I'm just thinking about requests that ask for a recommendation for a product or a service that won't be purchased right away (like finding a certain kind of restaurant with certain parameters, but not getting food delivered from it, or finding a certain k…

I asked several questions and got decent answers for all of then, sometimes after they prompted me for some more information. I eventually asked about the pay structure and they said they would probably start charging me for asking questions if the volume were high.

Re: Magic

#517

Post by laxatives » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 6:32 AM UTC

Anderkent wrote: post #453

gosmart4u wrote: post #446

I discovered this through a Facebook thread that has a ton of comments on it from non HN or techie peeps. Thought you might want to know what normal non-techies think. "I think it is a great idea that has potential but I personally wouldn't use them because I can't find anything about them on the website. Looks like a scam." "They need to re-design their website so it doesn't look like it was slapped together in 10 m…

>"Yay! Another useless service that creates more low wage service jobs that cater to the wealthy." ... What. This just doesn't compute. In what mindframe does this ever make sense as a complaint? If you're creating new jobs, even if they're low wage, you're just giving people more choice - they can now work at one more place than before, no one's forced into that, it literally can't do harm. And direct transfer of we…

Given the context, it doesn't need to compute. Its how someone feels about the product. People aren't rational. That doesn't mean they aren't worth going after.

Re: Magic

#518

Post by laxatives » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 6:35 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #84

cmikec wrote: post #2

Hey everyone - this is insane. My friends and I created Magic a few days ago as a side project and it's completely blown up by accident since then. We're getting stormed with messages and orders. We thought we'd launch it ourselves later if it did well, and other people have been posting it on Product Hunt, Reddit, HN themselves... I'm here to answer any questions, although we've hardly slept!

So I used to use something like this with Amex's concierge service. Like getting a Wii on release day, or getting a gift somewhere. I stopped using them after this bad experience. I asked them to send about $100 of good chocolate as a gift, and they just sent a $10 bar, 10 times. Duh. Anyways, I felt a very good sensation looking over this. Probably because it's just such a PITA to do things like order pizza. Gotta t…

I had a great experience with the concierge if it was an extremely simple task with clearly defined results. If I asked for recommendations/to make a vague hotel reservation, its absolutely worthless. I had an operator actually begin reading off the first 50 hotel names until one "sounded good". I let her read a few dozen of them to see where this was going before I eventually told her I would book it myself.

Re: Magic

#519

Post by vacri » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 6:47 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #501

vacri wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it answers the letter of the request, not the spirit of it. And if you think that's good enough (consumers won't), then just change the request to "I'd like a hot pizza in the next hour, because I'm hungry now and have an appointment".

You're really not getting it are you? Magic will do the best they can for whatever price they can. If the consumer doesn't like it, they won't order the thing. No big deal. If it turns out that the vast majority of people are not satisfied with what Magic offers, then Magic won't be a success - just like the other ten million business out there trying to get a foot hold. In all honesty we know the very vast majority…

Welcome back to your own starting point: What examples of requests can you think of that can't be served anywhere in the US?

Don't talk down to me when you eventually end up answering your own question the same way I did.

Re: Magic

#520

Post by jdmichal » Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 7:19 AM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #479

Anderkent wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Yay! Another useless service that creates more low wage service jobs that cater to the wealthy." ... What. This just doesn't compute. In what mindframe does this ever make sense as a complaint? If you're creating new jobs, even if they're low wage, you're just giving people more choice - they can now work at one more place than before, no one's forced into that, it literally can't do harm. And direct transfer of we…

I think that's a bit naive. In the micro, one new task economy startup might be a net gain, all other things being equal, but if it's part of a macro trend where skilled jobs are disappearing and being replaced with commodity task work, we might be sliding down a dangerous slope. Your final question sound kind of like the slightly more extreme argument that yacht factories enrich otherwise unemployed people. To me, t…

In addition to all this, let's be clear. The only wealth being "transferred" here is that of the minimum wage to workers. Everything else is making someone else rich, likely already rich investors.