Live data from Hacker News

Calendso: An open source Calendly alternative

calendso.com

91–95 of 95 posts

Re: Calendso: An open source Calendly alternative

#91
post #89
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that in some cases (though probably not Calendso's), that may be on purpose? The VC crowd would have you believe that every product must disrupt the whole world – for the casual visitor, their gradma and their dog. But niche products have to ward off tyre-kickers and what-if time-wasters, as much as entice their target audience. Using industry-specific jargon kills both flies at once. If you "don'…

Thanks, I haven't considered this angle. Although I loathe the fact that it works like this - deliberately lowering information value of a page giving you an advantage. It feels scummy. But hey, if it brings more money, it's justified, right? :/

I'm am curious how it feels scummy, especially in the information age with the world's knowledge available at your fingertips. Seriously, it's 4 clicks, to select the word Calendly, right click, and search Google.

Not to make it personly, but eg, you spent zero space in your comment defining the meaning of the word "scummy". Adding a definition of the word scummy would, from an abstract angle, raise the information content of your comment. It doesn't seem scummy (at least to me) that you assumed all readers would know what that word means, even considering that readers here may not have English as their first language, and thus might NOT know what the word means. At some level, we just accept that people know things, sometimes unevenly, and it's not at all 'scummy' to withhold 'known' information.

The other thing here is that there's a difference between information amount, and information value - and there's an unappreciated value in NOT having something. The principle of "less is more" holds here. Calendly or this clone doesn't explain everything. It doesn't talk about what a Computer is, or what the Internet is or the history of APIs.

Re: Calendso: An open source Calendly alternative

#92
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the message is clear, if you're in the target group. that's good communication. filters out non-prospects early.

Maybe I missed a sarcasm tag, but I found your statement to be puzzling, for a lack of less kind words. What I'm saying, and others are saying, is that even for someone looking for exactly this , it would be easier for that person to know they found exactly this , with a more clear message about what this is . And what you seem to be saying, unless I misunderstood, is that this is a good thing? Surely the non-prospec…

The 'trend' is that as an open source clone, Calendso doesn't have a marketing team behind it, so it's entirely true to point out that their landing page doesn't have the polish we've come to expect of a VC-backed unicorn company with a time-proven, expensive marketing firm taking pictures and writing website copy, and that it could do better.

What I think some are reacting to is that it's also unfair to expect that. The person looking for an "open-source Calendly alternative" knows they've found that because that's going to be what, by brand name, what they're looking for and will know they've found something that addresses that need, with those three words.

Re: Calendso: An open source Calendly alternative

#94
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the message is clear, if you're in the target group. that's good communication. filters out non-prospects early.

Maybe I missed a sarcasm tag, but I found your statement to be puzzling, for a lack of less kind words. What I'm saying, and others are saying, is that even for someone looking for exactly this , it would be easier for that person to know they found exactly this , with a more clear message about what this is . And what you seem to be saying, unless I misunderstood, is that this is a good thing? Surely the non-prospec…

its not a trend. but when a project is early you don't want mass appeal. you want narrow appeal, only the folks that "lean in". so then you get a solid base to build from.

they are at level-1 and you are clearly a prospect once they are level-3+

and this is a good thing. for an early stage prospects like you are noise. filtering you out early improves their value chain (for now).

their message should (must) change as they grow to eventually attract the L2 and L3 type prospects

Re: Calendso: An open source Calendly alternative

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I missed a sarcasm tag, but I found your statement to be puzzling, for a lack of less kind words. What I'm saying, and others are saying, is that even for someone looking for exactly this , it would be easier for that person to know they found exactly this , with a more clear message about what this is . And what you seem to be saying, unless I misunderstood, is that this is a good thing? Surely the non-prospec…

The 'trend' is that as an open source clone, Calendso doesn't have a marketing team behind it, so it's entirely true to point out that their landing page doesn't have the polish we've come to expect of a VC-backed unicorn company with a time-proven, expensive marketing firm taking pictures and writing website copy, and that it could do better. What I think some are reacting to is that it's also unfair to expect that.…

I'm honestly just confused by the comments here. No one is having unmet high expectations. There is also nothing unfair here.

You don't need a marketing team to write a single line giving a high-overview description of a solution. Pointing out that such a thing would be helpful is also absolutely ridiculous to reject to the extent as I've seen here.

If an open source project want to identify themselves exclusively through a competitor, then, I'm sure that's fine. However, to avoid sounding like a parrot, I'll leave it at that. Have a nice day

Post reply on HN