Please review my weekend project: face-me-not

by DanielBMarkham • 16 years ago

15 21 16 years ago

jacquesm3• 16 years ago

Hehe, cool little project Daniel, judging by the time between the registration and the announcement that didn't take you very long at all!

Why the email hook, and not simply a download link?

DanielBMarkham2• 16 years ago

Because I want email addresses so I can tell people when the product has upgrades (assuming, of course, that there is interest)

Nothing nefarious.

There's an interesting trust/marketing issue here. People seem to not want to download free software. I can understand that. I wonder if it's particular to this market niche (tech people and people interested in stopping annoying social site behavior) or if it's more of a general problem with all downloaded software. Needs more research.

I could have went the download link. Think that would have been significantly better?

jacquesm3• 16 years ago

> Think that would have been significantly better?

Yes!

That way the barrier is '0', now there is a barrier.

No barrier is always better.

You could have asked them outright to add their address to a list because this is 'beta' software and you'd like to warn them when there are updates, better still have your software check for updates and warn the user instead.

SlyShy• 16 years ago

This may get downvoted, but:

I personally know you to be a trustworthy guy, but people outside of Hacker News probably won't (and you aren't even associated with this project on the site, regardless). So to the average passerby this website looks mad-sketchy, like it is a thinly disguised attempt at stealing personal information.

So I'd work on the design a bit, to avoid that perception.

That said, I'm about to boot to Windows for the first time in ages and try this out. :)

catfish• 16 years ago

When I read this page I wanted to try it out. But I was to fraidy cat to do so because I can't afford to kill my work computer. I would add that you need to explain how the software works and why I should not be worried about BSOD or some other crippling effect. And yeah I wondered about what SlyShy says too. But I hope its real and if you would like help with a nicer design for it I would be happy to host a Wordpress site and help you get a better explanation written. NO COST. Just community juice to see a good idea grow.

limmeau• 16 years ago

First thought: is that serious? The "please enter your credit card to see if it was stolen" page appeared here not long ago. Then again, giving my email address away is not quite the same as giving away my twicebook credentials.

matthavener• 16 years ago

How does it work? What does it do technically that blocks facebook, etc from tracking?

crocowhile2• 16 years ago

I don't understand. Of all the privacy concerns I may have about facebook, cookies on my browser are the very last.

araneae• 16 years ago

If you browse the internet while logged into facebook, some sites automatically trigger opening that site's fb fan page in another window.

At least that's what I assume that's about. It's really annoying.

crocowhile2• 16 years ago

Then I'd rather logout than install some mysterious stuff. I wouldn't mind a chrome or firefox extension that interferes with this process, though. It should be not too difficult to implement.

failquicker• 16 years ago

Wow. What a great weekend project. I think you hit the nail on the head with this one man. Definite problem, definite solution. The only two issues I see with the site are really pretty superficial. And I would be surprised if you weren't already aware.

1) the email us gambit, I think it comes off as a little scamy. My guess is it's just there for simplicity right now, but I could be missing something (happens often) A way you could think of doing it that may be more palatable to your customers is to have a download button and make the user register with you before the download. Even if the result is the same, I think the psychological impact of the email request being 1 more step in would increase conversion. All just my opinion.

2) is pretty silly. Just site aesthetic. I wouldn't currently order from that page if I randomly happened upon it. Just trying to review it in the form o saw it. I'm sure you already have that worked out.

REALLY great idea.

I'm outbin DC. And the facebook privacy implications are HUGE buzz right now. Lots of non tech savy people in politics and it's ancilary industries are simply deleting (or trying to delete) their profile. Your app could get a great response if you can get it in front of them. I see it getting passed along in professional circles.

What is your plan for marketing it? Any plan for monetization?

Thanks for letting us review.

neetij• 16 years ago

Why should I send you an email so I can get some 'free' software which will allegedly improve my online experience? There isn't even a proper description or screenshot. Why should I trust you with my contact information? You 'remove the hooks'? Elaborate please. Are you deleting cookies? Are you packaging a Fluid-style browser as facemenot? You've got great karma (atleast on HN), but it's not enough because you're using some survey link for feedback with no authorship info on the site. Unless I see a reasonable explanation of what your software does (and how it does it), I'm not going to sign up for a beta/alpha release. No, this doesn't at all seem suspicious.

wdewind• 16 years ago

Same was what everyone else said: the trick here is trust, and half the battle is going to be design. Also needs a clearer explanation of what it does - you haven't really demystified privacy at all, and it's not really clear what I'm getting from the service beyond generalizations (which leave a lot of room for misunderstanding).

I like the idea of thinking of social network spying as malware.

drKarl• 16 years ago

If already working with VMWare and Unity you can have a host browser for normal browsing and a VMWare browser for facebook (or the other way around). If not working with VMWare, this is overkill, of course.

Jun8• 16 years ago

Even if the website was better looking and more trustworthy (which it isn't, as others have pointed out), isn't this trading one problem for another? If I don't trust FB, how can I trust you?

My approach is this: I assume the default position of all companies is to swipe personal information and use it in whatever way they see fit (e.g. FB, but also Netflix, et al.) Since this is the case, I trust huge companies, like FB or Google more, since they stand to lose a lot more if they get sued. Not very soothing, I believe this is the best algorithm under these conditions.

flyingyeti• 16 years ago

Not to pick nits, but the proper format for your email link is "mailto:free@facemenot.com", not "mailto://free@facemenot.com". Unless of course your email is //free@facemenot.com ;)

JangoSteve• 16 years ago

I think the idea is really cool, but you couldn't pay me to give any of my personal information to that site, much less download and use a browser that comes from that site. Quite a few things come off as very suspicious:

- The lack of any styling whatsoever. It doesn't even have a stylesheet. I don't think I've ever seen a scammer/spammer put less effort into their fake sites. And I've definitely never seen a legitimate site do this. Congrats, you're the first ;-)

- Not only does the site have no info about what it actually does, but there is no meta title or description to tell me either. At this point, no explanation could convince me this is a serious project.

- No contact information at all, except for the free@face-me-not.com email address. Even a trip to WHOIS returns zero contact info (that's right zero!). Other interesting facts from WHOIS include a) domain was registered only yesterday, b) domain was registered for only a year, and c) domain was registered through a registrar who's tagline is "No bullshit" (this last fact I just think is funny and interesting, and doesn't affect my judgement of credibility).

- The domain name (face-me-not.com) isn't very good. I typically try to steer clear of hyphenated domain names if at all possible. For your own projects, it's difficult to tell people about it in conversation. "Yeah it's face-hyphen-me-hyphen-not-dot-com." For that reason, I usually assume sites with hyphens are not serious projects.

I do believe you took the MVP methodology to the extreme. I'm guessing you spent about 10 minutes on this, including time to register the domain and setup the email. That being said, if you get serious about this, definitley let me know, because it's a cool idea.

vsync• 16 years ago

Why not just use Prism (http://prism.mozillalabs.com/)?

Please review my weekend project: face-me-not

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