Y Combinator’s Snipd Launches To The Public

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/30/y-combinators-snipd-launches-to-the-public/

by qhoxie • 18 years ago

44 22 18 years ago

emmett• 18 years ago

I saw all the "this is useless" comments on TechCrunch, so I thought I'd look up what that community thought of "twttr" when it launched:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/15/is-twttr-interesting/

"I do not understand the utility of adding the SMS messages to a public webpage or making messages from my network public. I would have to pass on that type of offering. The ability to make messages private should be added asap."

vs.

"What a silly app… well, more like useless."

unalone3• 18 years ago

You know, a lot of people still do think that Twitter is stupid. Myself included.

I've said before and I'll say again that I don't understand the utility of Twitter. While I think some people write amusingly on it, I've never seen what makes people so fascinated in it. I doubt I ever will.

Just because something's successful doesn't mean it's useful.

ivankirigin• 18 years ago

The immediacy of the conversation on Twitter is a big reason why people like it. It feels much more personal. The limit in length means normal people can write as well as popular bloggers, and everyone is forced to edit their writing.

If only all bloggers/comments were as constrained.

lux2• 18 years ago

The only use I've seen for Twitter is the ability to follow companies for status updates or important announcements. The local university here is looking to do this for students, and I've seen several online services use it for downtime/updates.

But an RSS feed does the same thing already, and is in a format that doesn't make me have to subscribe to yet another site. With feedburner, there's no worry about feed traffic getting out of hand either. So I don't really see the point, except maybe as a marketing tool to the Twitter crowd...

Then again, my startup uses it too (in addition to our blog/RSS), and my business partner really likes it. So maybe I'm just clueless :)

ryanspahn• 18 years ago

Its an amazing simple idea and tool!

So much data on there for us start-uppers to use for research, marketing, as well as building innovating services using the data. One could create a crowd sourced Rotten Tomatoes-esque site. One example of many what can be done with the data there!

unalone3• 18 years ago

Congrats to Snipd! I'll check you guys out.

Two things on your front page, though, which I'll ask about because I'm a pest:

"forget sending links, send snippets."

What makes snippets so much better than links? It takes longer to manufacture them and to send them.

"Establish a community of followers."

This is incredibly convoluted. "Establish" is too elaborate a word to use here, the user isn't getting a "community" of followers - Snipd is - and in general, this does not set the mood in a very pleasing way.

EDIT: using Snipd right now. I don't see how to snip things. I get the green window up top, and a bunch of links, and a chance to tag things and make them private - totally unnecessary images, by the way, neither one helps me at all - and there is nothing that either lets me save my snip or get a link to it.

EDIT TWO: Okay, so I can't just click it to save a link. That's inconvenient. Threw me off a bit. You also made me lose what I was writing: that's a shame. When I highlight, the fact that I have to click once more to open the menu and then click snip is yet another annoyance. This is not a streamlined process for me, even if I have Snip It attacked to a keyboard shortcut.

EDIT THREE: Tumblr's bookmarklet will let me highlight BEFORE I hit the bookmarklet. You should do that too.

Your opening webpage is ugly. The highlighted part? Not necessary. The Snip It bookmarklet's font looks off compared to everything else. The coloring scheme is ugly. And cramming three lines of links at the bottom is ugly, too.

EDIT FOUR: Why is the bar green? The aesthetic of the rest of your site is brown and non-jarring. I like that more.

EDIT FIVE: Honestly, give me a link to what I've snipped. (Not "snipd," because that reminds me of "snipd" and looks stupid. I love how Tumblr never once admits that they have a stupid URL: it's what makes it bearable for me. Don't be cute. I hate cute.) The fact that when I've snipped something, I need to look around for it, just really, really pisses me off.

And I still don't see why I'd use this over a better-integrated plug-in system, or a system like Tumblr or Posterous, in which you take snippets of things but it doesn't feel like amateur hour while you're doing so. Frankly, I'd take Posterous over this in an instant: easier to register with, and click-and-drag-to-email-client works beautifully. I could even make Automator do it automatically. This system has no advantages, and it's inferior to an existing YCombinator product.

But that's my opinion: feel free to explain why this helps more and I'll rant a bit less. :-)

truebosko• 18 years ago

Congrats. Although I was never a huge fan of web snippets I like how easy you've made it. I was a bit confused though initially on what to do after I pressed the snippet bookmarklet. Perhaps make that more clear :-)

louislouis• 18 years ago

The video tutorial on vimeo needs to be louder.. I maxed all volumes on laptop and the player, even with headphones on, cant hear what they're saying.

I think this tutorial video is key. This software is totally new to anyone so learning how to use it fast in the short-attention internet mindframe is needed.

Apart from that its very neat. I can snip text,video and images. Awesome.

Also LOVING the bookmark thing too... how is that done?

bigbang• 18 years ago

Hmm, seems good enough volume for me

nostrademons2• 18 years ago

Ooh, they finally launched. Congrats Alex!

Edit: some feedback...

1.) It doesn't seem to work on IE6. I added the bookmarklet according to the instructions (some of the formatting is messed up there, BTW, like the vertical "Feedback" link is overlaying the center of the page), but clicking on it doesn't do anything.

2.) Is there anyway to get the green snip bar to disappear once you've clicked the bookmarklet? I guess it goes away when you navigate away from the page, but it's distracting until then.

3.) For better browsing convenience, it'd be neat if the Snipd bookmarklet toolbar didn't disappear, and followed you around as you surfed. I don't see a way to do this, though, short of proxying pages through snipd.com and using the hash URL trick like TheSixtyOne does.

4.) I'm glad that snips are easily unhighlightable.

5.) It's clever that you put the vimeo tutorial in the bookmarklet, but it'd be even cleverer if it wasn't necessary at all. I'm not sure what to do once I've selected and snipped something (and I guess I'm only aware that I'm supposed to select first because I've talked to you in person), and users tend to have their fingers on the back button. If you could make the value proposition for the snipper immediately clear from the text & appearance of the bookmarklet bar, that'd help new users immensely.

6.) Grammar is off on the blog - "You can follow blog". Clever that you're using Snipd itself as the blog. How about renaming it as "The Snipd Blog", so that the sentence reads "You can follow The Snipd Blog." Also works better with the next sentence as well.

jodrellblank• 18 years ago

I don't particularly have any use for snipd, but the idea of a bookmarklet which loads external javascript backed by a central site feels like it's full of potential.

jfornear• 18 years ago

I like it. The simplicity and privacy settings are great.

alaskamiller• 18 years ago

1. Subscribe to TechCrunch RSS

2. Submit every possible TC post

3. ???

4. PROFIT!

nostrademons2• 18 years ago

It's more like "submit every TC post that announces a just-launched YC startup". YCombinator startups have always gotten lots of upvotes here, because, well, it's news.ycombinator.com.

fallentimes• 18 years ago

Yeah my karma is comment driven too.

einarvollset• 18 years ago

Great job Alex!

Some immediate feedback:

- Green: no good.

- Going to nytimes.com and trying to snip article segments on the front page: doesn't work well. I'd make sure the front page on the alexa top 100 works flawlessly

- I think you need to highlight what you're about to snip when you're in "snip mode"

Besides that, great work: When can I subscribe to other people's snips?

honeybee• 18 years ago

First thought that came to my head after reading the name: "Snipd: It's circumcision 2.0."

lemonysnicket• 18 years ago

is now a good time to ask...

'how are you going to make money?'

skmurphy• 18 years ago

What's the next step after getting covered by TechCrunch? Finish college? Alex Schliker is clearly enormously blessed with talent and intelligence but even a wunderkind like Ben Casnocha didn't skip college. I worry YC's siren call may be luring some college students onto the rocks.

shimon• 18 years ago

I haven't read the article yet, but my first reaction to the name was: wow, vasectomies over the web?

Y Combinator’s Snipd Launches To The Public

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