Tinmark is now free – fully for 30 days, read and edit after that

by birchbird • 13 years ago

24 19 13 years ago

I really like the video. I think it's a great example of what you can do with a low budget and limited toolset. I don't want to sound like I'm saying whoever is running Tinmark is poor and doesn't have good/proper tools or a lot/enough/useful experience with them. It's just that I've never heard of Tinmark before and while watching this video I was thinking "gee, I wish I could create a nice little video like this for my product" because I am on a low budget with limited tools as far as video making is concerned.

It's so...

- Simple - just music and screen grabs

- To the point - shows you exactly how you'd use the product... quickly!

- Not boring - the video is clear, the music is apt, and it gets you thinking of what you can do with the product even though there's no voice telling you about it

I can't tell you how many times I've watched a video of some poor guy typing out what he'd be narrating annoyingly slow and having to go back and fix typos every other second either with no sound or the most irritating music one could find laid over a blurry video so that you can barely read what's being written anyway. Every time I see one of those, I wish they'd have just done exactly what the video for Tinmark does. It can't be that hard. (It actually isn't, I've done it once for another product).

Oh, and I love the idea of making this free. It's cheap as it is and making accounts read-only after 30-days, at least to me, seems like it'd convert really well. If you invest enough time in the product during those 30 days then it's not a big leap to go from $0 to $2 for the ability to edit again.

stevejalim2• 13 years ago

> seems like it'd convert really well.

Yeah, I'm looking at a similar 'mothballware' plan (for want of a better term) at a similar price point for something I'm currently building. I'd be interested to hear of others' experience of it.

Yes, there's a risk of it seeming like you're cutting off something people are using, but if they're that invested in it, hopefully they won't mind chipping in a modest amount now they know they really do like it.

EDIT: apologies for this being a pretty vapid comment - curled up on sofa, ill.

bpatrianakos3• 13 years ago

No apology necessary, I'm at work, ill. Bronchitis. Totally understand.

I don't know what you mean by mothballware. Care to elaborate?

I don't think there's a risk of seeming like you're cutting people off. So long as you're up-front with people when they sign up then there's no problem with this. The value is in the ability to add and edit your bookmarks. Being able to access them later is trivial if you're looking at it from Tinmark's perspective and from a user's perspective this is the same as getting a try-before-you-buy premium account.

ruswick• 13 years ago

I generally avoid services that operate under this model. I don't appreciate my experience being limited after some arbitrary amount of time. I vastly prefer freemium-based business models, where I know that I will have indefinite access to a limited subset of a product's features, versus becoming acquainted to the full version before being cut off in an attempt to coerce a purchase out of me.

moioci• 13 years ago

It seems disingenuous to say the service is "free forever" when after thirty days THE essential function of a bookmarking service is turned off. Compared to Pinboard's model, this is a clear loser.

ch0wn• 13 years ago

"Tinmark now offers a free trial" would certainly be more honest, but we all know how titles and headlines work.

plansurf• 13 years ago

Hi ch0wn (and moioci) co-founder here,

The reason we didn't call it a "free trial" is because you can still keep using the service after 30 days. Some SAAS products have free plans that have caps on the amount of data you can create. We're basically saying the cap of data for the free plan is whatever you create in the 30 days -- that could be hundreds or thousands of bookmarks. You'll still have access to everything you own after the period but more importantly, if you weren't satisfied with the service you can export it all anytime.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

alxbrun2• 13 years ago

I'm wondering who needs a bookmarking app in 2013, let alone pay for it.

fein• 13 years ago

Possibly an unpopular opinion, but I agree. Google has had their bookmarks service since 2005, and I don't even use that. Standard import/ export and attach the file is all I've ever needed.

Perhaps there is a use case outside mine? I also don't give an iota of a shit about socially sharing my bookmarks.

alxbrun2• 13 years ago

I agree with you. URL is just one kind of the things we need to quickly store. We also need short notes, pictures, blobs, sounds.. and for that, we need something like Evernote. Having an app just for URLs seems crazy to me. Just MOO.

CrazedGeek• 13 years ago

Cross-platform access is the killer feature for me (with Pinboard). I frequently need to access my bookmarks on systems that aren't my own, so these sorts of services are quite handy.

rjd• 13 years ago

I use one as I use multiple browsers, on multiple computers, at multiple locations, with varying permissions. The social discovery is quite neat in some of them as well.

But yeah pay for one... you'd have to have a special need to pay for one. For reference the one I have been using and enjoy is Kippt (https://kippt.com)

HOWEVER their latest update has broken login on Safari if someone from kippt reads this please please fix it so I can use it on my ipad :)

Tinmark is now free – fully for 30 days, read and edit after that

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