HN user
Product-obsessed marketer with a penchant for dev tools
Volunteer-based nonprofit that has already saved one life. "Our raiding parties (volunteers) give their time, energy, and care to provide support, practical help, wellness guidance, and social connection. We’re here because cancer should never feel like a solo battle."
The problem with this actually is the LinkedIn API. LI has restricted it so heavily that you can't use the API to export data - http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/02/12/linkedin-takes-aim-devel...
The only alternative is to apply to the Partner Program, which will likely be denied given LI's history.
Hi Mike.
We're always happy to see more companies set up shop in this space. It helps to keep us on our toes.
At first blush, it seems that EveryoneAPI is focused primarily on phone numbers. Conversely, our focus with FullContact is much more in line with social profile and public social data. Though you certainly can query the FullContact Person API via a phone number, that's never been our primary focus.
With relation to the comment about speed, it's worth noting that greater than 95% of Person API queries are returned in 30ms or less. But to the end user, depending upon where they are hosted, network latency can play a large role in the actual response time, which is a factor for any http based API traffic.
Like EveryoneAPI, we prefer to compete on merit rather than slinging mud. If you have a project that you're building, I'd love to see how we can help. Our APIs are always free to get started, so you can see your results before ever having to pay.
Stay tuned ;)
Hey Doug -
We love Vibe. It's a great app and carries a lot of the same features. I think that the advantage of using FullContact for Gmail is being able to interact with your FullContact address book, and then automatically sync that information back to your Google Contacts. But ultimately, it's whatever works best for you. We know that the Vibe team shares our passion for making you awesome with people, and we're happy that they're making great products.
iOS and Mac apps are coming next, while we perfect Android compatibility. We're also working on contact sharing among accounts. It's our biggest request, and we want to make sure it's right. As for social networks, we already integrate with a number of them. What would you like to see?
We're definitely looking at it.
For good reason. We love(d) Rapportive before LinkedIn neutered it. But we knew that it could be better.
Out of curiosity, there's a Labs function that you can use to enable right side chat. Would you be using it by chance?
Interesting. We'll take a look at it. Thanks for flagging it up!
It's a pretty exciting day for us, and we'd love to get your feedback.
CardMunch still (for the next few days anyway) uses real people. That didn't change when the company moved under LinkedIn. Unfortunately there was an opportunity there that was never really seized.
As for how we compare? That's a matter of personal preference.
While I like Evernote a lot, and use it daily, it's just not where I want to store my contacts. Nothing about that makes sense to me. My contacts need to be where they're the most accessible, from the device that I'm going to use to get in touch with them.
I don't use a CRM, but if I did, I'd want to scan cards into it because that's where it makes sense for those contacts to live. I'd want to segment them and I'd want to pull them into my phone when I needed them. None of these things are easy to do when you use Evernote as your repository. It's great for being your "second brain", but not so great for being your phone book.
The big thing to mention here is that we don't use OCR, we use real people. It's the main differentiator (aside from the Zapier integration) between Card Reader and just about every other alternative. Yes, it's slower, but it's also incredibly accurate. And really, when was the last time that you scanned in a business card and needed the information from it 20 seconds later?
Hey Andreas, I figured out what's going on.
Because we use real people to transcribe the cards, we found that we were having trouble with accuracy when the cards are in languages other than English. As such, we flagged the app to countries that have English the primary language.
As we scale the app, we're going to enable more countries. But right now we wanted to make sure that we're providing the best possible experience, even if that means to a smaller base of users.
Very sorry for the inconvenience.
Hey there. Thanks for the heads up. That definitely shouldn't be happening, considering that we test on a Nexus 4. We're taking a look now to see what's up.
Privacy is a line that will always move, and it's different for every person. One of the biggest challenges that we face is finding a line that works well for everyone, while allowing them to control where that line sits.
As to your second point, sure, we'd love to have people use FullContact. But the post points to many more options than just our own:
"If that’s iCloud, Google Contacts, Outlook.com or heck, even FullContact, great."
As I said in the post, we just want people to use a safe system that makes sense to them. It's our job to make sure that FullContact is the logical choice.
A bit of an outsider's perspective, from someone at a company (FullContact) that does some similar things -
1: Free EcoPass and/or free parking - EcoPass is a pretty killer bus pass that lets you take the express routes and you can even do long trips for a severely discounted price. The airport from downtown, for instance, runs $11. With EcoPass it's $2.50. We've found that many people would rather take the bus than drive, even if driving and parking in Denver isn't nearly as much of an inconvenience as it is in SF. It also solves the "car trouble" issue for most people.
2: $7,500 each year for vacation - In a startup, you're going to work harder, probably for a bit less money, than anywhere else. Burnout will happen. This is our way to combat it. We remove the obstacle of "can't afford a vacation" by actually paying you to take one.
3: Powder Day Policy - There's 8 inches at Vail and you can't stand to be inside? Go. Take the day. Just don't screw over your team and make it up in the next two weeks. The same holds true when it's 72 and sunny for the first time in a month and you need to just get away.
What we found - First, the obvious. Recruiting engineering talent isn't easy. The same can be said for just about every position that a company needs to fill, but engineering is especially difficult. By way of comparison, we have 9 positions open right now and almost 3,000 applicants. Of those, only 2 percent have applied for the engineering positions.
79 percent have applied as "I just want to work at FullContact".
While that's a drastic difference, it's also better than what we were seeing prior to adding the "non-traditional" benefits as part of the recruiting/retention plan.
The real questions that will hit ZenPayroll (as they have us) are these - You're going to start getting a LOT more applicants. How much time do you have to put in to filter them? Are you going to start getting a lot more GOOD applicants? How many of them just want to game the system for a year to get a taste of the good life? Are your processes good enough to weed them out?
As an outsider with common ground, it's good to see even more companies taking this approach. But as an insider to the turbulence that they can create, I would urge them to make sure that they're as prepared as they can be for those bumps.
There's an app called Key Ring that I've used for some time that accomplishes exactly this. It works quite well.
My 2 pence:
It was 100% about the context. Dave used the word in a derogatory, very serious fashion, from a position of power. The word has gotten tossed around so much over the past few years that I think people have begun to lessen its severity, and that's dangerous.
Just as two gay men may jokingly call each other f__, or two black men may choose to use the word n_____ to refer to one another, that's a right that's afforded to them because of their position. At no point will it ever be OK for someone on the outside of that circle to throw these words at someone on the inside.
To be fair, I can't stand any of these three words, and I wish that they'd be completely forgotten from within the English language. But I'm on the outside of all three of these circles, so it's not my place to say what is harmful to those within them.
Odd. What tablet? We specifically designed the site with mobile/tablet readers in mind. Also, what was flashing? If it's an ad, then we need to have it pulled. We don't allow that.
Screenshots to brad@thenextweb.com would be greatly appreciated. This is definitely not the experience we want you to have on our site.
I can't even give obviously edited. Ever used a lower-end Android phone? I have, and this looks like a video directly from one. Jittery, frame skipping mess.
Edit: Also, it's been verified and taken offline. http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/11/06/machine-turns-vote-for-obama-...
There's a lot of investigation that has been done around ADHD and the ability to "hyperfocus". Dr Russell Barkley has an interesting insight on this phenomenon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfkg0VWx3rM
I'm not certain that I agree with him in full. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in my early 20s. The ability to deeply focus on a project was helpful to me as well. I certainly don't think that we can call it a "cure" for ADD, but it can absolutely be a positive byproduct.
Give us a couple days. We're undergoing some back-end changes and it's causing the pages to have a jerky scroll for some. Apologies for the inconvenience in the meantime.
Any chance you can email me a screenshot of this? Happy to blank out the name. Would just make a great addition to an earlier story we did.
brad@thenextweb.com
"just"
The FTC does have governance over endorsements and testimonials. Not sure that it applies completely here. The trouble comes when you start talking about people and companies outside of the US. International law for bloggers or journalists seems like a difficult situation to say the least.
Great point here. I think that the Mini (if it happens, if that's the name, etc) will be another gateway drug just like the iPod touch. I remember Steve smiling kinda smugly about people who wanted the OS and the apps but didn't want the phone. The touch was how Apple got them in the door.
Now translate that to a tablet. For $200 you can get a device that has, inarguably, the best apps marketplace, at its disposal. Android tablets will have an especially difficult time keeping up with that, except for the ones that are purchased by people who simply don't like Apple and its ecosystem.
Since when is this new for Apple? The company (and don't get me wrong, I'm a fan) has an amazing ability to take older, already-existing technology and turn it into a successful product or feature. If you look at iOS for the past couple of versions, many of the things that people were excited about were features that Android already had. Whether you believe Apple has done them better or not is a matter of opinion.
Gruber has a pretty good summary of how this will likely go down. The HN thread is here:
My only (and I stress ONLY) argument for a smaller tablet is for reading. Back when the original Galaxy Tab launched, I was hugely impressed by the comfort level of reading on the device. The iPad, even for my big hands, feels unwieldy when it comes to trying to read books on it.