3 ms·

I was a huge fan of the idea but the execution is really awful. An alarm clock that wakes you up with a horrendous siren (in the production version can you at

by eitally 16y ago

I was a huge fan of the idea but the execution is really awful. An alarm clock that wakes you up with a horrendous siren (in the production version can you at last change the tone?) and then reads RSS feeds in a really bad TTS voice just makes me want to put a pillow over my head (or throw the phone at the wall). Besides this, though, the biggest problem I had was that it is completely unintelligent in deciding which headlines are important. I tried setting it up to read HN to my, or NYT, and since it just reads through the feed from top to bottom it gets frustrating very quickly. In order for this to be useful you need to do a lot of backend work to figure out 1) what the user cares about, and 2) reformulate text into short headlines. You also have the issue of content providers making stupid decisions about what to include on their sites. For example, if I chose CNN (god help me), I might want to know what Israel is doing in the West Bank but I sure as heck don't care about the latest celeb to enter rehab, and since this is the first thing I hear in the morning I'd be really peeved. This same basic criticism can be applied to my email inbox, too. If you start reading spam to me, or mailing list messages, I'm not a happy camper. Calendar integration is critical and should be free. You should also add some "smart" alarm functionality so you can gradually wake your users over a course of several minutes with increasing light and sound. People want to wake up gently first, and only care about content secondarily. If you add ads, you'll scare away users... unless maybe you partner with guys like Groupon or Ticketmaster so you can present deals, coupons, and events. Regarding your Edit, I'd be interested to hear why you think anyone is looking to make important decisions at the "moment of alert", especially when that moment is when they wake. To conclude, maybe I'm just not your target audience. I like my morning routine to be tranquil and calm, and I learned after trying Zazu that I prefer to be the one to engage my brain rather to have it forcibly engaged by my alarm clock.

speek 16y ago
Thanks for the input. It's really good to hear. On the production app, you can now change the tone of the alarm (it was a later alpha-phase function). I do agree that the TTS engine on the phone is horrific, we're working on a deal with Nuance to use their TTS engine. Their engine sounds amazing. We're also working on calculating what the novelty of a piece of information is to a specific user. The User Experience of the application will be something like "here is a list of information sources that I want to hear from" then we'll let you know what we think you find the most important (novel). As for the reformulation of text into short headlines, are you more interested in the general concept of the headline or a general summary of the article? I'm going to try to convince some people that the calendar should be free, because it's a major "I need to know this stuff, this is why I'll start to use you" feature. We'll try to never present Plain Old Ads, we're trying to engage users with brands. We believe there could be a real connection between a user and their material world. Radio-style shout-outs are just too irritating. The "moment of alert," at the moment (pun not intended), is really more of a future thing. We're envisioning that if your wife emails you, Zazu will chime in and let you know that there is something you should check on; or if a meeting gets canceled, Zazu will let you know that you now have time to head home (there's traffic on your normal route, so you should take the backroads) and catch a movie with your family. As cheesy as that sounds, we really believe that people could find some utility in being up to date without having to explicitly look for whatever information you need to know. The current manifestation of that idea is a glorified alarm clock -- with the moment of alert being when the alarm goes off. Yes, I do realize that we are creating a moment of alert for our users, but what better time is there to plan your day than at the beginning of it? --, but we're just testing out the waters. This feedback is great, I really appreciate it. Thanks!

by eitally 16y ago

speek 16y ago

Thanks for the input. It's really good to hear. On the production app, you can now change the tone of the alarm (it was a later alpha-phase function). I do agree that the TTS engine on the phone is horrific, we're working on a deal with Nuance to use their TTS engine. Their engine sounds amazing. We're also working on calculating what the novelty of a piece of information is to a specific user. The User Experience of the application will be something like "here is a list of information sources that I want to hear from" then we'll let you know what we think you find the most important (novel). As for the reformulation of text into short headlines, are you more interested in the general concept of the headline or a general summary of the article? I'm going to try to convince some people that the calendar should be free, because it's a major "I need to know this stuff, this is why I'll start to use you" feature. We'll try to never present Plain Old Ads, we're trying to engage users with brands. We believe there could be a real connection between a user and their material world. Radio-style shout-outs are just too irritating. The "moment of alert," at the moment (pun not intended), is really more of a future thing. We're envisioning that if your wife emails you, Zazu will chime in and let you know that there is something you should check on; or if a meeting gets canceled, Zazu will let you know that you now have time to head home (there's traffic on your normal route, so you should take the backroads) and catch a movie with your family. As cheesy as that sounds, we really believe that people could find some utility in being up to date without having to explicitly look for whatever information you need to know. The current manifestation of that idea is a glorified alarm clock -- with the moment of alert being when the alarm goes off. Yes, I do realize that we are creating a moment of alert for our users, but what better time is there to plan your day than at the beginning of it? --, but we're just testing out the waters. This feedback is great, I really appreciate it. Thanks!