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Show HN: SiteSupport.com - Remote Desktop For Webbased Applications

67 points by nichol4s 16y ago

nichol4s 16y ago
We've been working in stealth for about a year now on our new startup. There is still much to do, but I am very excited to release this demo, now. If you have any questions, just shoot. I'll be here to answer them.
- Charuru 16y ago
  I didn't have sound on so I couldn't hear what you were saying. But my first impression from that video was that you need to take a shower. Then it got impressive, and I understood what was going on. I think it would behoove you to just start the demo immediately without preface. I can't be the only one without sound on.
  - nichol4s 16y ago
    Haha, ok, thanks for the tip about the shower.
  - heyitsnick 16y ago
    I agree with going straight to the demo. The "wow, cool!" factor kicks in too late, you may lose some people who stop watching after the first 10 seconds. Just start with "Hi, guys, let me demo site support. Let's get me out of the way <move video>, here I am demonstrating the site support website...". Seems like you have a really nice product, and great domain. Good luck!
mgkimsal 16y ago
This looks truly amazing! One thing I did notice is that I can't type when you were doing your demonstration stuff - perhaps some visual indicator of 'who has control' so I know when I can and can't use the site would be useful. Looking forward to it.
- nichol4s 16y ago
  Thanks! Yes, we are planning to add something like that. Right now the visual indicator is an hour glass (cursor) but we will make it more visible in someway. We could even use the favicon trick on top of that, I think Gmail uses it to show the number of unread messages.
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
    I'd suggest something more obvious than that. A colored bar below the video image, or a big icon floating at the lower right. This is a new style of interaction, and it will help to reduce confusion by being very obvious about the state of things. Thanks.
    - nichol4s 16y ago
      nods I like the floating icon idea. Thanks for the suggestion.
ThomPete 16y ago
Looks impressive but doesn't work in RockMelt browser
- nichol4s 16y ago
  Thanks for letting us know, we have indeed never tested it on that browser. Will look into it.
  - ThomPete 16y ago
    It's build on Chromium so I guess it matters a little. Btw. works beautifully on the iPad, very cool.
pmjoyce 16y ago
Looks great guys, I could use this yesterday. When do you think you'll open out the beta? I understand an exact date won't be possible, just an idea of timescales (days/weeks/months). Also, I signed up for the newsletter and got the following message: Cheatin’ huh? Is that what I should expect?
- nichol4s 16y ago
  No, sorry about that. I think I have it fixed, it was a problem with the mailchimp plugin. Thanks a ton! For reporting!
- nichol4s 16y ago
  Regarding the other question, we'll start with a private beta which will be available to those registered at betacandy.com We want to get it out as soon as possible, but the timescale will be x-months.
  - rexreed 16y ago
    Can I alpha?
    - nichol4s 16y ago
      If you want early access you really should check out the BetaCandy.com guys, they will launch tomorrow at Launch SF and probably open up their signup list a little more.
      - rexreed 16y ago
        The betacandy.com site seems to be returning a blank page for me.
soapdog 16y ago
I can use that since last year or so.... :-D one cool feature to add would be the ability to popup dialogs with little html in it, this way, not only we could video chat but one could show a topic list or diagram if needed.
- emzo 16y ago
  Nice product well excecuted. I personally thought the demo was just fine - didn't seem to take too long to understand what was going on. A nice additional feature would be to allow people to type in a question while being shown through a guided tour.
l0st3d 16y ago
Didn't work for me (in chromium/fedora 14), I just saw the talking head and when the speech suggested I should be seeing something happen, nothing did.
- nichol4s 16y ago
  Thanks for reporting, so it seems that the Chromium breed of browsers has trouble with the Demo. Will add that to our test cycle for the future.
notahacker 16y ago
Nice idea. If I wasn't leaving my current role (selling mostly web-based data services to a niche b2b audience) at the end of the week I'd certainly be using it when it's finished... The demo experience is disconcerting without audio - at the beginning it looks like I'm just getting a screencast with no ability to exit it. It would be better to see mouse movements and browsing right from the start so people instantly get the idea there's something much cleverer going on. Which raises a second point - a big red "stop" button to end the session on the user side would be nice to have, as well as a "now guiding you through our site" text. The current version doesn't appear to work on IE7 - are you intending on covering this (and even IE6) in future? Assuming it's technically feasible, the pain is probably worth it since I'm guessing a lot of the people calling on tech support are using antiquated browsers.
- nichol4s 16y ago
  Yes, our final service will make it more obvious that you are being guided, and more practical to exit. Hmmm, too bad about IE7, we have tested it with IE8 and setted it to IE7, that seemed to work. We don't really have any plans to support IE6, it seems like more and more websites are dropping support for it. So I am not sure if it is worth our effort. But, who knows.
  - estel 16y ago
    Whilst more and more sites are dropping support for it, I'd go out on a limb and claim that IE6 users are disproportionately more likely to require support using a website than others. Great app though.
  - lars 16y ago
    If you make it work in IE7 you might not be far from IE6 support, because the two are near equivalent when it comes to support of the various javascript APIs. IE7 was mostly an improvement of the rendering engine. (Note that there are supposedly small inconsistencies between IE7-mode in IE8 and the actual IE7.) That said I have a vested interest in IE6 dying quick, so I fully support a decision to not support it.
ajju 16y ago
What is the pricing going to be like? There seems to be no information on the site yet.
- nichol4s 16y ago
  It will depend on the type of service and we will announce this soon. For now, I can say that it will be very reasonable.
NSMeta 16y ago
This is a truly useful service. I would definitely be willing to pay for it.
- nichol4s 16y ago
  Thanks! Signup to our newsletter so we can keep you up to date on when you can! :)
vaksel 16y ago
you have a really good domain...unfortunately it's not really all that applicable for your actual product, and will just lead to confusion
- nailer 16y ago
  It's a support tool. For sites. Makes sense to me.
amitvjtimub 16y ago
Didn't got much response here but just few days ago I posted my MVP for this same concept. http://www.sess.in/channels/3 http://www.sess.in/channels/3 You can see my browsing in here...
- rokhayakebe 16y ago
  Both of you guys have created nice products. I thought of yours as a way to spy on employees.
- TimothyBurgess 16y ago
  That's very interesting. I just checked it out for a couple of minutes... And what's even more interesting is that when you were browsing HN my browser had obviously loaded it as if I were browsing. (We definitely saw 2 different things... My guess is that you record mouse coordinates, scroll positions, and url changes.) With that said, I could see this as a potential security risk - unless there are protocols already in place of which I am unaware. I was curious to see if you'd start typing or post a comment or something but I didn't stick around long enough. I think browsers natively have measures to prevent security breaches like this but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a way around it.
- rexreed 16y ago
  Very interesting! What's the status of this project? how does it compare with what the OP posted here? Can you attach a persistent video as well to guide users?
gotrythis 16y ago
What a beautiful concept. Support? Sure, I guess, but... I want my sales page to run like that! How soon can I get in?
rokhayakebe 16y ago
You guys built something people need. I would use this daily. In fact I need this product for my day job and I would twist the right arm to get someone to open their wallet and give me the company's credit card.
matt1 16y ago
This looks like an incredible tool--congrats. Would you mind explaining more about how it works behind the scenes?
rexreed 16y ago
Yes - this is exactly what we need. I was advisor to a company called TimZon (now snapengage.com) that originally had this idea (and even had threaded discussion), but they pivoted in an entirely different direction. I still need this. Signed up, ready to go when you are!
jhrobert 16y ago
Why limit that to "support"? I often would be happy to share a window with a friend.
- nichol4s 16y ago
  We are not limiting ourselves to a specific semantic meaning of support. In a sense you are supporting your friend or he you.

67 points by nichol4s 16y ago

We've been working in stealth for about a year now on our new startup. There is still much to do, but I am very excited to release this demo, now. If you have any questions, just shoot. I'll be here to answer them.

Charuru 16y ago
I didn't have sound on so I couldn't hear what you were saying. But my first impression from that video was that you need to take a shower. Then it got impressive, and I understood what was going on. I think it would behoove you to just start the demo immediately without preface. I can't be the only one without sound on.
- nichol4s 16y ago
  Haha, ok, thanks for the tip about the shower.
- heyitsnick 16y ago
  I agree with going straight to the demo. The "wow, cool!" factor kicks in too late, you may lose some people who stop watching after the first 10 seconds. Just start with "Hi, guys, let me demo site support. Let's get me out of the way <move video>, here I am demonstrating the site support website...". Seems like you have a really nice product, and great domain. Good luck!

mgkimsal 16y ago

This looks truly amazing! One thing I did notice is that I can't type when you were doing your demonstration stuff - perhaps some visual indicator of 'who has control' so I know when I can and can't use the site would be useful. Looking forward to it.

nichol4s 16y ago
Thanks! Yes, we are planning to add something like that. Right now the visual indicator is an hour glass (cursor) but we will make it more visible in someway. We could even use the favicon trick on top of that, I think Gmail uses it to show the number of unread messages.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  I'd suggest something more obvious than that. A colored bar below the video image, or a big icon floating at the lower right. This is a new style of interaction, and it will help to reduce confusion by being very obvious about the state of things. Thanks.
  - nichol4s 16y ago
    nods I like the floating icon idea. Thanks for the suggestion.

ThomPete 16y ago

Looks impressive but doesn't work in RockMelt browser

nichol4s 16y ago
Thanks for letting us know, we have indeed never tested it on that browser. Will look into it.
- ThomPete 16y ago
  It's build on Chromium so I guess it matters a little. Btw. works beautifully on the iPad, very cool.

pmjoyce 16y ago

Looks great guys, I could use this yesterday. When do you think you'll open out the beta? I understand an exact date won't be possible, just an idea of timescales (days/weeks/months). Also, I signed up for the newsletter and got the following message: Cheatin’ huh? Is that what I should expect?

nichol4s 16y ago
No, sorry about that. I think I have it fixed, it was a problem with the mailchimp plugin. Thanks a ton! For reporting!
nichol4s 16y ago
Regarding the other question, we'll start with a private beta which will be available to those registered at betacandy.com We want to get it out as soon as possible, but the timescale will be x-months.
- rexreed 16y ago
  Can I alpha?
  - nichol4s 16y ago
    If you want early access you really should check out the BetaCandy.com guys, they will launch tomorrow at Launch SF and probably open up their signup list a little more.
    - rexreed 16y ago
      The betacandy.com site seems to be returning a blank page for me.

soapdog 16y ago

I can use that since last year or so.... :-D one cool feature to add would be the ability to popup dialogs with little html in it, this way, not only we could video chat but one could show a topic list or diagram if needed.

emzo 16y ago
Nice product well excecuted. I personally thought the demo was just fine - didn't seem to take too long to understand what was going on. A nice additional feature would be to allow people to type in a question while being shown through a guided tour.

l0st3d 16y ago

Didn't work for me (in chromium/fedora 14), I just saw the talking head and when the speech suggested I should be seeing something happen, nothing did.

nichol4s 16y ago
Thanks for reporting, so it seems that the Chromium breed of browsers has trouble with the Demo. Will add that to our test cycle for the future.

notahacker 16y ago

Nice idea. If I wasn't leaving my current role (selling mostly web-based data services to a niche b2b audience) at the end of the week I'd certainly be using it when it's finished... The demo experience is disconcerting without audio - at the beginning it looks like I'm just getting a screencast with no ability to exit it. It would be better to see mouse movements and browsing right from the start so people instantly get the idea there's something much cleverer going on. Which raises a second point - a big red "stop" button to end the session on the user side would be nice to have, as well as a "now guiding you through our site" text. The current version doesn't appear to work on IE7 - are you intending on covering this (and even IE6) in future? Assuming it's technically feasible, the pain is probably worth it since I'm guessing a lot of the people calling on tech support are using antiquated browsers.

nichol4s 16y ago
Yes, our final service will make it more obvious that you are being guided, and more practical to exit. Hmmm, too bad about IE7, we have tested it with IE8 and setted it to IE7, that seemed to work. We don't really have any plans to support IE6, it seems like more and more websites are dropping support for it. So I am not sure if it is worth our effort. But, who knows.
- estel 16y ago
  Whilst more and more sites are dropping support for it, I'd go out on a limb and claim that IE6 users are disproportionately more likely to require support using a website than others. Great app though.
- lars 16y ago
  If you make it work in IE7 you might not be far from IE6 support, because the two are near equivalent when it comes to support of the various javascript APIs. IE7 was mostly an improvement of the rendering engine. (Note that there are supposedly small inconsistencies between IE7-mode in IE8 and the actual IE7.) That said I have a vested interest in IE6 dying quick, so I fully support a decision to not support it.

ajju 16y ago

What is the pricing going to be like? There seems to be no information on the site yet.

nichol4s 16y ago
It will depend on the type of service and we will announce this soon. For now, I can say that it will be very reasonable.

NSMeta 16y ago

This is a truly useful service. I would definitely be willing to pay for it.

nichol4s 16y ago
Thanks! Signup to our newsletter so we can keep you up to date on when you can! :)

vaksel 16y ago

you have a really good domain...unfortunately it's not really all that applicable for your actual product, and will just lead to confusion

nailer 16y ago
It's a support tool. For sites. Makes sense to me.

amitvjtimub 16y ago

Didn't got much response here but just few days ago I posted my MVP for this same concept. http://www.sess.in/channels/3 http://www.sess.in/channels/3 You can see my browsing in here...

rokhayakebe 16y ago
Both of you guys have created nice products. I thought of yours as a way to spy on employees.
TimothyBurgess 16y ago
That's very interesting. I just checked it out for a couple of minutes... And what's even more interesting is that when you were browsing HN my browser had obviously loaded it as if I were browsing. (We definitely saw 2 different things... My guess is that you record mouse coordinates, scroll positions, and url changes.) With that said, I could see this as a potential security risk - unless there are protocols already in place of which I am unaware. I was curious to see if you'd start typing or post a comment or something but I didn't stick around long enough. I think browsers natively have measures to prevent security breaches like this but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a way around it.
rexreed 16y ago
Very interesting! What's the status of this project? how does it compare with what the OP posted here? Can you attach a persistent video as well to guide users?

gotrythis 16y ago

What a beautiful concept. Support? Sure, I guess, but... I want my sales page to run like that! How soon can I get in?

rokhayakebe 16y ago

You guys built something people need. I would use this daily. In fact I need this product for my day job and I would twist the right arm to get someone to open their wallet and give me the company's credit card.

matt1 16y ago

This looks like an incredible tool--congrats. Would you mind explaining more about how it works behind the scenes?

rexreed 16y ago

Yes - this is exactly what we need. I was advisor to a company called TimZon (now snapengage.com) that originally had this idea (and even had threaded discussion), but they pivoted in an entirely different direction. I still need this. Signed up, ready to go when you are!

jhrobert 16y ago

Why limit that to "support"? I often would be happy to share a window with a friend.

nichol4s 16y ago
We are not limiting ourselves to a specific semantic meaning of support. In a sense you are supporting your friend or he you.