5 ms·

Atomkeep - your profile everywhere. (Please, review my startup)

30 points by white 18y ago

drfenning 18y ago
I flat out can't get it to work. I can't login to two of my accounts (slide and wordpress) and of the other six I did long into, only 2 would acutally sync. I was given different reasons: image too large in twitter, some code error in Facebook; not integrated with my space; and another I can't remember. So less than 18% synced. The feature I REALLY want to see is the ablility to actually post to all of these for those of us with small businesses who need to be on all of the social networks in order to reach all of our target audience. That's the product I'm looking for.
webwide 18y ago
I'd personally cut back on all of the "tabs" in your layout. Really confusing and there's probably a better stylistic solution to what you're trying to accomplish.
- white 18y ago
  I don't think there is something in design that everyone would be happy about. We've tried several things on UI, before we came up with the tabbed layout. I'd be very thankful for your practical suggestions, though. Thanks.
white 18y ago
Atomkeep is here to solve the problem of information redundancy. Atomkeep will keep your accounts in sync on all social networks, job boards and other sites. Atomkeep http://www.atomkeep.com http://www.atomkeep.com Please, give me your feedback about my startup company, Atomkeep. You can be bad ;) or you can be good, any opinion counts for me. Constructive ones are better, however, I'd appreciate any help. Thank you!
- jotto 18y ago
  1) Will "Facebook Connect" kill this? Though we don't exactly know what FB connect is, I always assumed it allowed other sites to grab profile data from FB. Think of it like a virtual "home", allowing you to travel to other sites but you always have to go back to your home - unless you move your profile somewhere else. 2) The major social networks are fighting over who will store your personal profile information because it is the most valued data they have. Their authentication schemes (though in their infancy) usually only allow temporary access to profile data whereas you are copying it. Does this break the terms of service on Facebook, MySpace etc..?
  - green 18y ago
    As I understand, your friends and your networks is most valuable for them. Definitely, though, nobody knows the right answer. ;-) At the end, it is important that profile filled out with Atomkeep just gets "pushed" to any system you need (well, which is supported by Atomkeep). Even without importing. And it's really important that it's _user_ who owns his data. It's not that he is trying to "fetch" his friends. He just works with his data, like "Autofill" function in your browser inserts your fields. And "autofill" is something what has been here for ages and has been implemented in numerous third-party tool bars for IE/Mozilla and nobody had problems with them.
  - white 18y ago
    1. Nobody knows, but according to the current trends on sharing data, FB (and others) are more likely to stick on "sneak preview" of the data. Everyone want to be the central data storage, but not us. This is not our primary goal to store profile. Our primary goal is to make sure that all your networks stay in sync and always have the recent info. 2. We don't make data import feature as the primary value. It's good one to have, however, we don't do anything that the data owner (user) do not allow us to.
- bprater 18y ago
  What does "keep accounts in sync" mean? (Give an example of the "pain" we face doing such and add this to your homepage. Remember, it needs to "click" in 3 seconds.)
  - white 18y ago
    The pain: several accounts (LinkedIn, facebook, MySpace) and keeping their profiles updated.
  - green 18y ago
    One more "pain" - looking for job and having your resume and info the same on all those job boards.
    - morbidkk 18y ago
      JobScore.com
      - white 18y ago
        As the most of such systems, JobScore wants to own your profile. From the opposite, Atomkeep wants other networks to own your profile and it'll do the "dirty" job for you on syncing it. JobScore will never be as much effective, as just keeping your resume in Monster, Dice and Jobster simultaneously. JobScore looks like a good partner for Atomkeep, though.
      - green 18y ago
        Cannot see how can I even register my profile with them, then find job on JOBCentral or Monster and apply to this job with my "JobScore" profile... Really - I am not sure this is what can do the job...
Mystalic 18y ago
I've been looking for this type of service for a very, very long time. I went changing at least 20 profiles with new information and pictures, and that's simply annoying. Immediate notes - I love the interface and design. Register and login are prominent, things are explained well, everything is clean. - I love that I can merge my profile info from other networks to build my AtomKeep Profile. It makes it REALLY easy to use the service at the start. - Freaking amazing how much information (and images) it imports into the system. - Obviously a big challenge of AtomKeep is adding new profiles. It has some similar veins to FriendFeed. You've hit the most important services, though. Are Google Profiles, StumbleUpon, Digg, Last.fm or YouTube possibilities? I am rarely impressed with new services, but a tip of my hat to you, I am impressed with what I have seen so far. After I finish moving to my new apartment, I am going to be sure to write a post about this service. I'll update this comment later with future impressions about the service.
- Maro 18y ago
  The design of the front page is clean. I didn't get further, the site's service/features are not explained very well. The 'sync' feature means I can change my street address and you'll update all my accounts? Great, but that happens once every 5 years. So my comment is that you need to clearly explain what the point is. Screenshots maybe? Some sites use an embedded Flash demo.
  - white 18y ago
    The street address is just one of the simplest parts of modern profiles nowadays. But, yes, this is one of the features of Atomkeep. In addition to street address, you also have your education and work experience blocks for example. Originally, we planned to have screenshots or flash demo, however, we never came up with a good scenario for that. Once you are registered, all our screens are pretty simple. However, I'll raise this problem again and discuss with the team, thanks for pointing this out.
    - Maro 18y ago
      Education and work experience also change very rarely.
xlnt 18y ago
what does the name mean? the text at the top, especially the bold stuff, is too prominent and takes too much vertical space. you don't want new users to read that.
- white 18y ago
  The name is stands mostly for "keeping the bits of your personal information".
jfarmer 18y ago
If I give you my Facebook credentials do you log in to my account? That's actually a good way to get my account banned. So, right from the start, there's a trust issue. I suspect the trust issue will be bigger than you think because of your target audience. It's clear from your home page that you're targeting professionals and not, say, teenagers. That's the aesthetic, at least. But these people are going to be the most particular about what you do with their data. That is, you're targeting the data-conscious and then asking them to give you access to their data.
- white 18y ago
  Unlikely, there is no way to help you, if you're unwilling to give us at least minimum. We have a workaround for import currently in development, however, we can't do much with sync feature without being able to login.
  - jfarmer 18y ago
    Maybe you're not understanding what I'm saying. If I give you my Facebook credentials and you log on and do stuff on my behalf, that's more than enough grounds for Facebook to delete my account. This is what happened to Robert Scoble, for example. There's seems to be an asymmetry, here. All I get out of it is convenience (or am I wrong?). You, on the other hand, get to sniff around my data. On top of all that I'm the one taking all the risk. Doesn't seem like a very good value proposition to me. This section in your "privacy policy" doesn't really me eager to jump on board, either: "Atomkeep.com may use personally identifiable information collected through our website to contact Users regarding products and services offered by Atomkeep.com and its trusted affiliates. We may also use information collected through our website for research regarding the effectiveness of the website and the marketing, advertising and sales efforts of Atomkeep.com, and its trusted affiliates." Oh, ok, so you're going to get me to give you all my data and then you're going to target ads at me. Super-duper.
    - white 18y ago
      The convenience is the first step, we've got more in development. Robert Scoble, as far as I recall, was trying to download all his contacts and all their information out of Facebook. And this is a little bit different to what we're doing. From the other side, I can't disagree with you on some of your points. However, Facebook is not the only one network that we target to. Thanks.
DanielBMarkham 18y ago
I've been playing around with this idea for a while now. Excellent you guys are far enough along to have a beta! As jfarmer points out, there are some tricky issues around terms of service -- most sites do not want bots coming to harvest this data.
- white 18y ago
  Our goal is not harvest data, but to export it. That's the point. I agree that it's easier to see the intentions to "steal" data from other networks, but this is not our point.
  - jfarmer 18y ago
    Given your privacy policy (http://atomkeep.com/member/privacy http://atomkeep.com/member/privacy) that's a little hard to swallow. These two sections stick out: "Atomkeep.com may use personally identifiable information collected through our website to contact Users regarding products and services offered by Atomkeep.com and its trusted affiliates. We may also use information collected through our website for research regarding the effectiveness of the website and the marketing, advertising and sales efforts of Atomkeep.com, and its trusted affiliates." "Atomkeep.com will not disclose information about customers or users without express permission unless the release of said information is required by a trusted affiliate to facilitate action requested by the client, or is required by government subpoena. However, we may transfer information collected from Users in connection with a sale of our business."
    - white 18y ago
      We'll need to take time and write it in a more proper way. Thanks for pointing this.
Kilimanjaro 18y ago
OpenID is the first step. OpenProfile is the next in line.
- green 18y ago
  Atomkeep is not OpenProfile. Idea is to do manual job for the user, just facilitate the usual boring process. Like "Autofill" in your browser did it many years ago :-) Doing just same what user will do, but just filling the fields for him.
- white 18y ago
  They might not be very similar, but you are exactly right. OpenProfile was the first thing how I described Atomkeep to others. ;)
maxklein 18y ago
Good idea, good execution. But I think you should focus on benefits on the frontpage. If you tell me I can keep my photo albums in sync accross all my accounts, that is more interesting and more of a benefit than the somewhat abstract 'sync your profile'
- white 18y ago
  Thanks, good point. Actually, I am looking for a professional marketing person and copy-writer, who can develop good copy for the site. Any references?
binarray2000 18y ago
Good idea... but, how do you intend to make money with it?
- white 18y ago
  Thanks for asking. Currently, we target three different sources of revenue: 1. Subscriptions 2. Advertisement 3. Strategic partnership There are few more, less straight-forwarded ways, but those three should be enough for the first days.
rnesh 18y ago
Assuming you're located in Pasadena, it's nice to see another startup nearby. I really love the design and execution. Keep up the good work.
- white 18y ago
  Thanks. Drop me an email and we may arrange a meeting with a beer or coffee if you're close by ;) However, we're about to move to SF area in the mean time.
sangguine 18y ago
Great idea. What is your business model?
- white 18y ago
  Hopefully, I've answered it here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=231570 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=231570 Feel free to drop me an email to alex at atomkeep.com and I can tell you more. Thanks.

30 points by white 18y ago

I flat out can't get it to work. I can't login to two of my accounts (slide and wordpress) and of the other six I did long into, only 2 would acutally sync. I was given different reasons: image too large in twitter, some code error in Facebook; not integrated with my space; and another I can't remember. So less than 18% synced. The feature I REALLY want to see is the ablility to actually post to all of these for those of us with small businesses who need to be on all of the social networks in order to reach all of our target audience. That's the product I'm looking for.

webwide 18y ago

I'd personally cut back on all of the "tabs" in your layout. Really confusing and there's probably a better stylistic solution to what you're trying to accomplish.

white 18y ago
I don't think there is something in design that everyone would be happy about. We've tried several things on UI, before we came up with the tabbed layout. I'd be very thankful for your practical suggestions, though. Thanks.

white 18y ago

Atomkeep is here to solve the problem of information redundancy. Atomkeep will keep your accounts in sync on all social networks, job boards and other sites. Atomkeep http://www.atomkeep.com http://www.atomkeep.com Please, give me your feedback about my startup company, Atomkeep. You can be bad ;) or you can be good, any opinion counts for me. Constructive ones are better, however, I'd appreciate any help. Thank you!

jotto 18y ago
1) Will "Facebook Connect" kill this? Though we don't exactly know what FB connect is, I always assumed it allowed other sites to grab profile data from FB. Think of it like a virtual "home", allowing you to travel to other sites but you always have to go back to your home - unless you move your profile somewhere else. 2) The major social networks are fighting over who will store your personal profile information because it is the most valued data they have. Their authentication schemes (though in their infancy) usually only allow temporary access to profile data whereas you are copying it. Does this break the terms of service on Facebook, MySpace etc..?
- green 18y ago
  As I understand, your friends and your networks is most valuable for them. Definitely, though, nobody knows the right answer. ;-) At the end, it is important that profile filled out with Atomkeep just gets "pushed" to any system you need (well, which is supported by Atomkeep). Even without importing. And it's really important that it's _user_ who owns his data. It's not that he is trying to "fetch" his friends. He just works with his data, like "Autofill" function in your browser inserts your fields. And "autofill" is something what has been here for ages and has been implemented in numerous third-party tool bars for IE/Mozilla and nobody had problems with them.
- white 18y ago
  1. Nobody knows, but according to the current trends on sharing data, FB (and others) are more likely to stick on "sneak preview" of the data. Everyone want to be the central data storage, but not us. This is not our primary goal to store profile. Our primary goal is to make sure that all your networks stay in sync and always have the recent info. 2. We don't make data import feature as the primary value. It's good one to have, however, we don't do anything that the data owner (user) do not allow us to.
bprater 18y ago
What does "keep accounts in sync" mean? (Give an example of the "pain" we face doing such and add this to your homepage. Remember, it needs to "click" in 3 seconds.)
- white 18y ago
  The pain: several accounts (LinkedIn, facebook, MySpace) and keeping their profiles updated.
- green 18y ago
  One more "pain" - looking for job and having your resume and info the same on all those job boards.
  - morbidkk 18y ago
    JobScore.com
    - white 18y ago
      As the most of such systems, JobScore wants to own your profile. From the opposite, Atomkeep wants other networks to own your profile and it'll do the "dirty" job for you on syncing it. JobScore will never be as much effective, as just keeping your resume in Monster, Dice and Jobster simultaneously. JobScore looks like a good partner for Atomkeep, though.
    - green 18y ago
      Cannot see how can I even register my profile with them, then find job on JOBCentral or Monster and apply to this job with my "JobScore" profile... Really - I am not sure this is what can do the job...

Mystalic 18y ago

I've been looking for this type of service for a very, very long time. I went changing at least 20 profiles with new information and pictures, and that's simply annoying. Immediate notes - I love the interface and design. Register and login are prominent, things are explained well, everything is clean. - I love that I can merge my profile info from other networks to build my AtomKeep Profile. It makes it REALLY easy to use the service at the start. - Freaking amazing how much information (and images) it imports into the system. - Obviously a big challenge of AtomKeep is adding new profiles. It has some similar veins to FriendFeed. You've hit the most important services, though. Are Google Profiles, StumbleUpon, Digg, Last.fm or YouTube possibilities? I am rarely impressed with new services, but a tip of my hat to you, I am impressed with what I have seen so far. After I finish moving to my new apartment, I am going to be sure to write a post about this service. I'll update this comment later with future impressions about the service.

Maro 18y ago
The design of the front page is clean. I didn't get further, the site's service/features are not explained very well. The 'sync' feature means I can change my street address and you'll update all my accounts? Great, but that happens once every 5 years. So my comment is that you need to clearly explain what the point is. Screenshots maybe? Some sites use an embedded Flash demo.
- white 18y ago
  The street address is just one of the simplest parts of modern profiles nowadays. But, yes, this is one of the features of Atomkeep. In addition to street address, you also have your education and work experience blocks for example. Originally, we planned to have screenshots or flash demo, however, we never came up with a good scenario for that. Once you are registered, all our screens are pretty simple. However, I'll raise this problem again and discuss with the team, thanks for pointing this out.
  - Maro 18y ago
    Education and work experience also change very rarely.

xlnt 18y ago

what does the name mean? the text at the top, especially the bold stuff, is too prominent and takes too much vertical space. you don't want new users to read that.

white 18y ago
The name is stands mostly for "keeping the bits of your personal information".

jfarmer 18y ago

If I give you my Facebook credentials do you log in to my account? That's actually a good way to get my account banned. So, right from the start, there's a trust issue. I suspect the trust issue will be bigger than you think because of your target audience. It's clear from your home page that you're targeting professionals and not, say, teenagers. That's the aesthetic, at least. But these people are going to be the most particular about what you do with their data. That is, you're targeting the data-conscious and then asking them to give you access to their data.

white 18y ago
Unlikely, there is no way to help you, if you're unwilling to give us at least minimum. We have a workaround for import currently in development, however, we can't do much with sync feature without being able to login.
- jfarmer 18y ago
  Maybe you're not understanding what I'm saying. If I give you my Facebook credentials and you log on and do stuff on my behalf, that's more than enough grounds for Facebook to delete my account. This is what happened to Robert Scoble, for example. There's seems to be an asymmetry, here. All I get out of it is convenience (or am I wrong?). You, on the other hand, get to sniff around my data. On top of all that I'm the one taking all the risk. Doesn't seem like a very good value proposition to me. This section in your "privacy policy" doesn't really me eager to jump on board, either: "Atomkeep.com may use personally identifiable information collected through our website to contact Users regarding products and services offered by Atomkeep.com and its trusted affiliates. We may also use information collected through our website for research regarding the effectiveness of the website and the marketing, advertising and sales efforts of Atomkeep.com, and its trusted affiliates." Oh, ok, so you're going to get me to give you all my data and then you're going to target ads at me. Super-duper.
  - white 18y ago
    The convenience is the first step, we've got more in development. Robert Scoble, as far as I recall, was trying to download all his contacts and all their information out of Facebook. And this is a little bit different to what we're doing. From the other side, I can't disagree with you on some of your points. However, Facebook is not the only one network that we target to. Thanks.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

I've been playing around with this idea for a while now. Excellent you guys are far enough along to have a beta! As jfarmer points out, there are some tricky issues around terms of service -- most sites do not want bots coming to harvest this data.

white 18y ago
Our goal is not harvest data, but to export it. That's the point. I agree that it's easier to see the intentions to "steal" data from other networks, but this is not our point.
- jfarmer 18y ago
  Given your privacy policy (http://atomkeep.com/member/privacy http://atomkeep.com/member/privacy) that's a little hard to swallow. These two sections stick out: "Atomkeep.com may use personally identifiable information collected through our website to contact Users regarding products and services offered by Atomkeep.com and its trusted affiliates. We may also use information collected through our website for research regarding the effectiveness of the website and the marketing, advertising and sales efforts of Atomkeep.com, and its trusted affiliates." "Atomkeep.com will not disclose information about customers or users without express permission unless the release of said information is required by a trusted affiliate to facilitate action requested by the client, or is required by government subpoena. However, we may transfer information collected from Users in connection with a sale of our business."
  - white 18y ago
    We'll need to take time and write it in a more proper way. Thanks for pointing this.

Kilimanjaro 18y ago

OpenID is the first step. OpenProfile is the next in line.

green 18y ago
Atomkeep is not OpenProfile. Idea is to do manual job for the user, just facilitate the usual boring process. Like "Autofill" in your browser did it many years ago :-) Doing just same what user will do, but just filling the fields for him.
white 18y ago
They might not be very similar, but you are exactly right. OpenProfile was the first thing how I described Atomkeep to others. ;)

maxklein 18y ago

Good idea, good execution. But I think you should focus on benefits on the frontpage. If you tell me I can keep my photo albums in sync accross all my accounts, that is more interesting and more of a benefit than the somewhat abstract 'sync your profile'

white 18y ago
Thanks, good point. Actually, I am looking for a professional marketing person and copy-writer, who can develop good copy for the site. Any references?

binarray2000 18y ago

Good idea... but, how do you intend to make money with it?

white 18y ago
Thanks for asking. Currently, we target three different sources of revenue: 1. Subscriptions 2. Advertisement 3. Strategic partnership There are few more, less straight-forwarded ways, but those three should be enough for the first days.

rnesh 18y ago

Assuming you're located in Pasadena, it's nice to see another startup nearby. I really love the design and execution. Keep up the good work.

white 18y ago
Thanks. Drop me an email and we may arrange a meeting with a beer or coffee if you're close by ;) However, we're about to move to SF area in the mean time.

sangguine 18y ago

Great idea. What is your business model?

white 18y ago
Hopefully, I've answered it here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=231570 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=231570 Feel free to drop me an email to alex at atomkeep.com and I can tell you more. Thanks.