8 ms·

Why we're building Loom

85 points by jansen 13y ago

bitsweet 13y ago
I've been lucky to be in the beta for the last two months or so... my wife and I use it to group the photos we individually take on our iPhones and then share them with our family back home. It just works, unlike our old setup
- ukd1 13y ago
  Yeah it's awesome for this, super quick to share via email / sms both ways.
- kmfrk 13y ago
  Could you try explaining what this actually does? I can't figure it out from the link.
  - ukd1 13y ago
    My 'what is does' for Loom is; it stores your images / videos in the cloud and syncs smartly and selectively between all your devices (mac, ipad, iphone, web). E.g. I have ~180G of photos on Loom, but I can still access them all on my SSD MacBook, even though it's only got a few G free. Selective sync FTW.
angersock 13y ago
I hate to be a jerk, but why so many first-world problem startups? Is keeping a handle on your cat pictures and food shots really that big a deal, something that keeps Joe Sixpack up at night? Here's an idea: instead of helping hipsters heap hi-res headshots of healthy hobos into the cloud, do something that matters. For example, go after the giant clusterfuck that is medical image sharing. Again, it's cloud data storage of images, it's sharing on all kinds of devices, and it's technically challenging (privacy concerns, etc.)--and it actually helps people. Why don't you take this tech and use it to help patients move their medical images between practitioners?
- haukilup 13y ago
  The first-world tends to care about first-world problems. It'd be great if everyone's ambitions and efforts were grande and noble, but that's not the world we live in. Some people need to care about the first-world problems. One reason the first-world is so comfortable is because people have put effort into solving such problems. Fact is, products and services like this will impact peoples' lives - otherwise it wouldn't be very successful in business.
- nfoz 13y ago
  Yo, that takes actual work, investment, and domain-specific knowledge.
  - angersock 13y ago
    :( I weep for our generation of engineers.
- ukd1 13y ago
  If they're doing something people want (which they are), does it matter?
- bluedino 13y ago
  First-world problems are accessible.
- skybrian 13y ago
  This isn't very imaginative. There's nothing first-world about taking photos; people everywhere like to do this. Furthermore, it's not just entertainment but a practical tool; I take photos of shopping lists and whiteboards all the time, and people everywhere will find it useful for remembering things. Uploading photos to the cloud is great way of backing up information on paper, which might be hard to preserve in challenging environments. The difference is that people in the third world will likely only have cell phones and no desktops. So I would think that making photo sharing work well on mobile (particularly with low connectivity) counts as a third-world problem. And hey, this might even be useful for medical practitioners in remote locations too.
- 13y ago
nfoz 13y ago
"Ideally, you wouldn’t have to take time to think about personal content management anymore." Sigh. Everytime someone makes things "easier" for me by removing my ability to manage my content, it ends up being way more frustrating than if I could just get the files with a file manager.
- ukd1 13y ago
  Actually, this is how it works on your local computer - projects are folders. Moving them around re-syncs it on the web / iphone (and vice-versa)
- dtw 13y ago
  sorry I'm a bit late to the party, but I'd be curious to have a discussion about this. maybe we can help :) what's your favourite way of interacting with your photos? organising them in a folder hierarchy on disk and having them mirrored/rsynced to some remote location? would you prefer a no-nonsense poweruser interface? we'll in all likelyhood open up our api soon so there could be a flurry of clients for all wants. or shoot me an email on daniel loom com
PLenz 13y ago
I thought this was about the classic adventure game and was briefly excited...
- davidjhall 13y ago
  As did I -- especially considering the shutdown of Lucasarts, I had hoped this was an article about the license being given to some other company
- myared 13y ago
  That was my first thought as well. Glad I'm not the only one.
gol706 13y ago
http://images.wikia.com/monkeyisland/images/c/c9/Cobb.jpg http://images.wikia.com/monkeyisland/images/c/c9/Cobb.jpg
isaacn 13y ago
I've switched to using DropBox for my image storage and haven't looked back. It just works on all my devices, no problem. It works with videos too. How is Loom better than that?
- pkulak 13y ago
  Or Google instant upload. If all you've ever used was Photostream, this sounds great. But not everything (anything?) is as broken as the disaster that is Photostream.
od2m 13y ago
Ask me about Loom...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
pazimzadeh 13y ago
Cool, some competition for Everpix: www.everpix.com
huhtenberg 13y ago
Does anyone else remember Lucas Art's Loom? http://store.steampowered.com/app/32340/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/32340/
- vivin 13y ago
  I do! It was a great game and I thought this was going to be some sort of remake. I was a little disappointed. Do you remember the Pirate in Monkey Island I in the Scumm Bar, whom you could ask about LOOM?
  - huhtenberg 13y ago
    Ha, good one! The only one I still remember was the button in Space Quest I escape pod that when pressed ejected you through the time-space warp into Kings Quest I and then killed you on impact :)
- doorhammer 13y ago
  I loved The Dig, Full Throttle, and Sam and Max. I'm going to dl loom on steam pretty much the second I get home. This also made me end up reading wikipedia articles on the SCUMM language/engine for half an hour, so that's fun.
  - famousactress 13y ago
    There's a pretty good bundle on Steam that has The Dig and Loom in it (and both Indiana Jones games I think). I never caught The Dig when it came out so I've been playing through it lately. Loom was an absolute favorite when I first played it (I think I was 11 or 12?). Mind-blowing. Probably internet-common knowledge but in case you're not aware of the Double Find Adventure kickstarter, it's worth knowing there's a studio working on a new point-and-click adventure for those of us who were (or still are) ravenously obsessed with the genre - http://www.doublefine.com/dfa http://www.doublefine.com/dfa
    - doorhammer 13y ago
wcfields 13y ago
I wonder how much that domain cost. Good name for a mobile / cloud app though.
- rjwebb 13y ago
  Almost as much as color.com?
orangethirty 13y ago
Loom: Hire me to write your blog posts/press releases because that one is simply not engaging.
- cbg0 13y ago
  You should have made your comment more engaging.
  - orangethirty 13y ago
    You read it and replied. Textbook definition of engagement.
    - dougk16 13y ago
      By that definition, Loom's post was engaging to you...sorry, I had to take the bait. :)
      - orangethirty 13y ago
        You do have a valid point. Though there are different types of engagements. The one we have here is a negative engagement to the message/media. What they want is to get a positive engagement from the marketplace to get them to use their app. Anyhow, Paypal me $99 and I'll show you how to do this correctly (did I just close on you? (: ). /Joke.
  - techtalsky 13y ago
    Agreed, that was not a fantastic pitch.
resu 13y ago
So, uh, dropbox? To be a bit more specific: please be more specific! How is this any different than dropbox? Are you building 'Adobe Lightroom for the cloud'?
mpobrien 13y ago
Looked at loom.com, don't get what this site does. Looked at loom.com/about and read wall of text, still not sure. I'd suggest finding a more efficient way to communicate what this site is to newcomers.
- jjsz 13y ago
  I followed your steps and after reading: "We're making it fast for you to access and manage your entire photo and video library on every device without taking up local storage space. " I came to the conclusion this is a Dropbox with extended managing tools for pictures- it wasn't that hard.
  - lttlrck 13y ago
    Dropbox uses local storage space... How hard?
    - jjsz 13y ago
      When I said hard, I wasn't talking about the implementation I was talking about figuring out what it does...
- devindotcom 13y ago
  Watched video, still not sure - it's enabling things and there's space - what do I do on Loom? Can I do this? Can I do that? One screenshot or even a conceptual one would have done all that...
- droopyEyelids 13y ago
  It helps us share the moments that matter with those close to us.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
twald 13y ago
I've been using Loom's beta version for about two months now. I have to be honest. At first I didn't completely get it and I didn't use it too much. I thought it was just a photo centric version of Dropbox. And it took me a few more weeks and a few "I wish I could show you this right now" moments until I did get it and started appreciating a few of it's features. I've been traveling a lot over the years and it is such an uplifting feeling to meet somebody again after some time, to share some "good old times" pictures and reconnect. One of the things about Loom is that it stores a low res. version of your pictures on your phone and allows you to stream full res. in no time, so I have pretty much all my pictures of the last 10 years on my phone. I've also found some really interesting use cases at work lately...
macspoofing 13y ago
>Photo management is still broken – we want to change that. Are you sure? Really really sure? There are countless photo management web, desktop and mobile apps.
- dirtyaura 13y ago
  But very few of them really solve the problem well. And as photos are quite universal form of expression, there is need for multiple solutions: a professional magazine photographer have different needs than a serious hobbyist who again has different needs than a mom photographing her kids and sharing photos to grandparents, and the mom differs from a teen who wants to express him/herself to find a new friends and get laid. After searching for a couple of years for solution my needs, I finally found Everpix, which is really really good, but it still doesn't handle sharing as well as I'd like to. There is a lot of room for innovation or just plain good execution left in the photo space.
ajaymehta 13y ago
Ignore the hate -- this is a huge problem for millions that still hasn't been solved very well. I take tons of photos on my phone, and iPhoto is a terrible, clunky piece of software to manage all of them. The end result is that, aside from the one-off shares to Instagram or Facebook, I don't do anything with my hundreds of photos at all. But I really want to. If Loom helps me do that, it's a very valuable service indeed.
inthewoods 13y ago
I agree with the premise of the startup that dealing with photos on the iPhone is broken and an issue. Having used a Windows Phone for the past 6 months, I can say that I while I hate lots of things about the OS and phones, the syncing to Skydrive is truly awesome and has taken me out of the world that is described in the Loom positioning. My understanding that the Android space already has this figured out as well. I love not having to worry about syncing/downloading/etc - it has felt very freeing. Which is to say, I think this is an interesting company, but very likely to face a serious challenge if/when Apple comes out with an update to iCloud that does the same things. Competing against stuff built into an OS is very, very hard - not impossible (see: Chrome, Firefox), but definitely hard.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
prawn 13y ago
Is it a bit like Spotify for your photos? e.g., originals in the cloud, and streamed/cached in a smaller format to your local device? That I could get behind.

85 points by jansen 13y ago

I've been lucky to be in the beta for the last two months or so... my wife and I use it to group the photos we individually take on our iPhones and then share them with our family back home. It just works, unlike our old setup

ukd1 13y ago
Yeah it's awesome for this, super quick to share via email / sms both ways.
kmfrk 13y ago
Could you try explaining what this actually does? I can't figure it out from the link.
- ukd1 13y ago
  My 'what is does' for Loom is; it stores your images / videos in the cloud and syncs smartly and selectively between all your devices (mac, ipad, iphone, web). E.g. I have ~180G of photos on Loom, but I can still access them all on my SSD MacBook, even though it's only got a few G free. Selective sync FTW.

angersock 13y ago

I hate to be a jerk, but why so many first-world problem startups? Is keeping a handle on your cat pictures and food shots really that big a deal, something that keeps Joe Sixpack up at night? Here's an idea: instead of helping hipsters heap hi-res headshots of healthy hobos into the cloud, do something that matters. For example, go after the giant clusterfuck that is medical image sharing. Again, it's cloud data storage of images, it's sharing on all kinds of devices, and it's technically challenging (privacy concerns, etc.)--and it actually helps people. Why don't you take this tech and use it to help patients move their medical images between practitioners?

haukilup 13y ago
The first-world tends to care about first-world problems. It'd be great if everyone's ambitions and efforts were grande and noble, but that's not the world we live in. Some people need to care about the first-world problems. One reason the first-world is so comfortable is because people have put effort into solving such problems. Fact is, products and services like this will impact peoples' lives - otherwise it wouldn't be very successful in business.
nfoz 13y ago
Yo, that takes actual work, investment, and domain-specific knowledge.
- angersock 13y ago
  :( I weep for our generation of engineers.
ukd1 13y ago
If they're doing something people want (which they are), does it matter?
bluedino 13y ago
First-world problems are accessible.
skybrian 13y ago
This isn't very imaginative. There's nothing first-world about taking photos; people everywhere like to do this. Furthermore, it's not just entertainment but a practical tool; I take photos of shopping lists and whiteboards all the time, and people everywhere will find it useful for remembering things. Uploading photos to the cloud is great way of backing up information on paper, which might be hard to preserve in challenging environments. The difference is that people in the third world will likely only have cell phones and no desktops. So I would think that making photo sharing work well on mobile (particularly with low connectivity) counts as a third-world problem. And hey, this might even be useful for medical practitioners in remote locations too.
13y ago

nfoz 13y ago

"Ideally, you wouldn’t have to take time to think about personal content management anymore." Sigh. Everytime someone makes things "easier" for me by removing my ability to manage my content, it ends up being way more frustrating than if I could just get the files with a file manager.

ukd1 13y ago
Actually, this is how it works on your local computer - projects are folders. Moving them around re-syncs it on the web / iphone (and vice-versa)
dtw 13y ago
sorry I'm a bit late to the party, but I'd be curious to have a discussion about this. maybe we can help :) what's your favourite way of interacting with your photos? organising them in a folder hierarchy on disk and having them mirrored/rsynced to some remote location? would you prefer a no-nonsense poweruser interface? we'll in all likelyhood open up our api soon so there could be a flurry of clients for all wants. or shoot me an email on daniel loom com

PLenz 13y ago

I thought this was about the classic adventure game and was briefly excited...

davidjhall 13y ago
As did I -- especially considering the shutdown of Lucasarts, I had hoped this was an article about the license being given to some other company
myared 13y ago
That was my first thought as well. Glad I'm not the only one.

gol706 13y ago

http://images.wikia.com/monkeyisland/images/c/c9/Cobb.jpg http://images.wikia.com/monkeyisland/images/c/c9/Cobb.jpg

isaacn 13y ago

I've switched to using DropBox for my image storage and haven't looked back. It just works on all my devices, no problem. It works with videos too. How is Loom better than that?

pkulak 13y ago
Or Google instant upload. If all you've ever used was Photostream, this sounds great. But not everything (anything?) is as broken as the disaster that is Photostream.

od2m 13y ago

Ask me about Loom...

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

pazimzadeh 13y ago

Cool, some competition for Everpix: www.everpix.com

huhtenberg 13y ago

Does anyone else remember Lucas Art's Loom? http://store.steampowered.com/app/32340/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/32340/

vivin 13y ago
I do! It was a great game and I thought this was going to be some sort of remake. I was a little disappointed. Do you remember the Pirate in Monkey Island I in the Scumm Bar, whom you could ask about LOOM?
- huhtenberg 13y ago
  Ha, good one! The only one I still remember was the button in Space Quest I escape pod that when pressed ejected you through the time-space warp into Kings Quest I and then killed you on impact :)
doorhammer 13y ago
I loved The Dig, Full Throttle, and Sam and Max. I'm going to dl loom on steam pretty much the second I get home. This also made me end up reading wikipedia articles on the SCUMM language/engine for half an hour, so that's fun.
- famousactress 13y ago
  There's a pretty good bundle on Steam that has The Dig and Loom in it (and both Indiana Jones games I think). I never caught The Dig when it came out so I've been playing through it lately. Loom was an absolute favorite when I first played it (I think I was 11 or 12?). Mind-blowing. Probably internet-common knowledge but in case you're not aware of the Double Find Adventure kickstarter, it's worth knowing there's a studio working on a new point-and-click adventure for those of us who were (or still are) ravenously obsessed with the genre - http://www.doublefine.com/dfa http://www.doublefine.com/dfa
  - doorhammer 13y ago

wcfields 13y ago

I wonder how much that domain cost. Good name for a mobile / cloud app though.

rjwebb 13y ago
Almost as much as color.com?

orangethirty 13y ago

Loom: Hire me to write your blog posts/press releases because that one is simply not engaging.

cbg0 13y ago
You should have made your comment more engaging.
- orangethirty 13y ago
  You read it and replied. Textbook definition of engagement.
  - dougk16 13y ago
    By that definition, Loom's post was engaging to you...sorry, I had to take the bait. :)
    - orangethirty 13y ago
      You do have a valid point. Though there are different types of engagements. The one we have here is a negative engagement to the message/media. What they want is to get a positive engagement from the marketplace to get them to use their app. Anyhow, Paypal me $99 and I'll show you how to do this correctly (did I just close on you? (: ). /Joke.
- techtalsky 13y ago
  Agreed, that was not a fantastic pitch.

resu 13y ago

So, uh, dropbox? To be a bit more specific: please be more specific! How is this any different than dropbox? Are you building 'Adobe Lightroom for the cloud'?

mpobrien 13y ago

Looked at loom.com, don't get what this site does. Looked at loom.com/about and read wall of text, still not sure. I'd suggest finding a more efficient way to communicate what this site is to newcomers.

jjsz 13y ago
I followed your steps and after reading: "We're making it fast for you to access and manage your entire photo and video library on every device without taking up local storage space. " I came to the conclusion this is a Dropbox with extended managing tools for pictures- it wasn't that hard.
- lttlrck 13y ago
  Dropbox uses local storage space... How hard?
  - jjsz 13y ago
    When I said hard, I wasn't talking about the implementation I was talking about figuring out what it does...
devindotcom 13y ago
Watched video, still not sure - it's enabling things and there's space - what do I do on Loom? Can I do this? Can I do that? One screenshot or even a conceptual one would have done all that...
droopyEyelids 13y ago
It helps us share the moments that matter with those close to us.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

twald 13y ago

I've been using Loom's beta version for about two months now. I have to be honest. At first I didn't completely get it and I didn't use it too much. I thought it was just a photo centric version of Dropbox. And it took me a few more weeks and a few "I wish I could show you this right now" moments until I did get it and started appreciating a few of it's features. I've been traveling a lot over the years and it is such an uplifting feeling to meet somebody again after some time, to share some "good old times" pictures and reconnect. One of the things about Loom is that it stores a low res. version of your pictures on your phone and allows you to stream full res. in no time, so I have pretty much all my pictures of the last 10 years on my phone. I've also found some really interesting use cases at work lately...

macspoofing 13y ago

>Photo management is still broken – we want to change that. Are you sure? Really really sure? There are countless photo management web, desktop and mobile apps.

dirtyaura 13y ago
But very few of them really solve the problem well. And as photos are quite universal form of expression, there is need for multiple solutions: a professional magazine photographer have different needs than a serious hobbyist who again has different needs than a mom photographing her kids and sharing photos to grandparents, and the mom differs from a teen who wants to express him/herself to find a new friends and get laid. After searching for a couple of years for solution my needs, I finally found Everpix, which is really really good, but it still doesn't handle sharing as well as I'd like to. There is a lot of room for innovation or just plain good execution left in the photo space.

ajaymehta 13y ago

Ignore the hate -- this is a huge problem for millions that still hasn't been solved very well. I take tons of photos on my phone, and iPhoto is a terrible, clunky piece of software to manage all of them. The end result is that, aside from the one-off shares to Instagram or Facebook, I don't do anything with my hundreds of photos at all. But I really want to. If Loom helps me do that, it's a very valuable service indeed.

inthewoods 13y ago

I agree with the premise of the startup that dealing with photos on the iPhone is broken and an issue. Having used a Windows Phone for the past 6 months, I can say that I while I hate lots of things about the OS and phones, the syncing to Skydrive is truly awesome and has taken me out of the world that is described in the Loom positioning. My understanding that the Android space already has this figured out as well. I love not having to worry about syncing/downloading/etc - it has felt very freeing. Which is to say, I think this is an interesting company, but very likely to face a serious challenge if/when Apple comes out with an update to iCloud that does the same things. Competing against stuff built into an OS is very, very hard - not impossible (see: Chrome, Firefox), but definitely hard.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

prawn 13y ago

Is it a bit like Spotify for your photos? e.g., originals in the cloud, and streamed/cached in a smaller format to your local device? That I could get behind.