4 ms·

This is really quite cool. A few thoughts: - When I click "claim your identity," it should take me to the create an account tab. At this stage, why not make

by jbr 17y ago

This is really quite cool. A few thoughts: - When I click "claim your identity," it should take me to the create an account tab. At this stage, why not make that the default tab? - I'm no designer, but the tan / pink / fleshtone color isn't working for me. If it's dear to you, ignore me. I just redid my site's color scheme because people told me it looked like a developer's hobby project, not a business tool. I used http://kuler.adobe.com/ http://kuler.adobe.com/ and was pretty happy with results. On a similar note, anti-alias your logo and save as a png (with a background if you don't want to alienate the ie6 crowd). - The killer use of this, IMHO, would be the ability to integrate your technology into an already existing block of text hosted elsewhere just by dropping a line of js into the page (like http://www.apture.com/ http://www.apture.com/). I know that's not a tiny feature, but I imagine a lot of bloggers would love to offer this sort of "live editing feedback" on their blogs (and might be a paying audience). Either that, or provide tools to "publish version to blog" and have integrations for popular blog software. - More on screen help. This is really hard, particularly for an interface that requires users change their behavior. We're so used to looking at text and assuming it's static that we need some tooltips or something that says "here's how to use _this_ text." Maybe something that can be dismissed once a user has seen it (that's what we're doing), but don't rely on your document creator to add directions on how to use revizr in the document directions. They're already advocating for you by using your tool; don't make their job any harder by making them explain it to people they want to use it with. - "Tag the new version" -- tags are cool and useful and keep things organized, but why do I get prompted to tag my version when I advance to a version? I'm trying to do one thing and the software is asking me to do another. Overall, it's a really neat app; a mix of google docs, wiki, and document publishing, with better change documentation and integration control tools. -- Hope that helps, and good luck!

koops 17y ago
That's very helpful, thank you. This is what I love about HN: a few minutes after posting, someone has clearly used the app more and thought about it more carefully than some of the tech bloggers who actually covered us.
sunir 17y ago
"The killer use of this, IMHO, would be the ability to integrate your technology into an already existing block of text hosted elsewhere just by dropping a line of js into the page" I double vote for this approach, for selfish reasons (i.e. I might be a customer one day). The reasons are clear: Getting to end users directly is expensive. It would be 'easier' to sell Revizr to vertical applications as a plugin and let them spend all that money. However, that being said and being less selfish, I wonder if the world is ready yet to build web apps out of other web apps. I don't think so yet. Scribd is a good comparison. They went ad-supported because that is probably the only model right now the market will understand, even if it is not viable. If the tables were turned and I was you, I would really want to charge directly for my costs like a proper subscription SaaS service. Here's a sobering take on Scribd's model: http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2008/02/19/scribd-cool-feature-or-actual-business/ http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2008/02/19/scribd-cool-feat... Other comparisons are web-to-print (e.g. postalmethods.com) and web-to-fax (myfax.com) services, but people are more willing to pay for those because there are obvious hard costs for them. I believe that your future is all about being a 'feature' rather than a 'product'. I suppose I'm saying you ought to explore this model alongside an alternate revenue stream that will keep you afloat.
- diN0bot 17y ago
  http://www.revizr.com/editions http://www.revizr.com/editions you're competing with google apps... plus corporate enterprise software (assumed to exist, though at my last job the tech writers just passed around word docs)
- gojomo 17y ago
  I triple vote for a drop-in, because the ability to get corrections from your audience is a unique strength of online writing, but having those nitpicky corrections inside substantive comment threads is a distraction. So I like the idea of not just cool markup but a separate, distinct 'copyedit/corrections space' that captures this useful-to-many but annoying-to-others feedback.
  - PebblesRox 17y ago
    I quadruple vote because whenever I see a typo, I want to fix it.
diN0bot 17y ago
> "The killer use of this, IMHO, would be the ability to integrate your technology into an already existing block of text hosted elsewhere just by dropping a line of js into the page (like http://www.apture.com/ http://www.apture.com/)." That would be neat. Certainly possible via a greasemonkey script or ff add-on. I've seen a few that do this kind of thing, either to share with other viewers (eg, http://shiftspace.org http://shiftspace.org) or to grab text for personal notes or research applications. Speaking of blog feedback, applying this kind of markup to "inlined blog comments" would be neat. There are js widgets and wordpress add-ons that provide simple inlining/annotation of comments on blog articles. --- Sometimes I'd like to be able to see what other editors have done. Is this possible? I wouldn't want to feel that we're all correcting the same spelling mistakes. Another neat feature: automatic partitioning of file for different editors. Say I'm writing a long article or a set of articles. Automatically send different portions to different users. More efficient. --- Do you use version control under this? This feels to me like applying open source review process to text.
- koops 17y ago
  It is possible to see what other editors have done--it's a checkbox that the document owner sets. There's version control here, but not git/svn.
  - diN0bot 17y ago
    word :-) did you roll your own repo? i can see advantages to matching up with existing technology for portability and outsourcing of features... or did you need fine grained control of changes? i guess each change could be a git commit, with your tables annotating the commit id.
- shimon 17y ago
  You could do this with RSS. Let me add an RSS feed to my account, and consider each new item in the feed to be a new revizr document owned by me. Consider changes to the item text to be authoritative changes, i.e. versions approved by me. Let me put a link in or around my posts that takes anonymous readers to revizr.com/from_blog/my_username/blog_guid where they can make edits. This would make it a pretty viable "suggest improvements" tool for bloggers, very easy to integrate with any site that has a full text RSS feed.
erlanger 17y ago
> save as a png (with a background if you don't want to alienate the ie6 crowd). You could also use pngfix, or super sleight, or apply the CSS hack manually to that one element.

by jbr 17y ago

koops 17y ago

That's very helpful, thank you. This is what I love about HN: a few minutes after posting, someone has clearly used the app more and thought about it more carefully than some of the tech bloggers who actually covered us.

sunir 17y ago

"The killer use of this, IMHO, would be the ability to integrate your technology into an already existing block of text hosted elsewhere just by dropping a line of js into the page" I double vote for this approach, for selfish reasons (i.e. I might be a customer one day). The reasons are clear: Getting to end users directly is expensive. It would be 'easier' to sell Revizr to vertical applications as a plugin and let them spend all that money. However, that being said and being less selfish, I wonder if the world is ready yet to build web apps out of other web apps. I don't think so yet. Scribd is a good comparison. They went ad-supported because that is probably the only model right now the market will understand, even if it is not viable. If the tables were turned and I was you, I would really want to charge directly for my costs like a proper subscription SaaS service. Here's a sobering take on Scribd's model: http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2008/02/19/scribd-cool-feature-or-actual-business/ http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2008/02/19/scribd-cool-feat... Other comparisons are web-to-print (e.g. postalmethods.com) and web-to-fax (myfax.com) services, but people are more willing to pay for those because there are obvious hard costs for them. I believe that your future is all about being a 'feature' rather than a 'product'. I suppose I'm saying you ought to explore this model alongside an alternate revenue stream that will keep you afloat.

diN0bot 17y ago
http://www.revizr.com/editions http://www.revizr.com/editions you're competing with google apps... plus corporate enterprise software (assumed to exist, though at my last job the tech writers just passed around word docs)
gojomo 17y ago
I triple vote for a drop-in, because the ability to get corrections from your audience is a unique strength of online writing, but having those nitpicky corrections inside substantive comment threads is a distraction. So I like the idea of not just cool markup but a separate, distinct 'copyedit/corrections space' that captures this useful-to-many but annoying-to-others feedback.
- PebblesRox 17y ago
  I quadruple vote because whenever I see a typo, I want to fix it.

diN0bot 17y ago

> "The killer use of this, IMHO, would be the ability to integrate your technology into an already existing block of text hosted elsewhere just by dropping a line of js into the page (like http://www.apture.com/ http://www.apture.com/)." That would be neat. Certainly possible via a greasemonkey script or ff add-on. I've seen a few that do this kind of thing, either to share with other viewers (eg, http://shiftspace.org http://shiftspace.org) or to grab text for personal notes or research applications. Speaking of blog feedback, applying this kind of markup to "inlined blog comments" would be neat. There are js widgets and wordpress add-ons that provide simple inlining/annotation of comments on blog articles. --- Sometimes I'd like to be able to see what other editors have done. Is this possible? I wouldn't want to feel that we're all correcting the same spelling mistakes. Another neat feature: automatic partitioning of file for different editors. Say I'm writing a long article or a set of articles. Automatically send different portions to different users. More efficient. --- Do you use version control under this? This feels to me like applying open source review process to text.

koops 17y ago
It is possible to see what other editors have done--it's a checkbox that the document owner sets. There's version control here, but not git/svn.
- diN0bot 17y ago
  word :-) did you roll your own repo? i can see advantages to matching up with existing technology for portability and outsourcing of features... or did you need fine grained control of changes? i guess each change could be a git commit, with your tables annotating the commit id.
shimon 17y ago
You could do this with RSS. Let me add an RSS feed to my account, and consider each new item in the feed to be a new revizr document owned by me. Consider changes to the item text to be authoritative changes, i.e. versions approved by me. Let me put a link in or around my posts that takes anonymous readers to revizr.com/from_blog/my_username/blog_guid where they can make edits. This would make it a pretty viable "suggest improvements" tool for bloggers, very easy to integrate with any site that has a full text RSS feed.

erlanger 17y ago

> save as a png (with a background if you don't want to alienate the ie6 crowd). You could also use pngfix, or super sleight, or apply the CSS hack manually to that one element.