3 ms·

> At the least, Magic is not as easily cloneable. That just means the clones will be even worse. Interesting you say that, as this article posted as a Show HN

by bmelton 12y ago

> At the least, Magic is not as easily cloneable. That just means the clones will be even worse. Interesting you say that, as this article posted as a Show HN the other day was derided as having exposed how easy it would be to clone Magic. http://blog.sendsonar.com/2015/02/23/add-magic-to-your-business/ http://blog.sendsonar.com/2015/02/23/add-magic-to-your-busin...

minimaxir 12y ago
Processing and tying requests to a phone number isn't the scalability bottleneck; that's easy to do. The hard part and main scalability concern is coordinating user requests with other third party services, and that can't be automated in any way. (For at least the next few years, anyways). That's not something you could implement and scale at a hackathon.
- CPLX 12y ago
  One unstated question in all this discussion of Magic is how what they are doing relates to the terms of service for the third parties they are using to actually deliver. Couple that with the usual money laundering / fraud type problems you get with accepting credit cards and then placing an order with a third party service and you have a real life legitimate "hard problem" on your hands. How, exactly, do they plan to handle chargebacks and allegations of non-delivery from third party service providers that they don't have any apparent reseller agreement with?
- digikata 12y ago
  The way to scale it would be to contract it back out to an existing personal concierge service, but then it might be obvious that Magic is new marketing for old services (with a little bit of an updated tech twist). It might be valuable in that Magic might be accessing a market that basically didn't know such services existed. But I don't really see any fundamental process efficiency that Magic brings to the table for this market...
- NeutronBoy 12y ago
  That's the key point. What happens when my pizza isn't delivered? Normally I call the pizza shop. What happens when my Magic pizza isn't delivered? I text Magic and say so. The magician (may or may not be the same person dealing with my case the whole way through) calls the pizza shop, get's an update. They text me 'Oh the shop said they delivered it'. I text back, a different person gets on the phone to the shop again, etc. How is that manageable?
  - bmelton 12y ago
    Sticky message persistence is a pretty trivial problem to solve, FWIW. No idea if Magic has done so, because the magic is apparently operational opacity, which is fine, but either way, the current agent should have ready access to your conversation history.
mod 12y ago
Derided by morons, yeah. It's clearly not easy to clone Magic. It's pretty easy to clone "software to SMS message with customers via a browser", though.

by bmelton 12y ago

minimaxir 12y ago

Processing and tying requests to a phone number isn't the scalability bottleneck; that's easy to do. The hard part and main scalability concern is coordinating user requests with other third party services, and that can't be automated in any way. (For at least the next few years, anyways). That's not something you could implement and scale at a hackathon.

CPLX 12y ago
One unstated question in all this discussion of Magic is how what they are doing relates to the terms of service for the third parties they are using to actually deliver. Couple that with the usual money laundering / fraud type problems you get with accepting credit cards and then placing an order with a third party service and you have a real life legitimate "hard problem" on your hands. How, exactly, do they plan to handle chargebacks and allegations of non-delivery from third party service providers that they don't have any apparent reseller agreement with?
digikata 12y ago
The way to scale it would be to contract it back out to an existing personal concierge service, but then it might be obvious that Magic is new marketing for old services (with a little bit of an updated tech twist). It might be valuable in that Magic might be accessing a market that basically didn't know such services existed. But I don't really see any fundamental process efficiency that Magic brings to the table for this market...
NeutronBoy 12y ago
That's the key point. What happens when my pizza isn't delivered? Normally I call the pizza shop. What happens when my Magic pizza isn't delivered? I text Magic and say so. The magician (may or may not be the same person dealing with my case the whole way through) calls the pizza shop, get's an update. They text me 'Oh the shop said they delivered it'. I text back, a different person gets on the phone to the shop again, etc. How is that manageable?
- bmelton 12y ago
  Sticky message persistence is a pretty trivial problem to solve, FWIW. No idea if Magic has done so, because the magic is apparently operational opacity, which is fine, but either way, the current agent should have ready access to your conversation history.

mod 12y ago

Derided by morons, yeah. It's clearly not easy to clone Magic. It's pretty easy to clone "software to SMS message with customers via a browser", though.