This is a rant.
Originally, it should have been a short review of Tidepool, Immuexa’s new photo organizing and sharing app. Timothy Falconer wants us to spread the word, and of course I’m curious about the first semwebby application that is pitched to the proverbial computer user’s mom.
But the review didn’t happen. Why?
Well, here are some hints to the Immuexa people.
- Giving me a login form where I expected a download page is kind of rude.
- Apparently I have to sign up for some kind of service, or you won’t let me download your software. Why?
- What kind of service is this anyway? Shouldn’t you tell me before asking for personal information?
- I will not give you any kind of personal info just to be able to download a 30-day trail of your software.
- There’s a remote possibility that I might give you my email address in exchange for a restricted demo download, but only if I had heard a lot of good things about your software. So far, I have heard nothing about your software.
- Also, I have to sign up before being able to rant on your support forum.
- Also, I’d appreciate some info about which platforms your software runs on. Will it work on my Mac? (Yes, I know it does. But my proverbial mom doesn’t.)
I feel bad about slamming Immuexa like this. But I don’t understand why companies still let people jump through so many confusing hoops before letting them have a look at their products.
Merlin Mann has more hints on how to be a product he loves (and reviews). This should be basic stuff!
To end this post on a positive note, here’s a link to the nice Flash demo of Tidepool. Yes, it really makes me want to play with the product.
Update: Jon Kern from Immuexa has kindly answered in the comments. My followup.
that’s okay!
we thought a lot about the login part… i am grateful for your feedback. guess we should explain what it is for! Supported platforms — guess we left it out. features, etc., are available without logging in, as are public photos and (RDF) tags.
you have to login so that we can create an account for you, disk space, and a special, unique URL for all your sematic web RDFs!
Again, thanks for the bad press! what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger ;=)
Responses to the 43 Folders “test:”
1. Your product runs on OS X
Yup. Tidepool and Storymill are fully Java based apps. Runs on most platforms, tested on Mac, Windows. Using Resin app server & MySQL on the back-end.
2. Your product does something cool and unique
Unique tagging feature for organizing photos in a semantic way. No more ridiculous hierarchies, naming conventions, or photos stuffed under the bed collecting dust.
3. Your product works.
It has been through a few beta cycles, is tested, and is released. Might be a lurking t-rex, but no beach balls.
4. Your pay product is reasonably priced.
For $44, you get Tidepool and all upgrades for life. After 6 months, Storymill costs $1 per month (server storage, etc). You get to have lots of fun with your digital photos and splat them on the web for friends and even relatives to enjoy or cringe about.
5. Your product is easy to install and use (and then stop using).
Yes, it is easy to install. If you are a techy, you can even do the WebStart (though i am underwhelmed by JWS robustness).
Stop? Yup. Clean uninstall. Plus, unlike many photo programs, we don’t leave a trail of breadcrumbs. We *never* alter your photo files.
DMG? Well, I didn’t try it, but our stand-alone installation in a separate folder should make it easy to successfully use DMG. Let me know if you try it!
6. The demo of your pay product is uncrippled.
We provide a 30 day trial, full up.
The only data we leave behind are the small RDF tag files you may have created. If you do not sign up after a while, we will probably purge your *uploaded* photos and tags from our server.
7. Your pay product demo contains no nags or bear traps during normal usage.
In demo mode, here is a message that tries to give tips on features. It starts with “Be sure to do the tutorial…” and ends with
“Please purchase, our families are wondering how we could be so dedicated to develop an application — yet you don’t feel compelled to buy.”
8. You allow anonymous downloads
A bit sticky here… We require a unique URL for our semantic web tags (RDF). Tidepool needs to know who its users are and what their unique URL is, so it can make your tags unique. This is required for semantic web reasons as part of our account activation.
9. Your free product is open source or GPL’d.
Well, if it were free, we’d open source it. We do have long-range plans to open up an “agent” API and allow fun plug-ins. But, I think we need to see a bit more traction first, eh?
10. There’s a freebie in it for Daddy.
That is easy to do. If you like it and want it, it’s yours! Ping us that you signed up and we’ll tweak the software to think you paid ;=)
Correction:
This should have been $52/year ($1/week):