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Show HN: Linkwok – Picking up where search engines left off

22 pointsby Superbloopover 10 years ago

20 comments

notduncansmithover 10 years ago
Okay, I think I&#x27;ve figured it out. This app is a mind-mapping tool, where nodes usually represent web content (but can be text, files, charts, or tables). It also has a somewhat convenient search interface built in which mirrors results from a few popular search engines.<p>The use-case that sounds most reasonable to me is trying to do some heavy learning on a new topic, and using this tool to organize your findings. They cite some other use cases (such as buying a new car or phone, or planning a trip) but those seem best-served by other tools. I was actually researching cars to buy this weekend, and a simple spreadsheet worked very well (columns were features I wanted&#x2F;needed, rows were potential candidates). There are also many trip-planning apps that I think would serve that need far better than a general-purpose app like this.<p>Ultimately, it looks like a lot of time was invested into this app - that said, I can&#x27;t see it being terribly useful (at least to me). It&#x27;s too complex to be helpful for the 90% of tasks that can completed with a piece of paper, or a notes&#x2F;spreadsheet app, and it&#x27;s too general to offer a better solution than niche products for the other 10%. If I had invested in this company, I&#x27;d be encouraging them to pivot into either a) a Google Keep&#x2F;Pocket competitor, or b) something much more minimal that actually enhances the search engine experience (as the title implies).<p>P.S. You&#x27;re not impressing anyone with your grid-style website. It&#x27;s not a technical feat, nor does it improve the usability of the site - quite the contrary. Even if it were somehow easier&#x2F;faster to use than scrolling (hint: it&#x27;s not), the cost of switching to some new navigation paradigm is far more than what new users will be willing to invest for some new app. You have about 3 seconds to get my attention, don&#x27;t waste it teaching me how to get around your website. Even if users are willing to put up with it out of curiosity, it&#x27;ll make the pre-app experience worse, and that determines what lens they&#x27;ll view the app itself through: &quot;Cool, let&#x27;s see what this does for me&quot; vs &quot;What other ways has this company devised to annoy me?&quot; This may sound harsh, but I&#x27;d like to see you guys get some kind of reward for your hard work and your current website is actively preventing that from happening.
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gone35over 10 years ago
<i>Use your arrows.</i><p>B-but I&#x27;m on an iPad. Swiping maybe? Nope. Nothing happens. Just broken layout pieces strewn about, plus some inscrutable green bar (seemingly) loading something.<p>And then, just when it looks like <i>something</i> is about to happen... the page crashes Safari. Repeatedly.<p>I wish I could comment on the concept itself, but the UI keeps stubbornly getting in the way.
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cr3ativeover 10 years ago
Please don&#x27;t over-ride my scroll mechanism and force me to use keys to mystery-navigate - there&#x27;s no indication that there are panels to scroll to, other than mashing the keyboard and trying.<p>If you need a pop-up alert to explain to users how to use your UX, it is probably not as good as traditional UX like a nice scroll page.
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ninjakeyboardover 10 years ago
I went there and immediately received a very nice looking 500 error
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slunkover 10 years ago
Although I agree with others that the video leaves a bit to be desired, I thought I understood the point well enough and was looking forward to trying it out... Then I attempted to do just that and was instantly greeted with &quot;INTERNAL ERROR<p>AN INTERNAL ERROR WAS ENCOUNTERED.&quot; :&#x2F;
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jclosover 10 years ago
I don&#x27;t know how much success you will have as a general search tool but I can tell you that with some tweaks here and there it would be an amazing tool for people to help with mapping a literature review, by searching google scholar&#x2F;ACM&#x2F;SpringerLink&#x2F;IEEE&#x2F;etc., drag&amp;dropping results (which are papers or web pages) and adding some &quot;glue&quot; (edges between papers, &quot;clusters of documents&quot;, timelines based on some metadata...).
bshimminover 10 years ago
As the other commenters have said, this was incomprehensible to me (I didn&#x27;t watch the video, unlike the others, but you should be prepared for people not watching introductory videos - I for one hardly ever do).<p>Does this make more sense in other cultures? I know a wok is a round-bottomed cooking pan - I don&#x27;t know what that has to do with links or search though. There also seemed sporadically to be some anime characters showing up - should this have been a clue to something?<p>This could be something incredible, I just have no idea what.
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willuover 10 years ago
My recommendation would be to make your video more instructional in nature rather than &quot;edgy&quot;. Go through some real examples. I watched the video and ran a couple of searches and had no idea what the value was or what I was supposed to be using your product for. Sharing search results? Annotating them? Why? I searched for &quot;best falafel&quot; and got a popup telling me I had 3 search maps (what are those?) about things like cheap cars and startups in India.
iamshsover 10 years ago
I somehow managed to navigate your atrociously laid out grid navigation. I read the blog titled &quot;The Maze of many things&quot;, and seems like you pitched it to some VCs and were criticized. You resolved to make your pitch stronger, and after 4 months you still haven&#x27;t managed to do it, because I did not get what is the benefit, and how I can achieve the said benefit. Please rework your processes.
scorpwarp23over 10 years ago
Hi Guys. I&#x27;m with Team Linkwok. We regret the issue that you guys faced. It was because of our MongoDB service provider. Our oplog instance was offline. We have subsequently added a fix for this. The internal server error should not appear anymore. Thanks for your patience. As for the feedback you&#x27;ll have given us, many thanks, we shall take your points into consideration.
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borplkover 10 years ago
Just wow. Did you have a competition on how you could tell as little as possible with a video? because that video just won that competition.
Superbloopover 10 years ago
To (most) of the comments regarding not knowing what to do, Linkwok is all about DRAGGING AND DROPPING search results, annotations, files from your computer and more to the canvas on the right side.<p>It has a few similarities to mindmaps, but where those force you to concentrate on creating, with Linkwok, you get to concentrate on organising.
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wiradikusumaover 10 years ago
I watched the video, still dont understand. Clicked Get Started, and greeted with Internal Error :(
wzyover 10 years ago
Like everybody else... I made a search, got results, didn&#x27;t know what to do, then left.<p>I guess I can&#x27;t figure out where(what?) google or bing is leaving off when I search for something
bluewolfover 10 years ago
This looks like a new kind of research tool, which is great. I love this kind of stuff. Just show step-by-step how to use it and provide several examples.
wodenokotoover 10 years ago
I watched the video and clicked get started, looked at the screen and left. I still don&#x27;t know what I should do or why.
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Mithalduover 10 years ago
The site&#x27;s completely broken in Opera 12.
st8icover 10 years ago
incomprehensible. Video failed to explain what the thing actually does. Really struggling to see the value.
drdoooomover 10 years ago
i&#x27;m not too sure what service it&#x27;s suppose to provide.
animexover 10 years ago
Startup down.