Rate/Review my startup - Zendo

Not to sound like an asshole, but how is this different from inputting the url into the address bar?<p>On your blog you try and compare Zendo to Quicksilver. The difference is, Quicksilver essentially introduced an address bar to your computer. You're reintroducing the address bar for the internet. And if it's a tool I'm already using, I'll just have it bookmarked or stored in my history so that, say in FF3, I can type in 'Hack...' and 'Hacker News: news.ycombinator.com' will come up.<p>As far as design, stick a tag line in there explaining what Zendo does.<p>Perhaps there's a greater purpose that I'm not seeing, and if so, let me know.<p>Congrats, though.

Thanks for the input guys. I can see from your comments that I should've been much more clear on describing the purpose of the feature, but I guess I was just so happy to have created something that at least works (me not being a programmer at all).<p>My long-term aim for Zendo is to intergrate a lot of features and I'll take Google Docs as an example; from Zendo you should be able to: - Open up a clear new document. - Search your existing documents, and open them. - Find a document, and export it to PDF or Scribd. - Amend a document with another line -....etc<p>Basically all of the things Quicksilver can do on a Mac, plus some of the things that a right-click on a file can do in Windows.<p>I personally see that I would have a need for these things as more and more of my stuff moves over to the cloud, but I'm really curious of what you guys think?

The splash page is impenetrable. That kind of minimalism worked for Google because you can type in anything and get results. With your page, it took me minutes to figure out what it did and anytime I typed more than one letter, I got a confusing error about merchandise. I thought it was shopping search that couldn't find any product.<p>First impressions aside, I wouldn't use Zendo myself because my Firefox "Smart Bar" has better website launcher features:<p>- Doesn't need to be customized: remembers what pages I visit automatically - When I type in something it doesn't recognize, it still takes me there - Takes me to the subpage I want, not the top level splash page.

The app and the manifesto should get together someday to discuss their differences.

I started to write "what the hell" in the field because I had no idea what the site was for. The message I got was, "Sorry mate, we don't carry that kind of merchandise here." Which added another "What the hell?" to my internal figuring-this-website-out stack. That was too many for a site which consists primarily of a single text field, so I gave up.

My name is Jonas. I'm a Swedish guy and the creator of Zendo - an Application Launcher for the web. I'd be so grateful for any creative criticism the HN community would offer.

So you're basically proposing that I can use Zendo to search a few applications without actually visiting those sites' hompeages? A tagline would make the "what you do" piece clearer.<p>Assuming I'm in the ballpark, it may be easier for me to bookmark Google and use "keywords + service" syntax a la "Web 2.0 Expo + youtube." It's perfect in those cases I want to search Google, and convenient in those fewer instances I want to search "inside" other services.<p>What's more, a Google search for "site:service + keyword" (e.g. site:youtube.com + Startup School) would do the same inner-site search as the latter even more efficiently. But it's true fewer people know that syntax...<p>Of course this is all assuming I've got your angle right. Even then it's only my take.<p>Edit: I just read your comment about not being a programmer. Assuming you made it yourself, hats off. It's a tremendous first go.

It's unclear what your startup / the site does. I took the bait and typed in a letter and got a couple options of sites to go to. But I get the feeling I'm missing something and need more explanation. Jonas, can you explain?

What problem are you trying to solve? It seems like a bookmarking system that adds at least two annoying steps to my browsing experience....and it took me awhile to figure that out.

I stared at the site for a minute. Then I tried typing in something and it said "sorry mate, we don't do that kind of advertising here". Then I left...

what's up with the "dude, you have 1 options"?

I have no idea what to do with it. Should I enter "porn" into the search field? (OK, I just tried that, didn't work).

I have no idea what this does on page launch, and the manifesto is unprofessional (a turn off).

As long as it's for fun and you don't plan on making money with this, it seems okay.

if i type in a "g", i get google, google maps, and twitter. why that last one? (i haven't used twitter, so maybe the 'g' has some meaning i'm not aware of)