[HN Gopher] Show HN: A tool to help you remember shit you are in... ___________________________________________________________________ Show HN: A tool to help you remember shit you are interested in I've been working on Recall for a while now, it had some initial traction in the beginning which has since died down now. I am facing the inevitable question of whether to continue with the project. I just put out a new release and it would be helpful to get advice from the community on what they think of the idea and my implementation. Author : paulrchds Score : 143 points Date : 2022-11-01 19:11 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.recall-app.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.recall-app.com) | jrussino wrote: | I'm certainly in the target audience for this. Nice work! | | Here's a feature request: make it easy for me to import/dump | stuff from the other methods that I've tried to use to store | things I'm interested in. For example: HN favorites, Reddit saved | posts, Firefox bookmarks, Instapaper bookmarks, ios notes | paulrchds wrote: | Awesome, let me know if you would do a user interview? | | Thanks for the feature request. I have import browser bookmarks | in my backlog. I think I can prioritise it higher. If you share | your email I can mail you when its ready. | happytiger wrote: | I love the concept but I'd be reticent to invest so much in a | platform that has the possibilities that if it hits it's likely | to go away from acquisition and if it doesn't is likely to go | away from lack of financial incentive. | | We're storing some valuable stuff here. I wouldn't want to put | the kind of time I put into research and then find one day it's | gone (like Reader, Delicious, etc.) | | What are the plans in those instances? | paulrchds wrote: | I have and FAQ point that addresses this here. Quoting from the | site: | | What happens if Recall disappears one day? | | It is understandable that there is some hesitation to invest | your time into adding your information to a new application and | the obvious fear that it may just disappear one day. I want to | reassure you that we are fully committed to Recall for the long | term. But in the unlikely and unfortunate case that Recall | doesn't work out we will ensure that there is more than enough | time for users to export their data so that it can be moved to | another application. We would also open-source the project to | allow users to host Recall themselves. | paulrchds wrote: | If it were easy to export your data to markdown or sync with | other apps, would that ease your concerns? | Sakos wrote: | Other concerned potential user here. Absolutely, yes. | Particularly exporting markdown. | Operyl wrote: | The ability to schedule backups of my data, perhaps emailed | or something I can hit periodically myself (API?) would make | me hop on and pay now. Until then, I can't justify even | investing time to try right now. | ankaAr wrote: | Nice stuff. | | I want a browser extension to "send to recall" | | It could save me to have 100 tabs saved by groups of interest... | paulrchds wrote: | Its on the roadmap :) https://www.recall.wiki/roadmap | aliqot wrote: | As someone who lives and dies based on written notes, thank you. | Sincerely. | heavytea21475 wrote: | This seems really well built. It's fast and responsive. It looks | nice. But I just don't understand what I would use it for. | | It seems like the idea is to build a database of people, movies, | Wikipedia articles and such and then be able to find them via | search/links. But I'm not at all sold on why I need this in my | life. | | Is there a way to make the value clearer? Am I just not in the | target audience? Who is going to see this and say "TAKE MY MONEY" | and why? | | I'm thinking of products that were instant sign-ups for me... | | Spotify: For one price, listen to all the music on Earth whenever | you want. TAKE MY MONEY! | | Gmail: Fast email with 2 GB storage. This was such an instant | sign-up they had to make an invite system to slow people getting | access. | | Maybe could add something like Lichess: Chess training and games, | with modern UX, offered open source as a public good. I mean, if | you're at all interested in chess, that's an instant sign-up, | right? | | Trying to say, this idea of presenting a clear value isn't | limited to big players like Spotify and Gmail, but can also be | done by smaller companies if the value presented is really clear. | | What should someone see that makes them instantly recognize they | need this in their life, because that's what I'm totally missing | here. | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: | <<This seems really well built. It's fast and responsive. It | looks nice. | | I second that. It was really the first time in a while where I | did not have to wait just to see the landing page. It is a | little sad that is not considered normal, but here we are. | cyberge99 wrote: | Perhaps it's your vantage point. I just saw this on mobile, and | if it does what I think it does, I can't wait to try it out. At | least for me personally I think this may be exactly what I need | for knowledge (interest) management. | paulrchds wrote: | It's definitely not for everyone. The idea is that you can | track things you are interested over your life, when you add | new content that is related to something you have added in the | past, it creates a link automatically resurfacing the old | content. It basically build a knowledge graph of all your | interests. Thanks for your feedback. | heavytea21475 wrote: | Is this supposed to be limited to things like people, movies, | shows, etc.? It seemed that way based on what search box | would accept. I couldn't even add a book via search. And | there was mention of articles / blogs... but there's no way | to import something like that from what I could tell, so it | would be all manual entry which seems to defeat the purpose. | JustinVx wrote: | > But I just don't understand what I would use it for. | | Isn't that clearly stated in the name of the post: It "helps | you remember shit you are interested in." | | Personally I run into interesting things all the time, and it | seems great to be able to have a place to store them so I don't | forget about them. That's clear value to me. I'm honestly a bit | puzzled how you don't see value. | | For me, I would need an app in order to start using this | though. Otherwise it's just to much of a hassle to add stuff | (which means I wouldn't do it). | paulrchds wrote: | It's a PWA at the moment so it works quite well on mobile. | But proper mobile versions will come in the future. | untech wrote: | Can you perhaps sell this as an automated/smart Obsidian? | Personal knowledge bases are all the rage now, see a recent | discussion of Obsidian 1.0. | paulrchds wrote: | For sometime I was actually considering making recall a plugin | for Obsidian. | evolve2k wrote: | I'm using obsidian and Zotero as an academic workflow for my | PhD. | | There is a huge market for knowledge tools for students and | academics, and universities, libraries and high schools often | buy these tools in bulk to be a student resource. | | I gather all my academic articles in Zotero and can cite them | into my papers from Zotero > Obsidian > Pandoc Cite | | I think your tool could be a great way to help me gather all | the media around my research. | | If you could tie into a citation workflow, into pandoc, you'd | be on a big winner. | | Look into how academics might want to go from your tool > | obsidian > pandoc > word to generated cited references from | your tool. | | https://citeproc-js.readthedocs.io/en/latest/csl- | json/markup... | evolve2k wrote: | Actually better yet, take an immersive design approach, | look into enrolling into a short degree by research, and as | the uni resources you up on 'how to do academic research', | polish your tool and pitch it to students and academics | from the inside. | | I didn't know this before but if you have an undergrad, you | can add a one year honours in research even at a different | institution or a two year masters by research. | | We'll that's how it works in Australia anyways. | turds wrote: | Turds to remember. | acuozzo wrote: | First off, I'd like to state that this is excellent work you've | done. | | With that being said, I see two issues: | | 1. The branding is unrelatable. I don't need help remembering the | things I'm interested in. Most people don't, I reckon. However, | I'd bet that most people have trouble organizing data related to | their interests. This right here is the heart of your product: | Bookmarks++. Bookmarks on anabolic/androgenic steroids. | | 2. "Media" as the default selection immediately makes me feel | like this is another Letterboxd. I know it's not. I know it's | nothing like Letterboxd at all, but that's the feeling it gives | me. | | So, yeah... the first feeling I got looking at the homepage was: | "Recall? Movie Posters? Is this Anki meets Letterboxd?" | | I know that this isn't your intention, but as we both know: the | first five seconds are crucial. It's so easy to click away. | | Good luck! I hope this helps and I hope you succeed. | paulrchds wrote: | 1. Thanks for pointing this out. I have been playing around | with different versions of the copy. I have been struggling to | get something concise that explains the idea. | | 2. I went with media as the main image as I thought it would be | the most relatable. I guess I could put the everything section | first. | deafpolygon wrote: | E2EE is my bare minimum nowadays for things like that. | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | All I want to know is, does it use Semantic Web? This is like the | perfect application for a semantic knowledge base. | (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q54837 | https://guides.library.ucla.edu/semantic-web/wikidata) | paulrchds wrote: | yeah, wikidata is one of the sources used. The browser | extension I am working on will parse the semantic markup from | the page too. | p2hari wrote: | Could not find an email on the profile. I have a potential idea | which maybe we can discuss. Would help you to answer some of the | questions/concerns mentioned in the comments. | yawnxyz wrote: | his email is on the bottom left corner of the home page | paulrchds wrote: | paul@recall.wiki | nonethewiser wrote: | Not using Recall Graph built on Arrango DB by chance, are you? | https://github.com/RecallGraph | paulrchds wrote: | Nope, but that looks cool. | HellsMaddy wrote: | This is super cool. I just tried it out by looking into a few | health/medical topics. So far, I've only tried the "internal" | experience of "create note with search", "expanding" and clicking | on links - I haven't tried saving links from my normal web | browsing. It's a nice alternative to using Wikipedia for quickly | researching a topic, the benefit being that it gives me bullet | points so I'm not overloaded with information. | | I don't see myself replacing my Obsidian notes with this any time | soon, but it could serve the niche of the first pass of research | - a quick way to collect information, where afterwards I'd | consolidate my findings into more permanent notes in Obsidian. | | What would make this really useful is more data sources. As far | as I can tell, Recall's "create note with search" only uses | Wikipedia right now. It would be awesome to be able to compile | information from multiple sources into one note. For example, I | was just looking into anemia. It would be cool if, in addition to | Wikipedia, I could pull in some information from WebMD, Mayo | Clinic, or Harvard Health, too. A more fine-grained way to pick | and choose what information I want to add would also be useful. | | Nice project, I'll keep an eye on it! Also, good job with the | mobile UX, it's pretty good! | Breefield wrote: | I'd like a feature that reminds me of a particular piece of | information at a logarithmic cadence so I can commit it to memory | better by being reminded a few times within a few weeks/months, | but then a nudge 6 months down the line, etc. | [deleted] | [deleted] | unit2044 wrote: | _HMCB_ wrote: | If data is stored locally, why would FAQs state that once it | becomes non-Freemium, they won't lock you out of your notes. | Shouldn't that be a given? | blueyes wrote: | Really interesting. For me, this solves some of the data ingest | and manual update problem of creating a "second mind". | iLoveOncall wrote: | It's cool that it's offline-first, but make an offline-only | version and I'll use it. Or a "bring your own DB" version. I'd | even pay a one-time fee for it. | | I'm not giving my data to some random small startup. | mikesabat wrote: | My take on this idea (take it or leave it) was a bookmark app for | real life. Use cases: Pass a cool looking restaurant, bookmark | it. Hear about a movie, book or new series, bookmark it. Concert | or event coming to town, bookmark it. | | Functionality to build on top of the core concept Reminders, | obviously Tools to plan & schedule with friends | | Business model: Sell ads or coupons to the bookmarked locations. | Unfortunately this model sucks pre-scale, but it could be started | locally if that helps. | | The idea could definitely be gamified, if people still do that | and if the planning with friends feature works there is a viral | aspect to the idea. | paulrchds wrote: | Thanks for sharing, its a useful idea for me to think about. | torial wrote: | One thought is if you could work on marketing / targeted theme | for people with memory issues (like from age, or illness). So | perhaps explore if you can sell it as a tool to assist those with | medical needs for it. | skipants wrote: | This looks cool. As someone who just keeps this info as tabs in | their phone browser that I may stumble upon randomly in the | future it really speaks to me. | | One issue I have with data dumps like this is keeping them from | getting bloated. Say I use this a lot and have gathered 10,000 | entries over two years -- how can I be sure that 1 entry I want | to recall isn't lost in the sea of the other 9,999? | paulrchds wrote: | Thats where the bi-directional links come in. When you add | something new that is somehow related to something you have | added in the past, recall will automatically create a link for | you helping you resurface old knowledge when it is most | relevant. | bluedemon wrote: | This kind of reminds me of Collections that is in MS Edge. | civilized wrote: | Beyond the tool itself, I like what this tool encourages: | deliberate, conscious control of how we recall and explore our | interests. Not some algorithm hoovering up whatever our lizard | brains drove us to do at any given moment and offering us more of | that so we spend as much time on the app as possible. Just a | faithful servant helping us remember what we want to learn and do | and be. | | Put another way: Twitter wants you to spend as much time on | Twitter as possible. If Twitter can interest you in fake | controversies where people get mad about stuff that isn't true or | makes no sense, Twitter will happily do that. But you're not | gonna put "dig into more fake Twitter controversies" in your | recall app. It's there to remind you of what you _truly_ want, | not just the things you can be tempted into wasting your life on. | | I'd rather pay for an app that's going to make me better than get | a free app that's going to make me worse. | spking wrote: | I've been using mymind.com (paid), but I like the automatic | linking/resurfacing feature of this app. | paulrchds wrote: | Yeah I think the automatic bi-directional linking is the | biggest value add at the moment. | tkk23 wrote: | That's a beautiful branding. The UX seems to be very intuitive. I | would love to try it without registration. Since you store the | data in the browser, have you considered offering a fully offline | version that doesn't need registration for users to get hooked? I | would like to postpone syncing until the data becomes valuable. | | To me, it would also be important that the data is stored in an | encrypted form on the server and that the key remains in the | browser and has to be stored by me. | | Personally, I would like to have the option to discover people | who work on similar notes, think travel app [1] for mental | journeys. It would also be nice to have some social features like | voting on links or sharing notes or sets of notes so that others | can annotate them. Bonus points if those social features use an | open protocol so that users from other note taking apps can join. | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33344734 | paulrchds wrote: | I have been planning on allowing users to start using the tool | without signing up and the data would just stay in the browser. | | Unfortunately I would have to redo my syncing if the content on | the server was encrypted which I don't plan to do anytime soon. | | The social idea is great. | sigmonsays wrote: | text files in a directory in git. You dont need much more! | rongopo wrote: | Surely people find I useful, as many useful things get lost. | | To me, when something gets lost I accept it gladly, because IMHO | the thermodynamics of my effort vs my available time make it | irrelevant. | all2 wrote: | From the roadmap: | | > Mobile apps in the Play and App stores. | | > News subscriptions - this feature will allow you to subscribe | to news events relating to a note helping you stay informed on | things you are interested in. | | > Add more built-in data sources. | | > Improved categorization. | | > Spaced repetition. | | > News/article feed based on user interests. | | Charge 5 bucks a month for those features and see if people bite. | That's a lot of stuff that most apps don't have. Especially the | subscriptions and the spaced repetition functionalities. | | If people pay for your work, then you've got all the signal you | need to keep going. | paulrchds wrote: | Yeah you are right. Charging is the best way to tell if your | product is really providing value to users. I have been putting | it off always wanting to add more features first. | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | The best products have one feature that people go crazy for | and tell all their friends about. Find that feature, make it | great, charge for it. | all2 wrote: | The topical subscription is pretty cool. I'm sure I could | hack together some kludge (like Google News filters or | something), but if this app's implementation is easy, I'd | pay for that. | nonethewiser wrote: | This seems like a great idea. | billbrown wrote: | I have a need for this and basically use Pinboard and Notational | Velocity to satisfy it. For me to switch to your product, which | looks nice and well conceived by the way, I would have to see the | time investment and value as worthwhile. | | Maybe it's having been burned too often by services that I pay | for but still fail, but I'd only make the effort if it was | independent of your continued operation as a business. If it were | all local to my computer or phone and relied on a cloud storage | service like iCloud or Dropbox, then I'd give it a whirl. | | Sorry, but that's a possible hurdle you're facing if my | hesitation is common. | paulrchds wrote: | If you could export all your data to markdown files would that | ease your hesitation? | billbrown wrote: | I appreciate any kind of export into plaintext, yes. | paxys wrote: | This is cool, but my browser already has a bookmarks manager | which does pretty much the same thing. I'm not going to sign up | for a new service for that functionality. | ohbleek wrote: | This could solve a problem I've been stuck on for a long time. I | read so many interesting things and I make useful connections | between topics and concepts, but I don't revisit it later and | forget much of what I have learned. I've experimented with | journaling about all of the things I've learned and read in a day | but it ends up being a chore. Maybe this would prove useful to | help me literally "recall" what I've learned. | paulrchds wrote: | Hope it can solve your problem. Please send me feedback on your | experience. | keithah wrote: | This seems very similar to Sofa which I've been using for years: | https://www.sofahq.com | paulrchds wrote: | Ah this sofa looks cool. Hadn't seen it before. Recall is | similar but for all your content, not just media. | causality0 wrote: | Thought about pivoting slightly to the left and adding a "content | alert" feature? I could keep track of my interests in a hundred | different ways, but what I can't do is _keep up_ with them | without being inundated with irrelevant information. For example, | I want an alert when the bands I like release a new album. Not | when they go on tour, not when they have a guest drummer, not any | of the hundreds of bullshit "fan engagement" emails or social | media alerts. Just content. Same for authors, directors, artists, | etc. You build _that_ system and I 'd pay a subscription to use | it. | paulrchds wrote: | Yeah, this was a feature I am working on. It shows it on the | site. Have a look by "Stay informed - Subscribe to news about | the specific things that interest you always keeping you in the | know." | causality0 wrote: | It sounds like that's not filtering out the non-content, | though. If I just wanted news about my interests I'd use a | Google alert. | zython wrote: | I'll save this for later. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-01 23:00 UTC)